[vonson]

Hello everybody,

I have just started to experiment with the node editor, so far my custom nodes did not work...
However, I am wondering if what I have in mind is possible after all:

In short, I'd like to have completely seperated libraries for broad categories like Audiobooks, Rock-Pop, Jazz, Classic, Soundtracks (which are all in seperate folders anyway).
On a larger file collection lists get pretty long, and a crude mix of artists from Rock, Jazz and Classical music along with Audiobook authors is pretty useless.

So when I enter 'Music' via the main menu, I'd like to see only these broad categories, and only after selecting one of those I want to see all the other sub-selections (genre, artist, albums etc.) for each one of those broad categories.

Is this even possible?

[Juan Mortyme]

@vonson 

Should be possible. How easily will depend largely on the skin you are using. Creating the nodes is only the first step. You will also have to customize your menu to open the desired nodes which is easier to do with some skins than with others. As long as all your music has correct tags or good nfo files you shouldn't have too much trouble. If your tags or nfo files are not up to snuff you can divide your files into separate folders and create nodes based on file paths rather than genres. I personally have not done a lot of work with my music library but I have extensively refined my video library. Between custom nodes and smart playlists just about any sorting desired is posable. It's just a matter of making up the right rule(s) when creating your nodes after a little trial & error you'll catch on.

[vonson]

Hey, it was easier than I epected, so far things look promising. I have two issues left:

- The filtering by path is incomplete. I use the <rule field="path" operator="contains"> method, but some entries that are not inside the subfolder specified here are still displayed. Only after adding a <rule field="path" operator="doesnotcontain"> targeted at these wrongly displayed elements' subfolder they did indeed disappear.

- I noticed in the genre list some genres are displayed that are actually empty when opening them. Is there any 'is not empty' method I could add to the rules to remove these empty genres ?

[Juan Mortyme]

@vonson 

Good to see things are working out for you.

You could try path "Starts With" or "is" instead of "Contains".

As for the Genres, I believe Kodi only lists those which are used in you library. So there must something with those genres somewhere that are being filtered out. You could try a genre "Is Not" whatever rule.

[vonson]

Hey,

path 'starts with' I wanted to avoid, so the rules might work even when the server protocol or the basic folder structure on the server might change, so I wanted to stick with the part of the path that I have chosen to structure my file collection and which probably will not change soon.

path 'is' I have not tested, but wouldn't that be the full path up to and including the album folder (and probably even the filename)?

For now my solution is using multiple rules: the one specifying the desired path element (via 'contains') and a few 'contains not' rules to remove all the unwanted elements. That seems to work and even fixed the genre-issue, the empty entries are gone now.

What I have not been able to achieve is a custom icon for my new sections. I copied the path from my sources.xml (where it is stored as <thumbnail pathversion="1">xxxxx</thumbnail>) over to index.xml (<icon>xxxxx</icon>). Do I need to include the pathversion as well?

[Juan Mortyme]

@vonson 

Nice. Looks like you've got a pretty good handle on it. A little logic and some trial & error usually works.

I don't change those icons but it seems to me that yes you would need to enter the full path to the file you want to use as an icon.

[vonson]

OK, I got the icons now. It simply makes things easier to distinguish.

Details: I do not want to clutter my main media player device, so initially I had not installed the editor on this; I created the files on another device and copied them over. Since this did not work for the icons I finally did install the editor and set the icons directly on the device, turns out the paths did differ on both devices. Stupid mistake, sorry for that.

I am quite happy with the result for now, luckily even without any skin modification.

Thanks for your help.

[Juan Mortyme]

@vonson 

You're welcome.

[ray2301]

Both Windows and Shield are normal installations direct from the Kodi download page.
Windows is using 19.3 and Shield is using 19.2.
Screen shot below is of my Windows install when I tried to move the position of the 'Genre' node for TV shows:-



Once this screen appears, my remote control also stopped giving any focus. Had to use a mouse to click on 'cancel' button.
Debug log capturing of me attempting this action is here: azefeyocev.kodi (paste)
First mention of 'Library node editor' is from line 3255. Seems to be a few errors mentioned a bit further down. Hopefully these will mean something to you 

On the shield, I was able to move the same node and no issue with the dialog select window. Whilst the node does move position on the dialog select, it doesn't on the home screen, ie you still have to exit and restart for the position to change. Dialog select window is also missing the 'OK' confirmation label.
Think that's everything you wanted.
Hope it helps.

this happens to me every single time on windows and it was happening from the first time i installed it. i make a few nodes, i want to move them arround and this comes out and i cannot do anything but forse close kodi. i wrote about it here in 2020. got no help. i was on kodi 18, windows 10 then. now i'm on kodi 19.4, windows 11 (kodi not from store). still happens and i cannot move nodes through the plugin, i have to move them manually.
i have to go to kodi's userdata - library - music (or video), find my newly made menu with items and edit each xml to include:

Code:

<node order="6" type="folder">

where "6" is the order number.
it's the only way i can move my nodes because the option to move them within the plugin will only stay like in your photo and there's no way i can remove it. i have to close kodi. maybe it would work with a mouse like you said, but i only use a remote and keyboard so my mouse is off in kodi's settings.
when i create nodes, it doesn't give them order so i have to enter it manually. but that is also the only part of the plugin that doesn't work for me. to move nodes.
without order, they only get this for menus:

Code:

<node>

and this for items (or in this case, "folders" you add):

Code:

<node type="folder">

so if you want to order the menus, you just use

Code:

<node order="1">

What i'm realizing by talking to myself here is that THIS IS THE EXACT ISSUE of not being able to move nodes - they do not get the order when created.
Once you create order manually and don't have any items without order, you will be able to open the move node menu again and move nodes.
Jeez, it only took me 2 years and a reply to someone who has the same problem to realize this.
I had only one menu item without order left (i didn't care where it was - it was on top because it had no order) and now i gave it order. I can now move nodes from within the plugin again because all my items now have order set.

Now we need someone who knows code to see why it doesn't create order when creating a new node. if the plugin gave order to the items on creation, this bug wouldn't be happening.
i opened an issue on github for this post. hopefully, someone will see it here or there.

[Juan Mortyme]

The 'Move Node' function is working fine for me on Windows 10 with Kodi v19.4 and Kodi v20.alpha.1. I'm using Library Node Editor v2.0.5.

[ray2301]

The 'Move Node' function is working fine for me on Windows 10 with Kodi v19.4 and Kodi v20.alpha.1. I'm using Library Node Editor v2.0.5.

my plugin version is the same. i'm on the last 19 nightly now. if you make a new parent node and put some nodes with plugin shortcuts to it, will you be able to move those nodes within that parent node?
i can now move all nodes from the first level, but if i enter any parent nodes, i still get the same thing for some reason.
my parent node also has 2 parent nodes.
i'm trying to integrate pandoki, tidal and spotify into library items. parent nodes are for quick access to search and my playlists. everything works, it's just that the nodes don't get order so i have to manually edit those xml's to order items.
i couldn't get to order the first level until i've added order to all of the items, but now i get the same black menu when trying to move them from the plugin in the parent nodes. and i believe they all have order. i've checked.

[Juan Mortyme]

@ray2301 

Well, here's what happens on my setup.
Music Library which I haven't messed with (still default) Parent and Child nodes can be moved without issue.
Video Library which I have heavily modified (adding 20 or so new Parent nodes some with extra Child nodes) Parent nodes can be moved fine but with Child nodes I get the same blank screen as you. I haven't checked for order numbers in the xml yet because there are so many and honestly in my case the order of the Child nodes doesn't matter.

[vonson]

Hey, I ran into another issue:
Since the music-section rework was to my liking now I try to achieve something similar for the musicvideo section. I have created a few filtered sections and removed all the elements (directors, studio, etc) that I do not need here, but whenever I enter the musicvideo menu Kodi enters a default setup that shows all the elements, even those I removed (directors, studio, etc), and when entering any one of those elements there none of the filters is working, the resulting list is unfiltered.
But: If, from the musicvideos menu, I go to the top of the list, enter the two dots to get a menu level up (which gets me into the standard 'videos' section), and when i now enter the musicvideos from here, my custom setup is displayed and the filtered sections do work.
How can I enter this directly and avoid the default setup? Since I might want to alter the movies section also I suspect something similar. So how can I avoid Kodi entering this default setup and have it use my custom setup instead?

[Juan Mortyme]

@vonson 

I would think the deleted nodes should disappear after restarting Kodi. Check to see if the xml files are still there?

There is a bug in the music section of Kodi. If you have music and/or music videos set to not "show all performers/song and album artist" it screws up the menu. In particular the Artist/Actor (probably the others too)  will always show unfiltered list not limited to the rules if you go straight into it. You have to go the long way around to get into it to get it filtered. I've tried to find a workaround but nothing I've tried so far has worked.

Don't worry about the Video library it doesn't have that bug. Everything works as it should for movies and TV shows.

Oops.. I forgot that the one thing that doesn't work with custom video nodes is "Recently Added" but I came up with a workaround, see post.

[vonson]

Hey,

this is a strange bug that you describe, but I did not run into it so far. Actually I have set the music to NOT "show all performers/song and album artist" (the option in the settings is disabled), but the filter rules of my custom nodes do work (after the tweaking that you did help me with).
I have not found this setting specifically for music videos?

And btw - from your post I understand that musicvideos are NOT treated as videos but as music? and thus are not stored in the video db but in the music db? While this seems to make sense I never thought of it...

The "Recently Added" bug does not bother me for now, for me it's a low priority function that I hardly make use of (but I will take note of your workaround nonetheless...)

But otherwise - well, the deleted nodes in my customized music video section DO disappear, but only after I step a level up (to 'videos') and reenter music videos; then my custom nodes appear and the deleted stuff is gone. But when I enter music videos from the main menu I always get the full list of default nodes (with no filtering if I enter them), I have to step a level up and reenter.
This kind of defeats the purpose of my nodes and for now I have stopped my customization of the music video section, until I can sort this out.


[Edit:]
I noticed that when I entered the musicvideos from the music menu I also got the default layout, and I had to copy the modified version from the video menu over here to get it working.

But when entering musicvideos from the main menu i still get to the default layout.

Might this be a skin issue? Is it possible that the home menu item 'music videos' links to some sort of preset?
I have no idea how this could be edited...
[End of edit]



I might take a look into modifying the movies section, but I have not started yet. You said you have modified your video library. Did you document your experience somewhere In some thread so I might read some of your insights before starting?