2018-03-23, 17:36
Apologies if this is the wrong spot for this post - it's kind of just a discussion topic but perhaps a little support can assist, and in the end it could be a long winded feature request...
One thing that's always bugged me about video organization in Kodi is its limit of three video types of TV Shows, Movies and Music Videos. I have tons of documentaries; some are considered Movies and others are considered TV Show episodes. So there is no "one-stop shopping" location where I can browse my documentaries.
So there are a couple ways to kind of accomplish a Documentaries menu with views onto just that content. Playlists, genres and even tags can assist in sorting and viewing what 'ya got. Being flexible with the directory structure of where the media is stored is helpful also. But somehow I just can't seem to get it absolutely correct, to my personal way of thinking and browsing. And I don't want the maintenance overhead of massaging genre and tagging new stuff. Then I discovered Video Nodes and its gotten me closer to where I want to be with a couple of exceptions.
Note that I'm using a skin which allows for flexible menu configuration, I don't think much of this will make much sense or be usable with the default Kodi skin.
"Documentary Films" and "Documentary Series" are two media source folders on my NAS, separate entirely from my "Movies" and "TV Series" source folders. I also have "Animated Movies" and "Comedians" source folders, which I'll deal with in the future, possibly.
So using the Node Editor addon I created a new parent Video node called Documentaries adjacent to the three Kodi default ones. Under this node I create two more parent nodes called Documentary Films and Documentary Series. Inside each of these I create a Rule that uses the Path directive to limit the node to the appropriate source folder. Easy peasy.
Each of these two new parent nodes automatically contain the default nodes of Genres, Title, Year, Actors, Directors, Studios, Countries, Tags and Recently Added (Movies or Episodes). And all work great, showing only the content in the Path rule... Except the Recently Added node which shows the recently added movies or TV episodes (depending on which you're looking at) for the global video library. So I'm seeing new episodes of Gotham alongside new episodes of American Experience. And Star Wars: Episode III alongside Ferrari 512B.
OK, not down and out yet... Back to Playlists: Create one called NewDocFilms, select by path, sort by date and limit to, say, 25. Similarly make one for NewDocEpisodes. Job done... Except...
The Skin Widgets addon which attractively displays the recently added TV Episodes and Movies above your TV Shows and Movies menu items will contain the new documentary stuff that isn't represented in those menus (I customized these menu items to exclude documentary content using playlists once I got the Documentary node working, and this could also be done by editing their default Kodi nodes).
And if you use the Skin Widget for the Documentaries menu item you have to choose Movie or Episode, but either way it will include the global video library, not just documentaries as I assume it's based on the default Kodi Recently Added... nodes.
OK, Playlists to the rescue again. Depending on your skin, you can add either the NewDocFilms or NewDocEpisodes playlists as Widget Sets for the new Documentaries menu item. Similarly, NewXXX playlists can be created for Movies and TVEpisodes to exclude documentary stuff from those menus.
Problems? Yep. It's a kludge, especially this last part. It's noticeably slower generating the views using these widgets instead of the skin widgets addon. I believe it's all down to the Kodi Recently Added node and its global nature. Why it can't limit its scope to just the parent node its in is beyond me.
I would love to hear about a simpler way around this. Simple is elegant. Lean is mean. Two or more heads are better than one...
Cheers,
Robert
One thing that's always bugged me about video organization in Kodi is its limit of three video types of TV Shows, Movies and Music Videos. I have tons of documentaries; some are considered Movies and others are considered TV Show episodes. So there is no "one-stop shopping" location where I can browse my documentaries.
So there are a couple ways to kind of accomplish a Documentaries menu with views onto just that content. Playlists, genres and even tags can assist in sorting and viewing what 'ya got. Being flexible with the directory structure of where the media is stored is helpful also. But somehow I just can't seem to get it absolutely correct, to my personal way of thinking and browsing. And I don't want the maintenance overhead of massaging genre and tagging new stuff. Then I discovered Video Nodes and its gotten me closer to where I want to be with a couple of exceptions.
Note that I'm using a skin which allows for flexible menu configuration, I don't think much of this will make much sense or be usable with the default Kodi skin.
"Documentary Films" and "Documentary Series" are two media source folders on my NAS, separate entirely from my "Movies" and "TV Series" source folders. I also have "Animated Movies" and "Comedians" source folders, which I'll deal with in the future, possibly.
So using the Node Editor addon I created a new parent Video node called Documentaries adjacent to the three Kodi default ones. Under this node I create two more parent nodes called Documentary Films and Documentary Series. Inside each of these I create a Rule that uses the Path directive to limit the node to the appropriate source folder. Easy peasy.
Each of these two new parent nodes automatically contain the default nodes of Genres, Title, Year, Actors, Directors, Studios, Countries, Tags and Recently Added (Movies or Episodes). And all work great, showing only the content in the Path rule... Except the Recently Added node which shows the recently added movies or TV episodes (depending on which you're looking at) for the global video library. So I'm seeing new episodes of Gotham alongside new episodes of American Experience. And Star Wars: Episode III alongside Ferrari 512B.
OK, not down and out yet... Back to Playlists: Create one called NewDocFilms, select by path, sort by date and limit to, say, 25. Similarly make one for NewDocEpisodes. Job done... Except...
The Skin Widgets addon which attractively displays the recently added TV Episodes and Movies above your TV Shows and Movies menu items will contain the new documentary stuff that isn't represented in those menus (I customized these menu items to exclude documentary content using playlists once I got the Documentary node working, and this could also be done by editing their default Kodi nodes).
And if you use the Skin Widget for the Documentaries menu item you have to choose Movie or Episode, but either way it will include the global video library, not just documentaries as I assume it's based on the default Kodi Recently Added... nodes.
OK, Playlists to the rescue again. Depending on your skin, you can add either the NewDocFilms or NewDocEpisodes playlists as Widget Sets for the new Documentaries menu item. Similarly, NewXXX playlists can be created for Movies and TVEpisodes to exclude documentary stuff from those menus.
Problems? Yep. It's a kludge, especially this last part. It's noticeably slower generating the views using these widgets instead of the skin widgets addon. I believe it's all down to the Kodi Recently Added node and its global nature. Why it can't limit its scope to just the parent node its in is beyond me.
I would love to hear about a simpler way around this. Simple is elegant. Lean is mean. Two or more heads are better than one...
Cheers,
Robert
