[Quaraxkad]

Is there any way to instruct the video player to ignore/skip subtitles that are *not* in my chosen "Preferred subtitle language" option? I want to be able to cycle through the subtitles in a video file using the "Next subtitle" button on my remote, but I don't want to have to scroll through (sometimes 20+) languages that I don't speak. Remuxing the video files without those extra languages is not a feasible option.

[Klojum]

If you have a "Preferred language" set, then you shouldn't need to scroll through 20+ subtitles.
Remuxing a video file is a relatively quick process, and it's a one time thing.
The simplest/fastest way however is to download an external subtitle of the correct language. it has priority over internal subs.

[Quaraxkad]

If you have a "Preferred language" set, then you shouldn't need to scroll through 20+ subtitles.

I should specify, I don't leave subtitles on all the time. I will turn them on occasionally if I couldn't hear something, and then turn them back off. So while having Preferred language set does start off with the correct subtitles, it doesn't stop me from having to cycle through every other language to turn them back off.

 

Remuxing a video file is a relatively quick process, and it's a one time thing.
The simplest/fastest way however is to download an external subtitle of the correct language. it has priority over internal subs.

Both true, however we're not talking about a few files here and there. I have a very large file server, and while not all of them have tons of subtitles, locating and remuxing all of the ones that do would be a monumental task. The same goes for downloading new subtitles for all of the videos, or even batch-extracting English subtitles from mkvs across the entire server.

Besides I don't feel like either of those should be necessary, they're workarounds to what could be an easily solved problem. Though I don't know of any other video player that does it and I don't know why it's not something that all of them have support for, I feel like it should be a pretty standard feature to tell a player "I don't know these languages, don't show me those subtitles".

[Klojum]

it doesn't stop me from having to cycle through every other language to turn them back off.

The letter 't' is there to toggle subtitles on or off. Kodi should stick to the previously selected subtitle language.

locating and remuxing all of the ones that do would be a monumental task.

I can understand that. I use batch files myself with command line tools to have multiple subtitle files get rid of all undesired baggage, such as subtitles, extra audio streams, attachments, et cetera.

Besides I don't feel like either of those should be necessary, they're workarounds to what could be an easily solved problem.

If everything was such an easy problem, developing software application would be so much easier. Unfortunately, Kodi is not yet on a Star Trek level of Artificial Intelligence with voice support. So what seems like a "pretty standard feature" to you, doesn't have to be de facto standard for others.

[Quaraxkad]

The letter 't' is there to toggle subtitles on or off. Kodi should stick to the previously selected subtitle language.

 Unfortunately I don't have enough buttons on my remote control.

[Klojum]

Perhaps you can remap one of the less used buttons?

[Quaraxkad]

Actually, would that even work in addition to Forced soft subs? If I used that to toggle subs on an off, will the Forced subs still be displayed? I'm guessing no because when cycling through them it's either the full subs OR Forced. If that's the case, then that brings me back to having to cycle through all the extra subs to get back to only Forced subs. Initially I just wanted to add a button on my remote for "Previous subtitle" so that at the very least I could cycle backwards and forwards instead of all the way through the entire batch. But it appears that there's only a "Next subtitle" shortcut and no "Previous subtitle".

[crawfish]

Actually, would that even work in addition to Forced soft subs? If I used that to toggle subs on an off, will the Forced subs still be displayed? I'm guessing no because when cycling through them it's either the full subs OR Forced. If that's the case, then that brings me back to having to cycle through all the extra subs to get back to only Forced subs. Initially I just wanted to add a button on my remote for "Previous subtitle" so that at the very least I could cycle backwards and forwards instead of all the way through the entire batch. But it appears that there's only a "Next subtitle" shortcut and no "Previous subtitle".

I've been talking about the forced sub handling for a long time, in particular, the fact that "toggle" doesn't work right when forced subs are present, i.e. it toggles forced on and off instead of switching between forced and main. I see you're in the Windows sub, so you could potentially benefit from the work I've done in Autohotkey to solve the problem, which I briefly described in the linked message. Let me know if you're interested.

https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid...pid3082916

If you really did want to cycle through all the subs in a given language, it would be easy to adapt my AHK code to do that, too.

[Quaraxkad]

Interesting idea, because I can attach such commands directly to my remote control buttons, and not even need AHK. Looking at the documentation it appears that there is a previous subtitle option available. Remote control button mapped to launch a program that executes an HTTP POST to tell Kodi to switch to the previous subtitle... It's a bit convoluted, but I guess it would work...?

[crawfish]

Interesting idea, because I can attach such commands directly to my remote control buttons, and not even need AHK. Looking at the documentation it appears that there is a previous subtitle option available. Remote control button mapped to launch a program that executes an HTTP POST to tell Kodi to switch to the previous subtitle... It's a bit convoluted, but I guess it would work...?

Where do you see that? I don't see a "previous subtitle" command here, just "next":

https://kodi.wiki/view/Action_IDs

What I'm doing is a little more involved anyway. My AHK code retrieves the list of subtitles and selects the appropriate ones based on language and flags. I define the "baseline" subtitle as forced, if present, preferably in the "eng" language, or none, if not, and that's what's displayed by default. Kodi does this part already. My toggle command, however, switches between this baseline subtitle and the "main" subtitle, which is non-forced, preferably in the "eng" language and having the "default" flag set. Kodi's toggle command OTOH just turns subs on and off.

[Quaraxkad]

Where do you see that? I don't see a "previous subtitle" command here, just "next":

https://kodi.wiki/view/Action_IDs

https://kodi.wiki/view/JSON-RPC_API/v12#...etSubtitle

Expand the "JSON Schema Description", it suggests that previous/next/on/off or an integer are valid values for the subtitle parameter.

If I could have a previous subtitle button that'd be enough for me. I don't imagine a whole reworking of the logic behind audio and subtitle language selections is of any interest to the developers, and honestly probably not to 90% of users either who manage to get by just fine the way it is.

[crawfish]

https://kodi.wiki/view/JSON-RPC_API/v12#...etSubtitle

Expand the "JSON Schema Description", it suggests that previous/next/on/off or an integer are valid values for the subtitle parameter.

If I could have a previous subtitle button that'd be enough for me. I don't imagine a whole reworking of the logic behind audio and subtitle language selections is of any interest to the developers, and honestly probably not to 90% of users either who manage to get by just fine the way it is.

Good catch. Hope it works for you, and it probably will if the subs you're interested in are grouped together in the desired order in all your files, and you don't mind having to use next/prev buttons instead of a single toggle button, and Kodi does whatever you consider the right thing when there's only one subtitle. I like having just the one button that does the right thing.

[Quaraxkad]

Good catch. Hope it works for you, and it probably will if the subs you're interested in are grouped together in the desired order in all your files, and you don't mind having to use next/prev buttons instead of a single toggle button, and Kodi does whatever you consider the right thing when there's only one subtitle. I like having just the one button that does the right thing.

Doing the "right" thing would indeed be nice, but I'm not too concerned about it as long as I can cycle through in either direction I'll be satisfied. Worst case scenario it reduces the button presses by half, but in most cases it will still be just a single click to between forced/none to full.