[rmrector]

Would it be possible to add a backup settings option for Artwork Beef?

Not in Artwork Beef. It is a single folder "userdata/addon_data/script.artwork.beef/", or use the Backup add-on to back up all "Addon data".

 

Is there any way to have AB automatically grab episode fanart when a new show is added?

Nope. They add a bundle of new API calls to The Movie Database and just aren’t available for many series.

 

Where the as Kodi Wiki, https://kodi.wiki/view/Movie_artwork#Extra_Fanart, extrafanart\extrathumbs states numbering should be from 0-9 (max 10 images).

The Kodi wiki describes one possible way to store artwork in the extra folders, but it is not the only way. Kodi doesn't support those folders in any way, I don't suggest skins use the folders directly but if they do they generally do not care what the image files inside are called, and other well-designed tools should support images in those folders no matter the filename.

 

Another issue just found is with movie titles with illegal characters. Artwork Beef fails to save local artwork

Something with Kodi on Windows causes this to not work right, and I'm not sure how to fix it. Is this drive a Samba share? I see this issue with Kodi's "smb://" paths, but NFS works well. If you open the context menu for that movie set and run "AB: Add missing artwork" does it still throw an error? If so, what version of Artwork Beef and Kodi are you using? I will need a Kodi debug log to investigate further, and while recording the log run "AB: add missing artwork" on that movie set.

 

Artwork beef adds artwork to my artist information folder but doesn't create an extrafanart folder. is there an option for this?

No. I may reconsider adding an option in the future.

 

Just out of interest, is there any way to save video artwork to a centralized folder yet?

No, but it is high on the list.
 

Is there any functionality present or planned that will show the artwork dimensions while previewing in manual mode?

  
This information is already shown for artwork from web services. It is available to skins as "ListItem.Label2" right next to the image rating, but perhaps your skin does not display that label.