[junitodx]

Hi,

Love Metropolis, my favorite skin by far. I have a small issue that I tried googling, searching, etc but can't seem to find (likely cause of the words being too common).

Anyhow, I don't use the movie sets setting because I don't want to automatically create sets for say a series that I only have two of the films, Terminator for example.
So for the series where I have say 4 or 5 of the films that I want in sets I manually create the set by just putting all the movies in one big folder. I then get an image I like, name it folder.jpg and drop it in there. Works fine and displays the image but it doesn't have the nice frame around it like the ones where I was able to scrape the movie and select the image from there.

Here is an example:

Jaws, JFK, Judge Dredd are single movies which I scraped and selected the downloaded image
On the other hand Indiana Jones, Jet Li movies, Jurassic Park and Marvel movies are folders which contain multiple movies and a folder.jpg. As you can see they do not have the nice white frames around them and look a little out of place.



Does anyone know a way for me to fix this within the skin? I really don't want to have to try to do this for 10 or more movies sets with Photoshop

Thanks in advance!

[MacGyver]

It looks like the "folders" are not in the library and so the they are not displaying as "media", but because they have an image file in them Kodi is using it as a icon or thumb. If the image file wasn't in it I'm guessing that the "Default" icon would be showing, if it was, having a border around it would look weird, hence the logic behind not putting a border around non-library objects. I'll have to look into the logic for how it's displaying that icon.

I've never encountered that scenario before because I use .nfo files alongside all my media and the "sets" are defined inside those so there are no accidental sets from using a scraper. I get to have sets, and leave the set setting off as well.

Code:

<id>tt0848228</id>
  <title>The Avengers</title>
  <originaltitle>The Avengers</originaltitle>
  <set>The Avengers Collection</set>
  <tag>The Avengers Collection</tag>
  <tag>Comic Book Movies</tag>
  <tag>Marvel Cinematic Universe</tag>
  <year>2012</year>
  <releasedate>4/26/2012</releasedate>
  <country>USA</country>

I'll try to look into how to alow your method of storage to display correctly, assuming it doesn't break anything else it.

[junitodx]

Thanks for the quick reply MacGyver. I used to use .nfo files before I had a Shield and used to use YAMJ to create media jukebox. I enjoy not having to create and maintain .nfo files with Metropolis anymore so if you could figure out a way to frame folder.jpg files that would be awesome and greatly appreciated.

[MacGyver]

So here a bug that needs to be fixed that displays the opposite problem of what you are experiencing.


The logic behind the frame is based upon whether the library Title string is empty or not, if so, display no frame. (this is what you are seeing for your sets inside a folder)

In this bug example the "Title" is not empty it is filled with some internal value, but not empty, so it meets the requirement to display the frame (and the media info).

To fix you issue, those visible statements merely need to be altered to look for a !IfEmpty"Pathname/folder.jpg" but then every time Kodi changes that naming convention, so will Metropolis. I don't think that it will change at a frequency that we should care about, but it needs consideration nonetheless. The other issue is that what you're really asking for is to display folders with a border around the icon if it exists, that needs to be pondered as to whether or not it is just adding the frame, or using a different style frame to denote a folder and not a file. Fixing it for your needs might break it for others.

In the end it's Jingai's call, but it is possible.

If you want to fix it yourself (and redo it every single time Metropolis updates), I can help you with the needed changes if it doesn't get into the official version.

[jingai]

Basically, it's trying to not add frames around icons. The current logic may be incorrect and it's on the list of things to look at before 3.4.0. I'm definitely not going to look for the presence of a file -- I've been trying very hard to stay away from that.

Couple things here..

@junitodx, you're basically trying to recreate the Movie Sets feature in Kodi. Why do you not just manually manage your Sets though? If you go to Movies->Sets from the Home screen, in there you can bring up the context menu and select which movies belong to a given Set. To add a new set manually, select any movie that you want in the Set, and select Manage...->Manage Movie Set from its context menu, then "Add movie to a new set."

@MacGyver, the "* All Seasons" icon in TV containers is like that because it's supposed to be the tvshow.poster. It is on mine.. I'm not sure why it's not on yours?

[jingai]

I've looked it over, and the current logic is as-intended. Kodi doesn't provide a way to see if a file exists, namely because honestly skins shouldn't do it. Skin Helper does provide this, but I have no intention of using it.

That said, I may be able to match on something else if there is something unique to match on. I've honestly just never even considered organizing things in such a way. I'll play with it and see what I can do.. though I do suggest you also take another look at Sets, since it seems like you didn't realize they can be managed manually?

MacGyver, your issue is definitely related to a missing show poster. I'm not sure how it happened, but if you set the art it'll look right.

[junitodx]

@junitodx, you're basically trying to recreate the Movie Sets feature in Kodi. Why do you not just manually manage your Sets though? If you go to Movies->Sets from the Home screen, in there you can bring up the context menu and select which movies belong to a given Set. To add a new set manually, select any movie that you want in the Set, and select Manage...->Manage Movie Set from its context menu, then "Add movie to a new set."

Sorry for the delayed response. I tried to go this route but the sets looked the same. I'm sure it's because I use the File View and not any of the movie views. I have numerous drives as sources that have different types of content so the file view makes it easier to navigate since it's basically like Windows. Maybe I'm not using the views in the best way I could but I don't want to click movies and have it display all the movies across 5 or 6 sources. Can custom playlists be set up similarly to view everything on a source?

[jingai]

Yeah, if you don't use the library, there's not much I can do. The skin just doesn't know what it should do there.

But yes, you can create playlists based on a source path. This is how I break out my kids' shows/movies -- I put them in a different path (my stuff is in /data/movies, the kids' stuff is in /data/kids/movies, for instance). Then you can create a Smart Playlist that matches on the path (say, /data/kids/movies), call it something reasonable (Kids Movies), and add a shortcut to the main menu or a submenu.

[junitodx]

jingai,

Thanks for looking into this for me. I tried using the smart playlist as you suggested but unfortunately this option did not work for me either as I like to keep each movie in it's own folder and I believe the smart playlist expects only video files to be located on the source. When I added it that way it showed an empty folder but I guess that is the difference between the library view and the file view. When I use the file view I can keep each video file in it's own folder and Metropolis still picks them up, scrapes them and creates cover art.

[jingai]

I understand, but if you avoid the Library view, these are the kinds of issues you'll face.

FWIW, I keep all of my movies in separate folders too, like:

Code:

The Big Lebowski/The Big Lebowski.mkv

and it works fine for me. Did you set the content for your sources and choose a scraper? I use Universal Movie Scraper and have enabled the setting, "Movies are in separate folders that match the movie title".

[junitodx]

I understand, but if you avoid the Library view, these are the kinds of issues you'll face.

FWIW, I keep all of my movies in separate folders too, like:

Code:

The Big Lebowski/The Big Lebowski.mkv

and it works fine for me. Did you set the content for your sources and choose a scraper? I use Universal Movie Scraper and have enabled the setting, "Movies are in separate folders that match the movie title".

Interesting. Once I added the source drive I just got the ... indicating an empty directory. Once I saw the ... I assumed it was looking for files only and wouldn't work for what I was trying so didn't continue. When I get home from work tonight I will try adding the source again as well as setting the content, scraper, etc.

[MacGyver]

For the longest time I also only used non-library sources.
I got tired of fighting with Kodi and just gave up; now everything except documentaries are scraped to the library.
I keep all my media in 10 random folders because it works well with my backup solution (just a bunch of soft links to a bunch of folders on just of bunch of disks).

I use sets, but also tags, and the tags are for things like "Werewolf Collection", whereas the sets are are for something like "American Werewolf Collection".
It might take a little time to do it, but once you put the .nfo's next to all your media and manually edit the tags and sets, you're done. That will also survive losing the database and "starting over".

If you want to try, maybe start with exporting the database to individual files from kodi, and building on that. I have never done that as my media is on a Linux share that has no write access to anyone, so all mine were done by external scraping programs one at a time.

[jingai]

Yeah, Kodi is really meant to be used primarily with library sources. I understand the desire to fight it, but You're Gonna Have a Bad Time

[junitodx]

I understand, but if you avoid the Library view, these are the kinds of issues you'll face.

FWIW, I keep all of my movies in separate folders too, like:

Code:

The Big Lebowski/The Big Lebowski.mkv

and it works fine for me. Did you set the content for your sources and choose a scraper? I use Universal Movie Scraper and have enabled the setting, "Movies are in separate folders that match the movie title".

Interesting. Once I added the source drive I just got the ... indicating an empty directory. Once I saw the ... I assumed it was looking for files only and wouldn't work for what I was trying so didn't continue. When I get home from work tonight I will try adding the source again as well as setting the content, scraper, etc.

Apparently my brain just doesn't function properly cause you'd think this would be simple for me to figure out. I tried adding a smart playlist by only adding the rule of using path is and browsing to the source drive I want to add. Keep in mind this is the main folder, inside there are movies each in their own individual folders:


When I then open the newly created playlist this is all I see:


However if I change the path and go down one more level in my Movies II folder, and select one of the individual movies folders, that one movie inside the folder is displayed properly in the playlist. Am I really that dense?

[BobCratchett]

I understand, but if you avoid the Library view, these are the kinds of issues you'll face.

FWIW, I keep all of my movies in separate folders too, like:

Code:

The Big Lebowski/The Big Lebowski.mkv

and it works fine for me. Did you set the content for your sources and choose a scraper? I use Universal Movie Scraper and have enabled the setting, "Movies are in separate folders that match the movie title".

Interesting. Once I added the source drive I just got the ... indicating an empty directory. Once I saw the ... I assumed it was looking for files only and wouldn't work for what I was trying so didn't continue. When I get home from work tonight I will try adding the source again as well as setting the content, scraper, etc.

Apparently my brain just doesn't function properly cause you'd think this would be simple for me to figure out. I tried adding a smart playlist by only adding the rule of using path is and browsing to the source drive I want to add. Keep in mind this is the main folder, inside there are movies each in their own individual folders:


When I then open the newly created playlist this is all I see:


However if I change the path and go down one more level in my Movies II folder, and select one of the individual movies folders, that one movie inside the folder is displayed properly in the playlist. Am I really that dense?

You're using the rule "path is" "smb://JUNITO-PC/Movies-II/". Let's suppose for a second you have a movie in that folder "/Movie Name/Movie Name.mp4" - the path for that IS "smb://JUNITO-PC/Movies-II/Movie Name/Movie Name.mp4", so it won't match the rule. Try "path starts with" or "path contains" instead