[mosdev]

I want to add a custom TV Show/Movies widget in Estuary without using a forked version but every tutorial or guide I have seen on skinning or that may be related refers to Home.xml, which on my Ubuntu system does not exist in /addons/skin.confluence, or anywhere in the .kodi directory. I found settings.xml in another estuary directory directory but it was alone. I am on a clean install so I thought perhaps creating a small video library which would appear on the homescreen might help but it did not. I also read adding a media library as favourite might be necessary but still the file does not exist.

Is there some way I am supposed to generate this file?

Also if there are any particular references or templates you would recommend please let me know.

[pkscout]

For the stock Estuary there is no way to generate a custom widget without modifying the skin.  BTW, you should be looking for skin.estuary.  If you are reading tutorials about modifying the default Kodi skin and they mention Confluence, that tutorial is several years out of date.

If you want the Estuary experience with custom widgets, you could try Estuary MOD V2 KN Edition:

https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=366400

It uses something called Skin Shortcuts that does let you build custom widgets without having to modify the skin.

[the_other_guy]

you need to make a playlist like the ones found in Kodi\addons\skin.estuary\playlists

xml:


<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes" ?>

<smartplaylist type="movies">

    <name>In-progress movies</name>

    <match>all</match>

    <rule field="inprogress" operator="true" />

    <limit>15</limit>

    <order direction="descending">lastplayed</order>

in home.xml
link to your play list special://skin/playlists/inprogress_movies.xsp
$LOCALIZE[31010] you can place name for widget
value="5100"/> needs to be more then widget on top of where you place it but below the widget below like 5101

xml:


<include content="WidgetListPoster" condition="Library.HasContent(movies)">

                            <param name="content_path" value="special://skin/playlists/inprogress_movies.xsp"/>

                            <param name="widget_header" value="$LOCALIZE[31010]"/>

                            <param name="widget_target" value="videos"/>

                            <param name="list_id" value="5100"/>

                        </include>

[mosdev]

For the stock Estuary there is no way to generate a custom widget without modifying the skin.  BTW, you should be looking for skin.estuary.  If you are reading tutorials about modifying the default Kodi skin and they mention Confluence, that tutorial is several years out of date.

If you want the Estuary experience with custom widgets, you could try Estuary MOD V2 KN Edition:

https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=366400

It uses something called Skin Shortcuts that does let you build custom widgets without having to modify the skin.
Thanks, I have tried V2 on a clean install and one of the addons was generating errors. Even without the errors, I would prefer to use the original with some small modifications, not least for the learining experience.

I did find posts referencing Confluence but my issue is that I cannot use anything related to Estuary as there is no Home.xml in my clean install. In fact there is no ~/.kodi/addons/skin.estuary directory although I do have a ~/.kodi/userdata/addon_data/skin.estuary directory which just contains settings.xml. Using locate from terminal I did find /usr/share/kodi/addons/skin.estuary/xml/Home.xml. Removed the .kodi directory again in case I did something but still it the newly generated one is missing the directory and file. 

Is there something I should correct on Ubuntu 20.04.5 LTS?
 

you need to make a playlist like the ones found in Kodi\addons\skin.estuary\playlists

xml:


<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes" ?>

<smartplaylist type="movies">

    <name>In-progress movies</name>

    <match>all</match>

    <rule field="inprogress" operator="true" />

    <limit>15</limit>

    <order direction="descending">lastplayed</order>

in home.xml
link to your play list special://skin/playlists/inprogress_movies.xsp
$LOCALIZE[31010] you can place name for widget
value="5100"/> needs to be more then widget on top of where you place it but below the widget below like 5101

xml:


<include content="WidgetListPoster" condition="Library.HasContent(movies)">

                            <param name="content_path" value="special://skin/playlists/inprogress_movies.xsp"/>

                            <param name="widget_header" value="$LOCALIZE[31010]"/>

                            <param name="widget_target" value="videos"/>

                            <param name="list_id" value="5100"/>

                        </include>

Excellent cheers, looking forward to trying this when I can fix the issue with the missing files. Could you please tell me for using addon lists if I can just swap out the content_path value for something like:

xml:
Code:
"plugin://plugin.video.themoviedb.helper./?info=popular&tmdb_type=movie&widget=true&reload=$INFO[WINDOW(Home).Property(TMDbHelper.Widgets.Reload)]",return)

[pkscout]

I did find posts referencing Confluence but my issue is that I cannot use anything related to Estuary as there is no Home.xml in my clean install. In fact there is no ~/.kodi/addons/skin.estuary directory although I do have a ~/.kodi/userdata/addon_data/skin.estuary directory which just contains settings.xml. Using locate from terminal I did find /usr/share/kodi/addons/skin.estuary/xml/Home.xml. Removed the .kodi directory again in case I did something but still it the newly generated one is missing the directory and file. 

Is there something I should correct on Ubuntu 20.04.5 LTS?

That directory is your user directory.  The default skin is installed with the application, not in the user directory.  While I know where that is for Windows and Mac, I'm not sure about Linux.  Hopefully someone else will come by and be able to point you in the right direction.  BTW, if you modify Estuary in the application directory, every time you upgrade those changes will be lost.  So keep a copy of them around.

[jjd-uk]

See https://kodi.wiki/view/Special_protocol

The internal path to installation folder is special://xbmc (if you wish to confirm this can be used as source path in the internal Kodi File Manager) which according to that page should be found in /usr/share/kodi on Linux, then in there should the addons folder for addons part of the installation for example the skin.estuary folder.