APL for Character Displays Reference

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Alexa Presentation Language is supported on devices with character displays. Use the APLT document format to send text to these devices. The APLT document format is smaller and simpler than the APL document format supported by devices with screens.

Use the following links to access the reference material relevant to APL on character devices.

• Documents and layouts
• Data sources and data-binding
• Components
• Commands
• Skill Request and Response Reference
• Related topics

Documents and layouts

Character displays support the APLT Document format for sending content to the device. This document format supports core APL features such as resources, layouts, and conditional components.

• Document
• Inter-segment Characters
• Viewport Information
• Resources
• Layouts
• Conditional Component Inflation
• Data Types

Character displays do not support styles, vector graphics, or packages.

Data sources and data-binding

Character displays fully support data-binding:

• Data-binding Evaluation
• Data-binding Syntax

Character displays do not support transformers.

Components

Character displays support a small set of components for arranging and displaying plain text, as well as the APL-T only TimeText:

• Component
• Container
• Text
• TimeText
• Pager

All other APL components (Frame, Image, ScrollView, Sequence, VectorGraphic, and Video) are not supported.

Commands

Character displays support a small set of standard commands for working with pagers and changing component property values.

• Commands Overview
• Standard Commands:
  • AutoPage command
  • Idle command
  • Parallel command
  • Sequential command
  • SetPage command
  • SetValue command

All other APL commands for playing media, displaying animation, scrolling, changing focus, sending requests to the skill, and speaking text are not supported.

Skill Request and Response Reference

Character displays support directives in the Alexa.Presentation.APLT Interface:

• Alexa.Presentation.APLT Interface:
  • RenderDocument directive
  • ExecuteCommands directive

Character displays do not send any APL requests to the skill, such as UserEvent, since the SendEvent command is not supported.

Related topics

• Understand APL and Character Displays

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Last updated: May 10, 2024