[Ned Scott]

That still doesn't make sense, because nuking your entire install because of a broken/misbehaving add-on is crazy. Even if that was practical on any level, it won't help you in your use case. Your skin-specific settings are not saved in any APK, even if you made your own APK with your own skins. You would have to change the default settings in the skin's add-on folder for that to work at all, and you can already do that with v14.

It would be far more practical to restore using the backup add-on (no computer required). Scratch that, it would be more practical to not nuke your entire install on a regular basis. That's like building a new house every time your trash can gets full. Seriously, you could not find a worse example for this request.

As for v15, no new features are being added at this point. v15 has been in a feature freeze (bug fixes only go in) for weeks.

[nero12]

Ned,

i am trying to make Kodi user friendly to a level so my grandma can use it. and i know i can make it possible, if just the few minor issues were fixed.

Having an custom apk with all my wanted addons installed makes it soo much easier to install on a new device (if android based). it just cant get easier.. i think anyone would admit that. and then i can regularly push a new apk update out if i find it necessary.

and for windows i use a custom made "fresh install" + kodi restore" combined plugin where kodi.zip restore file is located on a google drive which i have control over and can regularly update. this currently only works for windows. once i get it fixed for android i will publish it, so users can upload their own kodi.zip to a google drive, and then using their custom backup online, restore to all their devices at once. they can at anytime modify this zip file online and then push out to all their devices at once, by a simple "restore" click. if necessary. no need for manually transfer stuff from one end to another.

My only problem is guisettings are not possible to restore using my custom plugin. At the end of the process i did a dialog message saying "You must pull the power to apply settings" but its not working everytime. and its not userfriendly and grandma friends wont understand why one must pull the power.

So i wanted to use advancedsettings.xml which works great with my plugin, but skin not supported.
but marijn has made another file, now i can just back up this and restore it using my custom plugin.
When i release my plugin through kodi repo, i will ofcourse enable an advance option for users to select which files they want to restore from their google drive: e.g. advancessetings, settings.xmlm, addons only etc.

I don't find backup addon practical. for this, it will only store locally, and u have no control over devices.

Now lets say repository has changed for a given plugin. how u expect grandma to fix this issue with ur current setup ?
i dont want to run around to all grandma friends

using my method a single update on google drive, and do a service plugin to check for update and push new update out if hash is different, is all thats necessary.
a complete seemless process (but this is little advanced, and might not be necessary for everyone), but the basic idea for a better experience is there.

I welcome the new settings.xml. I just hope koying will backport it to SPMC as thats what i use for android since it has better playback experience when it comes to kodi 15 for mkv. (my personal experience).

As for the new settings.xml i dont find it as a new "feature" as such. but rather a fix for an ongoing issue among many active users of kodi for the past many years.

[Ned Scott]

I don't think you understand. The new individual skin.xml settings won't be any more useful in your case than guisettings.xml. Either way, the root of your problem is what you should try to fix, and not an absolutely absurd solution of nuking the install on a regular basis. That kind of thing should never be part of our motivation for a feature.