[PassamaCodi]

Hi,

I can't believe how complicated this seems to be. Been spending hours and hours trying to configure this using video nodes, but without success!

What I want is simply this:



All just on one menu page (Movies), with one horizontal trail of movie icons per smart playlist.
Not that predefined stuff like "In progress movies" or "Unwatched movies". Not interested in that.

But it seems so impossilbe!
All I can get into display is those nodes like "Kids" or "Family" showing at the top under "Categories", and browser through them inconveniently.
But defining those video nodes doesn't result in any display of bullet points on the same page, not to talk of any movie icons under them.
I've tried everything from defining nodes, parent nodes, rules, etc. Nothing works!

And I can't get rid of those default bullet points of "In progress movies" etc.

Who on earth created this showcase, and how? Is it just based on Photoshop??
Or is it just fake by renaming the "In progress movies" and "Unwatched movies" external name by "Kids" and "Family", for the sake of creating a false impression about Kodi's capabilities?

Why is this so complicated?
Any Youtube Channel can do this, right at its home page, e.g.:
https://www.youtube.com/@dwnews/featured

Why not Kodi? Why not Estuary?

[izprtxqkft]

its actually not as complicated as you seem to be making it you just have to edit the source files as these sections are coded in directly

locate your addons folder, in there you will find skin.estuary there are instructions for making an edit ready copy here: https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=371717

when you are ready to edit, open the file xml/Home.xml and locate sections as pasted below, there are many of them because there are many rows but each row is only a few lines each

you can add rows, delete rows, customize row contents and all sorts of things - i have done this many times over to make it to my liking and again when my liking changes


Here is a copied section for the "Random Movies" row on the movies section home page:

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

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

                            <param name="widget_header" value="$LOCALIZE[31006]"/>

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

                            <param name="list_id" value="5400"/>

                        </include>

and that is all that defines that 1 single row, note places where it shows LOCALIZE are using translated text values from the respective language/resource* folder containing strings.po

also here is the wiki to learn more about skinning - https://kodi.wiki/view/Skinning

[PassamaCodi]

Well, that's great to know.

What I mean by complicated is "not configurable through the normal GUI but requiring deep level config file editing".

But I'm glad at least there is a way at all.

Thanks for those instructions, I'll try that!

[PassamaCodi]

Okay, turns out I'm already having problems finding my skin.estuary folder under "~/.kodi/addons". It only contains skin folders for various other skins I've downloaded, but not skin.estuary.

Is there any location for the default skin, which is Estuary, somewhere else?

[izprtxqkft]

it installs where the executable installs, only after updates you could find it in the .kodi folder

linux* should be /usr/share/kodi/addons

since youre making an editable copy anyway it might be simpler to grab it from github - https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/tree/master...in.estuary

[PassamaCodi]

OK, I've found it.

Why make a copy, instead of just editing in place? Would like it to count for all users...

[Dangelus]

@PassamaCodi It is not recommended that you edit the default built in skin in case you make an error. Worse case scenario you could find yourself without a GUI and needing to reinstall Kodi or trying to manually replace the original skin files.

You do this at your own risk.

The best practice is to copy the skin, rename the copy and edit that.

[PassamaCodi]

Okay, I've copied it from global to home folder now.

Strangely, I'm seeing many more WidgetListPoster elements for movies than I'm actually seeing in the GUI:
Elements referencing inprogress_movies, recent_unwatched_movies, unwatched_movies, random_movies XSPs.

But only random_movies is seen in the GUI...

[PassamaCodi]

Okay, I've copied it from global to home folder now.

Strangely, I'm seeing many more WidgetListPoster elements for movies than I'm actually seeing in the GUI:
Elements referencing inprogress_movies, recent_unwatched_movies, unwatched_movies, random_movies XSPs.

But only random_movies is seen in the GUI...

So what exactly controls, which ones of the WidgetListPoster elements actually ends up in the GUI? It looks like just declaring them in that section is not enough?

I have the same problem for TV shows, by the way...

[PassamaCodi]

Hmm...not that easy, after all?

Keep having the feeling that Kodi doesn't really want me to be happy. Considering more simple-to-configure and intuitive alternatives.

Already figuring out how that whole scraper stuff actually works (no direct reading from in-video-file metadata, only manually created xml files) took me days.

And now this.....

[PassamaCodi]

its actually not as complicated as you seem to be making it you just have to edit the source files as these sections are coded in directly

locate your addons folder, in there you will find skin.estuary there are instructions for making an edit ready copy here: https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=371717

when you are ready to edit, open the file xml/Home.xml and locate sections as pasted below, there are many of them because there are many rows but each row is only a few lines each

you can add rows, delete rows, customize row contents and all sorts of things - i have done this many times over to make it to my liking and again when my liking changes


Here is a copied section for the "Random Movies" row on the movies section home page:

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

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

                            <param name="widget_header" value="$LOCALIZE[31006]"/>

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

                            <param name="list_id" value="5400"/>

                        </include>

and that is all that defines that 1 single row, note places where it shows LOCALIZE are using translated text values from the respective language/resource* folder containing strings.po

also here is the wiki to learn more about skinning - https://kodi.wiki/view/Skinning

Well, I've now tried all this and didn't get a result, as I have been commenting.

I keep thinking that it's really complicated ;-)

Does this mean my Kodi is corrupted? Should I reinstall and try again after that?
Or any other explanation?

[izprtxqkft]

i feel i provided quite a concise explanation as well as the wiki which expands the information quite well

without stepping in to customize your kodi for you i dont know what else i can provide

[PassamaCodi]

i feel i provided quite a concise explanation as well as the wiki which expands the information quite well

without stepping in to customize your kodi for you i dont know what else i can provide

Yes, I've followed that and provided my state of processing according to those instructions.

I thought you might know about possible reasons why this could still not be working in all these special cases. If I'm missing any additional setting, maybe.

As I said, all "WidgetListPoster" elements declared, but only one of them showing.

Recommend a fresh install?

I know I've been installing lots of different skins on top of my installation, so maybe the settings got messed up?
I remember Embruary manipulated some stuff like deactivating my mouse pointer, possibly more than that?

[PassamaCodi]

i feel i provided quite a concise explanation as well as the wiki which expands the information quite well

without stepping in to customize your kodi for you i dont know what else i can provide

Yes, I've followed that and provided my state of processing according to those instructions.

I thought you might know about possible reasons why this could still not be working in all these special cases. If I'm missing any additional setting, maybe.

As I said, all "WidgetListPoster" elements declared, but only one of them showing.

Recommend a fresh install?

I know I've been installing lots of different skins on top of my installation, so maybe the settings got messed up?
I remember Embruary manipulated some stuff like deactivating my mouse pointer, possibly more than that?

Also, I'm surprised that the already-installed global setting doesn't even represent what I'm seeing in the GUI, even without creating my own mod.

[izprtxqkft]

im not sure what is happening for you

when i modify one, i copy a section like i pasted, change its content source to a new playlist file that i put in playlists and it appears as a new row of content on mine

presently i have a home section which is rows of "continue watching", "recent movies", "random movies", "favorites", "video addons" and "movie genres" all on the single page that used to be just movies and is shown when the menu is selecting movies


here's my entire control group 5001 where the rows live

https://paste.kodi.tv/orazezajiq