[sanjonny]

SInce I just went thru it, if you already have done the readme and have a working instance and want to make another skill to run a different kodi instance using the different invocation instead of by echo device, you can simplify it a bit for first time users.
Please feel free to add/edit/ criticize or whatever and add to readme if it is useful.


I have two kodi instances controlled by the same alexa device.

If you can link one device to one kodi instance then follow the other procedure outlined in the readme. By having the different invocation, I can control my garage kodi instance from any kodi device. The downside is you need to create another skill and directory to do it, but you can use the same user for all instances.

Note that it is much easier to just edit the config if you can tie one instance of kodi to one alexa device. But this method lets you control your kodi instance from any alexa device. It is more work though since you need to create a different version of zappa and directory, and a new skill.

What I did was do the original readme. Then copy that directory completely to a new directory, in my case, my original directory was kodi-alexa and I copied the directory and then renamed it to kodi-alexa-garage. I then did the shortened process below. This is on windows. Make sure your first setup works before trying to add a different invocation.

Code:

cd kodi-alexa-garage
virtualenv venv
venv\Scripts\activate.ps1 (note this is for windows using powershell see readme for different commands for other systems)

You now have to make any changes to the kodi.config. For my system the only change was changing the port number to the new kodi device
In my original config

Code:

# The Kodi webserver only supports HTTP, but if you've set up a reverse HTTPS
# proxy you can change this to https.
scheme   = http
address  = whatever.no-ip.biz
port     = 11114

since I already set the router up for the other kodi instance then my new config was

Code:

# The Kodi webserver only supports HTTP, but if you've set up a reverse HTTPS
# proxy you can change this to https.
scheme   = http
address  = sanjonny.no-ip.biz
port     = 11115

save that and then you are now ready to deploy.

Code:

zappa deploy dev

When that is done, make sure you copy the url as you did the first time. Now you need to make a new skill.
Use the readme to do everything related to the skill, my old skill was called kodi and the original invocation was "the bedroom", for my new skill, the skill is kodigarage, the invocation name is "the garage"

Now assuming you are using the same shared database (mysql or whatever) you just use the files already in the copied directory to fill out the custom slot types and information as in the readme. Do everything else, but in the page where you enter the endpoint, you want to use the new url from the deploy you already did instead of the url from the original skill setup.
If you do not share the database between kodi instances, you can just regenerate them with the python script for the new instance or the webtool. Finish doing everything else in the skill setup and save and you should be good to go!

For me, I can now say Alexa, ask "the garage" to pause or Alexa ask "the garage" what is playing and check if it works. My original was Alexa, ask "the bedroom" to pause. If pause works or you find out what is playing, you should be good to go!

I would suggest saving the directories and in future when needing to update, you simply go to each directory and follow the directions for upgrading in each directory to update each kodi instance.


Thanks so much for all your help and I hope this helps someone!