2018-08-22, 02:33
Good To Know
Widget & Spotlight Content
The widgets and spotlight for Home entry are set from Skin Settings->Configure Shortucts tab->Edit Shortcuts->Widgets for each entry
The spotlight is set from Skin Settings -> Homelayout tab-> Under Spotlight header
For HUBS, both spotlight & widgets are set from the hub's page, for this it should be unlocked first. this is done from Skin Settings->Configure Shortucts tab-> tick off 'Lock Widgets in Hubs', and then go to the hub you want to customize.
You can also have your own Hub or List, from Edit Shortcuts -> Add Shortcut -> in 'Common' directory from pop-up window you will have amongst other the option for 'MyHub' and 'My Custom List' and set them as explained above.
Auto-Play trailers
Auto-play of trailers is available both in BINGIE Views (Home & Hubs) and Library views that are supported.
They can be enabled for BINGIE Views in Homelayout tab.
And in context-menu in view type that are supported (e.g, Bingie Main).
After enabling you'll have the option to set the desired interval time from the moment item is focused to when it should start getting the trailer played.
More settings are available in General Settings, to toggle youtube trailers, toggle for tvshows and for non-library content (e.g, plugins).
Built-In Search
In addition to what's available by default, you can also add search results for music videos / music (artists/albums/songs) and results from youtube.
If the keyboard does not fit your needs, you can enable 'complete keyboard' option that will add a keyboard icon in search window that will take you to the full keyboard layout.
For Nvidia shield users - after opening up the 'complete keyboard' a long-press on any keyboard key will open the google assistant so you could record your search query.
Artwork Handling
In bingie views, the image shown in spotlight is set by the FANART of an item (or extrafanart if enabled).
and the image in the widget itself is:
1) if there's a LANDSCAPE img available then it would set that ('landscape.<ext>' in the movie/tvshow's dir)
2) if there's no LANDSCAPE img it will put the same fanart as in spotlight AND a clearlogo (if available) on top of it
So the best way to set up artwork is having landscape (an image with title) and fanart (an image without title). that would look best. have a title on the widget and different images for widget/spotlight image.
It can be edited in the skin with artwork beef (context-menu->manage-> AB options) or if you use a manager like Tiny Media Manager you can pre-select the fanart/landscape and when scraping to library it will be set up that way, and you won't have to do it each installation/within the skin itself.
Bro tip - in Artwork Beef settings you can configure it to download the selected images to your local storage, need enabling in each media's tab and general settings. then whatever you select will be downloaded so even if you reset/delete your library and then rescan it the artwork you've selected will stay put.
Bro tip #2 - For movies, give priority to fanart.tv artwork as it is categorized better and better chance for having 'clean' artwork, after that you can complete missing using tmdb. for tv shows tvdb is great.
Optimization / Perfomance
Titan is a fairly heavy skin, a lot of improvements within the code has been done to this version (v1 and onward) but to further improve performance:
How to make it a little faster? Disabling un-used views - this skin has A LOT of viewtypes, you probably don't use half of them, if so it'd be better to disable them (you can enable them anytime later). from skin settings -> force views tab -> click on 'Enable/Disable Views' and tick off the views which you're not using.
Faster, please? For artwork beef users: artwork is very taxing. depends on the layout you're using, you can disable in artwork beef addon settings the artwork that you will not need, you can always get them later...For ex, in BINGIE Layout, most of the artwork used is landscape/fanart/thumbs and clearlogo. Consider that when pulling artwork... Also, if you already pulled a lot of artwork or changed a lot via Artwork Beef, consider deleting the content of 'Thumbnails' folder inside userdata dir. The folder saves a lot of images and can grow very fast, if you're satisfied with your current artwork set-up, delete that. it will take kodi a while to re-construct the images but the folder size can shrink in size dramatically.
Can widget loading be faster? Regarding loading of widgets: Widgets from library node/smartplaylist will be much much faster than widgets from plugin source, including skin helper widgets that does a pre-processing. Most of the widgets are possible to make with only smartplaylists, with the exception of Mixed media and widgets based on trakt/tmdb or other plugin source. the skin supplies many playlists that you can choose from videolibrary->playlists when setting a widget. If you limit non-smartplaylist widget to a bare minimum and use smartplaylist for most you can have even 40 widgets that load in less than 5sec (which is shorter than the splash animation so you won't even notice). if you're using plugin sources, try and use library integration to integrate them into you library database, this will result in them acting like local items = FAST.
Local Trailers
BINGIE has the ability to get local trailer both for movies and tv shows and if not found, then look them up in youtube.
Local trailers will always work better and faster and are recommended for user who use auto-trailer function, especially with shorter interval times.
Movie trailers are handled by kodi, they need to have naming pattern of 'movie-trailer'.ext or <movie-filename>.ext (ext for extension, eg mp4, etc)
and it's should be noted that when scanning library fetching of trailer within scraper should be toggled off so it will not overwrite local trailers.
TV Show trailers are handled by Script Bingie Helper and need to have the following naming pattern:
1) 'tvshow-trailer'.ext
or 2) <tvshow-directory-name>.ext
and need to be placed in main directory of the tv show. it is better to use 'tvshow-trailer'.ext since for some widgets (from skin helper widget) this is the only pattern that can be properly fetched.
Ratings Meta (and API keys in general)
For ratings from IMDB, TMDB, TVDB, Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic
1) Make sure they are enabled in 'Media Library Views' tab under 'Media Flags, Ratings ......' (they should be ON by default)
2) To enable them in BINGIE views, go to homelayout tab and enable them under 'Footer' header (tick OFF the setting 'Disable ratings flags in bingie views...')
To enable them in libraries, in 'Media Library Views' tab, tick off the setting 'Do not show footer in views'
3) [THIS IS DONE PRIOR TO LIBRARY SCAN] Use scrapers and set in there settings to get ratings from IMDB & TMDB for movies (e.g Universal scraper). and TVDB & IMDB for tv shows (e.g TVDB Scraper).
4) Go to Skin Settings -> Supported addons -> select 'Metadata and Artwork Module', switch to 'API Keys' tab, and fill with your API keys.
For Rottern Tomatoes & MetaCritic you'll need to have an OMDB key - you can get it from here https://www.omdbapi.com/apikey.aspx
for TMDB Key - www.themoviedb.org
Fanart key is not important for ratings but is for fanart images in the skin, get from https://fanart.tv/
Skin Helper Widget
Among the other updated addons this has the most interest to the user as I added many more new widgets in Skin Helper Widget Addon.
For 'My List' widget, enable in addon setting and it will show in movies/tvshows/mixed.
New widgets - Popular/Trending/Most Played/Most Watched (based on Trakt/TMDB) has been added and needs to be enabled in addon's setting and also have Extended Info addon installed. these widgets are discussed here.
Many more widgets: new releases, top picks, ability to sort playlists by desired order, popular, recent shows & movies and many more are discussed here.
Side-notes:
- Atmos & DTS-X are now supported in media flags (with the exception of atmos in colored flags, if someone can supply a fitting png it will be added) - you just need to have 'atmos' and 'dtsx/dts-x' somewhere in your filename.
- Ratings in video info is available when clicking ''plot & critics".
- The classic Titan info dialog was added and is available if bingie video info is toggled off.
- Bingie main view is able to switch between Poster/Landscape view ('swap poster' option in context-menu) and switch between horizontal/vertical navigation.
- When fixed position for vertical scrolling is enabled, you will only be able to switch widget layout for ALL of the widgets. They can only be changed on individual-base when this setting is off.
- The skin shows information dialog for video items by default, this is done within the skin and so it can be toggled off/on in skin settings. note that this behavior applies just for widgets (home, search & hubs) and not for libraries. This is done because if using Kodi setting to change default select action, it will show information for all items, including libraries (which is good for video library, not so much for other types) and also will show info for each episode (also quite annoying I believe).
Widget & Spotlight Content
The widgets and spotlight for Home entry are set from Skin Settings->Configure Shortucts tab->Edit Shortcuts->Widgets for each entry
The spotlight is set from Skin Settings -> Homelayout tab-> Under Spotlight header
For HUBS, both spotlight & widgets are set from the hub's page, for this it should be unlocked first. this is done from Skin Settings->Configure Shortucts tab-> tick off 'Lock Widgets in Hubs', and then go to the hub you want to customize.
You can also have your own Hub or List, from Edit Shortcuts -> Add Shortcut -> in 'Common' directory from pop-up window you will have amongst other the option for 'MyHub' and 'My Custom List' and set them as explained above.
Auto-Play trailers
Auto-play of trailers is available both in BINGIE Views (Home & Hubs) and Library views that are supported.
They can be enabled for BINGIE Views in Homelayout tab.
And in context-menu in view type that are supported (e.g, Bingie Main).
After enabling you'll have the option to set the desired interval time from the moment item is focused to when it should start getting the trailer played.
More settings are available in General Settings, to toggle youtube trailers, toggle for tvshows and for non-library content (e.g, plugins).
Built-In Search
In addition to what's available by default, you can also add search results for music videos / music (artists/albums/songs) and results from youtube.
If the keyboard does not fit your needs, you can enable 'complete keyboard' option that will add a keyboard icon in search window that will take you to the full keyboard layout.
For Nvidia shield users - after opening up the 'complete keyboard' a long-press on any keyboard key will open the google assistant so you could record your search query.
Artwork Handling
In bingie views, the image shown in spotlight is set by the FANART of an item (or extrafanart if enabled).
and the image in the widget itself is:
1) if there's a LANDSCAPE img available then it would set that ('landscape.<ext>' in the movie/tvshow's dir)
2) if there's no LANDSCAPE img it will put the same fanart as in spotlight AND a clearlogo (if available) on top of it
So the best way to set up artwork is having landscape (an image with title) and fanart (an image without title). that would look best. have a title on the widget and different images for widget/spotlight image.
It can be edited in the skin with artwork beef (context-menu->manage-> AB options) or if you use a manager like Tiny Media Manager you can pre-select the fanart/landscape and when scraping to library it will be set up that way, and you won't have to do it each installation/within the skin itself.
Bro tip - in Artwork Beef settings you can configure it to download the selected images to your local storage, need enabling in each media's tab and general settings. then whatever you select will be downloaded so even if you reset/delete your library and then rescan it the artwork you've selected will stay put.
Bro tip #2 - For movies, give priority to fanart.tv artwork as it is categorized better and better chance for having 'clean' artwork, after that you can complete missing using tmdb. for tv shows tvdb is great.
Optimization / Perfomance
Titan is a fairly heavy skin, a lot of improvements within the code has been done to this version (v1 and onward) but to further improve performance:
How to make it a little faster? Disabling un-used views - this skin has A LOT of viewtypes, you probably don't use half of them, if so it'd be better to disable them (you can enable them anytime later). from skin settings -> force views tab -> click on 'Enable/Disable Views' and tick off the views which you're not using.
Faster, please? For artwork beef users: artwork is very taxing. depends on the layout you're using, you can disable in artwork beef addon settings the artwork that you will not need, you can always get them later...For ex, in BINGIE Layout, most of the artwork used is landscape/fanart/thumbs and clearlogo. Consider that when pulling artwork... Also, if you already pulled a lot of artwork or changed a lot via Artwork Beef, consider deleting the content of 'Thumbnails' folder inside userdata dir. The folder saves a lot of images and can grow very fast, if you're satisfied with your current artwork set-up, delete that. it will take kodi a while to re-construct the images but the folder size can shrink in size dramatically.
Can widget loading be faster? Regarding loading of widgets: Widgets from library node/smartplaylist will be much much faster than widgets from plugin source, including skin helper widgets that does a pre-processing. Most of the widgets are possible to make with only smartplaylists, with the exception of Mixed media and widgets based on trakt/tmdb or other plugin source. the skin supplies many playlists that you can choose from videolibrary->playlists when setting a widget. If you limit non-smartplaylist widget to a bare minimum and use smartplaylist for most you can have even 40 widgets that load in less than 5sec (which is shorter than the splash animation so you won't even notice). if you're using plugin sources, try and use library integration to integrate them into you library database, this will result in them acting like local items = FAST.
Local Trailers
BINGIE has the ability to get local trailer both for movies and tv shows and if not found, then look them up in youtube.
Local trailers will always work better and faster and are recommended for user who use auto-trailer function, especially with shorter interval times.
Movie trailers are handled by kodi, they need to have naming pattern of 'movie-trailer'.ext or <movie-filename>.ext (ext for extension, eg mp4, etc)
and it's should be noted that when scanning library fetching of trailer within scraper should be toggled off so it will not overwrite local trailers.
TV Show trailers are handled by Script Bingie Helper and need to have the following naming pattern:
1) 'tvshow-trailer'.ext
or 2) <tvshow-directory-name>.ext
and need to be placed in main directory of the tv show. it is better to use 'tvshow-trailer'.ext since for some widgets (from skin helper widget) this is the only pattern that can be properly fetched.
Ratings Meta (and API keys in general)
For ratings from IMDB, TMDB, TVDB, Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic
1) Make sure they are enabled in 'Media Library Views' tab under 'Media Flags, Ratings ......' (they should be ON by default)
2) To enable them in BINGIE views, go to homelayout tab and enable them under 'Footer' header (tick OFF the setting 'Disable ratings flags in bingie views...')
To enable them in libraries, in 'Media Library Views' tab, tick off the setting 'Do not show footer in views'
3) [THIS IS DONE PRIOR TO LIBRARY SCAN] Use scrapers and set in there settings to get ratings from IMDB & TMDB for movies (e.g Universal scraper). and TVDB & IMDB for tv shows (e.g TVDB Scraper).
4) Go to Skin Settings -> Supported addons -> select 'Metadata and Artwork Module', switch to 'API Keys' tab, and fill with your API keys.
For Rottern Tomatoes & MetaCritic you'll need to have an OMDB key - you can get it from here https://www.omdbapi.com/apikey.aspx
for TMDB Key - www.themoviedb.org
Fanart key is not important for ratings but is for fanart images in the skin, get from https://fanart.tv/
Skin Helper Widget
Among the other updated addons this has the most interest to the user as I added many more new widgets in Skin Helper Widget Addon.
For 'My List' widget, enable in addon setting and it will show in movies/tvshows/mixed.
New widgets - Popular/Trending/Most Played/Most Watched (based on Trakt/TMDB) has been added and needs to be enabled in addon's setting and also have Extended Info addon installed. these widgets are discussed here.
Many more widgets: new releases, top picks, ability to sort playlists by desired order, popular, recent shows & movies and many more are discussed here.
Side-notes:
- Atmos & DTS-X are now supported in media flags (with the exception of atmos in colored flags, if someone can supply a fitting png it will be added) - you just need to have 'atmos' and 'dtsx/dts-x' somewhere in your filename.
- Ratings in video info is available when clicking ''plot & critics".
- The classic Titan info dialog was added and is available if bingie video info is toggled off.
- Bingie main view is able to switch between Poster/Landscape view ('swap poster' option in context-menu) and switch between horizontal/vertical navigation.
- When fixed position for vertical scrolling is enabled, you will only be able to switch widget layout for ALL of the widgets. They can only be changed on individual-base when this setting is off.
- The skin shows information dialog for video items by default, this is done within the skin and so it can be toggled off/on in skin settings. note that this behavior applies just for widgets (home, search & hubs) and not for libraries. This is done because if using Kodi setting to change default select action, it will show information for all items, including libraries (which is good for video library, not so much for other types) and also will show info for each episode (also quite annoying I believe).
