I would like to thank Brentosmith and Deano316 for their enthusiasm and work on the Extras concept, something badly missing from XBMC. I am new to the world of XBMC but already finding myself up to my neck in complicated changes to files and settings that new guys like me should stay away from! I finally managed to get the Extras concept working last night, and thought I would point out some of the basic errors a rookie can make in order to save someone time. I own a Mac so this is specifically aimed at Mac users but PC users may get something out of this too. Here are my notes to add to this discussion:
1) Brentosmith's Extras button is specifically for the skin Aeon Nox. You can use it in Confluence, but you have to place the code in a different place as previously mentioned in this thread. Also the button tends to extend itself off screen in Confluence, unlike Aeon Nox. It works, but isn't quite as pretty.
2) Confluence can be edited by going to XBMC in Applications, right click, and show package contents. You will find DialogVideoInfo.xml in there.
3) For Aeon Nox, if you want to edit DialogVideoInfo.xml, it is in this location on your Mac: <your home user name>/Library/Application Support/XBMC/addons/skin.aeon.nox/1080i. To edit it, used TextEdit. It may not open in TextEdit, especially if you have Dreamweaver loaded. Right click the file and choose the application TextEdit to open the file, and tick the tick box always open this type of file with TextEdit (i.e. XML files). That will make your life easier.
4) The code you put in the file DialogVideoInfo.xml is the following:
<control type="button" id="100">
<description>Extras</description>
<include>DialogVideoInfoButton</include>
<label>Extras</label>
<onclick>XBMC.RunScript(script.dvdextras,$INFO[ListItem.FilenameAndPath])</onclick>
<visible>[Container.Content(movies) | Container.Content(episodes)] + System.HasAddon(script.dvdextras)</visible>
</control>
I found it worked quite well if it was placed after the section entitled <control type="button" id="24">. 6 lines down from this there is the line </control>. I put the above code after that. For me this was line 895. You can jump quickly to line 895 by typing CMD-L then entering 895. You will see the lines I mean. Once put in, the Extras button in XBMC doesn't elongate like it does in Confluence.
5) Brentosmith explains you need to download his ZIP file and install into XBMC. It wasn't immediately obvious what I was supposed to do, and I wondered if I would face the problem of EXEs that are PC only. As this is specific XML code for XBMC, it works universally so no worries there. You download the ZIP file from his web page as mentioned on this thread. Put it somewhere safe like the XBMC folder if you like where we saw the DialogVideoInfo.xml file. Then in XBMC, go to SYSTEM on the home page, and ADDONS. There you can 'Install from Zip file'. Use that and navigate to where you put the ZIP file you downloaded and install it.
6) You also need to edit or make a new advancedsettings.xml. This is in the following folder, and if not, needs to be created in the following folder: Mac: <your home user name>/Library/Application Support/XBMC/userdata. Because as a rookie you probably don't have an advancedsettings.xml file, you will need to make one. This although easy on the surface, can be a major pitfall if you don't get it right, and this seriously held me back for a couple of days. Open TextEdit and copy paste the following:
<advancedsettings>
<video>
<excludefromscan>
<regexp>-extras-</regexp>
<regexp>/Extras/</regexp>
</excludefromscan>
<excludetvshowsfromscan>
<regexp>-extras-</regexp>
<regexp>/Extras/</regexp>
</excludetvshowsfromscan>
</video>
</advancedsettings>
Then make sure you do the following or it won't work! Go to Format and make sure you select 'Make Plain Text'. If it says 'Make Rich Text' you can leave it because it is already plain text. Now save it as advancedsettings.xml including the suffix as written. Put it in the aforementioned folder.
7) Using this Extras feature with video files and TV series works well. Just add the folder Extras into your Season folder for example, and put the extras in there for the season. Or for individual episodes with features you might need to make specific folders for them. Here is an example for Doctor Who. If you have a story like Warriors of the Deep which has 4 episodes and with extras, you could have the following folder structure - Doctor Who/S21E01E02E03E04/Doctor Who - S21E01 Warriors of the Deep 1.mkv etc. and next to these 4 episodes, the folder Extras. Inside that goes '[1]The Depths - The Making of Warriors of the Deep.mkv' etc. The numbering i.e. [1] is optional and allows you to rank your extras in order of importance. This allows you to keep the extras for this story with this story alone and means you can have specific extras grouped with specific stories. I haven't fully tested this aspect out yet, but I think this is the way to go.
If I can think of any more points for rookies I'll let you know, but I'll keep reading this thread with interest and thank you once again to the developers and I hope this information I have added further helps those out there who are new to the scene.
Additional: One thing I have been having problems with is fan art / thumbnails in Frodo. I have observed the new methods of dealing with art on the help page but XBMC isn't using them. The only place I have managed to observe the art is when you press (I)nformation on an episode and you can see it on the right. But it doesn't change it automatically. I would like XBMC Frodo to see if there is art in the folder with the appropriate naming and use it on Update Library. But as far as I can tell, so long as there is existing art in the Thumbnails folder in Application Support, it doesn't check for local art in the media folders. The art in the XBMC Thumbnails folder though is coded with an internal numbering system which makes it difficult to edit. It would be much easier to leave this well alone and just drop jpgs into the relevant folders. Perhaps this works and I'm doing something wrong, perhaps some setting. I notice across the forum there are more seasoned XBMC users who are having art problems with their set up, however I am starting from scratch and following the help page. I wonder what I am doing wrong. Is everyone else having success with local art and fan art in their media folders under Frodo, whether it is Confluence or Aeon Nox?
Additional 2: Also has anyone seen the issue where the thumbnail of TV series and episodes is cropped left and right as if the new Frodo settings is different in terms of scale? It seems to crop the JPGs from TVDB and produces an unsatisfactory result.
