[michasvision]

Hi,

I’d like to use KODI for Presentations.
A Presentation is just a collection of photos which are displayed in a particular order.
Users can browse through existing Presentations and select to view a Presentation they are interested in.


The photos in a Presentation can be displayed with varying duration. Each Photo can have a different title/caption. The transition between the photos can be animated.
The “metadata” for a Presentation is already available (Fanart, Background, etc.) even a NFO-file has been generated. Therefor the existing Presentation-Covers should be displayed like Videos in KODI. The user can select between different views, e.g. album, list, wall, etc. to display the Presentation-Covers.

My idea to implement the “Presentation-Player” is to create a special Presentation-screensaver which uses a custom configuration file describing the selected Presentation.
I’d like to modify the standard-skin and add the new “Presentation”-item to the main menu. The functionality found here is almost identical to Videos. But instead of calling the KODI-player to display the selected Presentation I’d rather start my Presentation-screensaver.

Does all this makes sense or can you come up with a better / easier solution?

*Edit: Stopped screaming

[nickr]

Why do you need to shout so much?

Is this any different to the existing photo screensaver and/or slideshow addons?

[michasvision]

Yes, it's different, that's why I'm asking...

[lody2mk]

The photos in a Presentation can be displayed with varying duration

[michasvision]

Alright, I've got two challenges:

1. display information from all Presentations (each Presentation has a cover, background, fanart),
2. actually view a single Presentation.

My solution (?):

1. modify an existing skin (copy the video part, but start a screensaver instead of the Kodi-player)
2. modify an existing slideshow-screensaver-plugin (that takes the actual presentation as a paramter).

... but I sense that there is a more elegant way to achieve this?

*edit: changed "problems" to "challenges"

[da-anda]

I think a custom add-on is the only choice you have if you need varying durations etc

[michasvision]

Can I start a particular screensaver-addon from within the skin ?
(List of built-in Functions contains ActivateScreensaver which starts the (current?) screensaver)

[nickr]

Render the presentation to a movie?

[michasvision]

Render the photos that make up the Presentation.

Think of an example:

A realtor wants to use KODI.
The realtor sells 100 houses (= 100 Presentations).
Each house is photographed.(between 5 to 10 photos for each house).
Some of the photos are more impressive than the others (= different display duration).
A potential customer can browser through the house offerings (like you do when you browse through your videos).
To view the photos of the house the customer starts the particular presentation (like you do when you want to watch a video).

I'd like to use the same mechanisms that are used for videos.
However at the end I dont have a video.
Only a bunch of photos which are to be displayed at different lengths...

@admin: I'm sorry if I spam this forum with a trivial business case; if there is a better place to post then please move this thread...

[nickr]

I think you would need to make your own addon.

Do you know of any other software that displays these presentations?

Is there a standard data format for the metadata? eg

house1.presentation
photo1.jpg 10s
photo2.jpg 20s
photo3.jpg 15s

I do see plenty of this sort of presentation on real estate agent's websites, maybe you don't need to reinvent the wheel as most of the websites do a pretty good job. They also access other media types like 3D viewers and videos too.

Having said that, rendering to a movie is pretty trivial, and then you can use kodi's existing infrastructure.

[michasvision]

Yes, I have already accepted that a custom addon && skin has to be developed.
I'm reaching out to you to find out IF there is a suitable way to get the whole idea up and running...

btw... I'm an ex-assembler/hardware dev ... in adventure mode.

[nickr]

Yeah python is your friend.

[da-anda]

if you build your own skin you could fill the main menu with nodes created by your add-on. Each menu item could then link to a particular category in your add-on or directly to a slideshow in your add-on. So you would be free to do whatever you want.

[michasvision]

Can I use nodes even if the Presentations are not imported into KODI? At the moment all I have are some NFO's and pictures...?

[da-anda]

you can use the "content provider" feature to fill the menu, and such a content provider can also be an add-on that reads stuff dynamically from nfos or uses it's own sqlite database