[Takis]

@Takis

There have been Feature Requests for what you are asking. A couple of links here...
https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=113370
https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=319733

It certainly is possible to do but like all volunteer projects we just need somebody to step up and contribute the code.

I know Tiny Media Manager (TMM) has this feature in their program, maybe you could Feature Request the developers of the manager to create the dummy files and nfo files which can be scanned into the Kodi library? They can add a videofile tag (maybe something like movie.dummy.mkv) to the filename. Then a skin can be modified to display the entry in a different colour? Maybe @Hitcher or @DaVu would know if that is possible.

This is just a suggestion as I know there is currently no Kodi contributor that has shown an interest to work on this request.

As for pointing to online content for the missing title, I don't see how that could be easily achieved with legal content.

Indeed. TMM does update seasons with new episodes as they are released and that is what I was hoping for, but I don’t follow the dummy reasoning 100% for yet unreleased content - probably due to my limited understanding of how Kodi works internally. I was under the {miss?)impression that the *.strm files stored in the library are an official Kodi process and not furnished by an add on, therefore irrelevant to the status of the actual content they are pointing at once processed.

Anyhow, it is now clear to me that this is well documented limitation so I can stop constantly rescanning after days , trying to figure it out. Downloaded content will just have to remain outside of the library for updates to work properly. Thanks