2014-12-17, 22:42
Hello,
I'm trying to solve a common problem, to which the magic bullet is advertised as custom video nodes, but they seem even less effective than a smart playlist is.
More specifically, I have my main media library organised in folders as follows:
Anime/
Anime Films/
Episodes/
Films/
And would like a button on the main menu for each, which acts like the native 'Films' and 'TV Shows' nodes, but within the subset of the library dictated by the folder structure, with this restriction applied to widgets and submenus.
"Just create a custom video node or smart playlist for each type and remove/hide the original film and tv show nodes" I hear you all say. I have tried both a normal video node, and a parent video node, for 'path starts with...' and neither works as expected.
Parent video nodes, when selected, dump me at a menu for all the subnodes, then they appear on screen as expected when chosen. The main menu entry lacks the film widgets, background fanart, etc.
Normal video nodes, ask me to chose an 'image folder' when I try to add the node to the menu. As I seem unable to find whatever it is it expects me to find, I've not managed to add one successfully. I've the feeling I managed it once, somehow, but it was incorrect still and haven't been able to reproduce it since. No idea what I did though or even if I did it, I've tried so many things it's all melted into one ball of fail in my mind now.
Smart playlists are quite close, but lack any of the magic options that usually operate on nodes, such as year, genre, etc. With about 120 anime series in my library, this is a nice feature to have access to sometimes. Also the little sub-filtering option on top, eg 'in progress', 'recently added' etc, seems not to work properly with playlists, sometimes the option text is displayed as blank.
So in short, is this possible yet, and if so, how? It's hopefully evident that I've tried a lot already. I'm getting the feeling that smart playlists, with custom 'fanart' in a directory set to be used by that node alone, and an entirely custom lower menu powered by a set of specific playlists for each node, might be a close approximation, albeit without the 'top sub-filter' working correctly. But there -must- be a better way? This isn't an uncommon problem. I can only hope that I'm missing something.
This is all written off of the top of my head after many hours messing around with it over the last couple of days. I'm not in front of the HTPC at the moment so I might have misstated a few things; apologies if so. Please don't hesitate to ask for any more information required, and I can create annotated screenshots if that would help explain anything more clearly. Lastly, I'm running XBMCbuntu, version 13.1 I believe.
Many thanks for any assistance offered,
Hornet
I'm trying to solve a common problem, to which the magic bullet is advertised as custom video nodes, but they seem even less effective than a smart playlist is.
More specifically, I have my main media library organised in folders as follows:
Anime/
Anime Films/
Episodes/
Films/
And would like a button on the main menu for each, which acts like the native 'Films' and 'TV Shows' nodes, but within the subset of the library dictated by the folder structure, with this restriction applied to widgets and submenus.
"Just create a custom video node or smart playlist for each type and remove/hide the original film and tv show nodes" I hear you all say. I have tried both a normal video node, and a parent video node, for 'path starts with...' and neither works as expected.
Parent video nodes, when selected, dump me at a menu for all the subnodes, then they appear on screen as expected when chosen. The main menu entry lacks the film widgets, background fanart, etc.
Normal video nodes, ask me to chose an 'image folder' when I try to add the node to the menu. As I seem unable to find whatever it is it expects me to find, I've not managed to add one successfully. I've the feeling I managed it once, somehow, but it was incorrect still and haven't been able to reproduce it since. No idea what I did though or even if I did it, I've tried so many things it's all melted into one ball of fail in my mind now.
Smart playlists are quite close, but lack any of the magic options that usually operate on nodes, such as year, genre, etc. With about 120 anime series in my library, this is a nice feature to have access to sometimes. Also the little sub-filtering option on top, eg 'in progress', 'recently added' etc, seems not to work properly with playlists, sometimes the option text is displayed as blank.
So in short, is this possible yet, and if so, how? It's hopefully evident that I've tried a lot already. I'm getting the feeling that smart playlists, with custom 'fanart' in a directory set to be used by that node alone, and an entirely custom lower menu powered by a set of specific playlists for each node, might be a close approximation, albeit without the 'top sub-filter' working correctly. But there -must- be a better way? This isn't an uncommon problem. I can only hope that I'm missing something.
This is all written off of the top of my head after many hours messing around with it over the last couple of days. I'm not in front of the HTPC at the moment so I might have misstated a few things; apologies if so. Please don't hesitate to ask for any more information required, and I can create annotated screenshots if that would help explain anything more clearly. Lastly, I'm running XBMCbuntu, version 13.1 I believe.
Many thanks for any assistance offered,
Hornet