[Hogan]

I'm a longtime user of MediaBrowser 2.6 with lots of customized menus for local content. I'm new to Kodi, and want to replicate the menu structure in Kodi/Metropolis. I created a "Documentary" source and added a main menu item by the same name. I also created three subfolders under Documentary (Biology, Economics and Technology), and three playlists using the same names.
The playlists all work fine when I go through the Videos/Playlist menus, but I'm having trouble pointing the main menu item to the Documentary source and the submenus to the playlists from within the Home Furniture GUI. On both the "Choose item for Menu" and "Change Action" options, I can choose pre-existing options, but can't seem to edit these options to point to my new source or playlists. I have two questions:

How do I use the Home Furniture GUI to create custom menu items that point directly to custom sources and playlists?

Is there an xml file that I can edit directly to alter the menu options in the same way I can edit the sources.xml and *.xsm files for the sources and playlists? The only xml file that gets changed when I make changes in the furniture GUI is the script-skinshortcuts-includes.xml file. I've tried editing it manually, but the changes I make are overwritten from somewhere else when Kodi restarts.

[gary9872]

Have you tried Xonfluence?

http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=238630

[MacGyver]

Set the source bookmarks as favorites, point the menu items to each one.

[Hogan]

@MacGyver, that did it! Thanks so much. It seems you can't point a menu to a playlist or source directly, you have to select them from the Favourites list in the "Change Actions" setting.
I see the proper syntax in the "Choose Item for Menu" setting, and see that it's added to the script-skinshorts-includes.xml file. The script-skinshorts-includes.xml file seems to be a temporary holding place for this setting, since any changes I make to it manually are overwritten when Kodi restarts. Where is the file that stores this setting as a permanent change? Is it an uneditable DB file, or an editable XML file the way that the sources and playlists are?

[MacGyver]

script-skinshorts-includes.xml is auto-generated by the script.skinshortcuts script.
If you modify it, and the end result doesn't match the hash in the script folder under userdata then it gets overwritten.

[Hogan]

OK, I see three files in the script.skinshortcuts folder get updated with the info I enter in the Home Furniture GUI. That's what I needed to know. Thanks, I appreciate your help.