A simple Parental Control (Mom's and Dads needed)
#1
Hi, I know, many users have requested this feature over the years and it has been many years since the first request. So lets keep the request alive as I am somewhat shocked that this features has still not made it into KODI while competing platforms have it implemented for a while.

Kodi has come far, however still lacks behind in the area of safeguarding our younger generation from viewing impropriate content. Kodi has transformed from desktop based usage initially by techies to "part of lifestyle" usage in everyday life on every flatscreen or projector in our houses. (Yes, it runs my house Blush ) However these environments have made usage of Kodi different as small adults are now picking up the monitor remote and start flicking through it. This has caused considerable stress among moms and dads as there is no simple way of preventing these young adults from seeing the wrong content.

I have seen all kinds of work arounds from adding manually movies and tv shows in age related directories and only adding that directory to the particular Kodi device till hooking up different age related directories to Kodi user profiles. To be honest all of this is unworkable, time consuming and incomplete. Imagine going through 2k movies putting all in age based directories. And in a living room, you use Kodi for all kinds of age groups, so changing Kodi user profiles is unworkable.

So why did any of the Kodi developers start putting this future on their agendas. After so many years of having Kodi around, surely some have young adult now walking around their homes?!

What we as Moms and Dads are asking for is a very simple Parental Control that will not need for us to change to age based directories or using different user profiles, but just uses the default profile (be honest, how many out their are using different Kodi user profiles on Home TV's and Projectors?) and before playing or showing any movie/tvshow/video will check the Kodi database what Rating as been provided for that particular video. The system than checks the Parent Control Settings to see what the maximal Rating for viewing is. If its below it, it will play it, if above, than it will ask to provide a 4 digit pin code which was set during the initial setup of the Parental Control feature. Thats all! Noting fancy initially.

Of course, The Parental Control feature will need to be password protected with the same pin, setup during enabling of it. And if lost you can retrieve it in the advanced settings.xml or maybe sources.xml so the Parental Control settings can be easily copied to all Kodi devices in the house using the advancedsettings.xml path substitution.

Also a simple Rate mapping should be made available in the Parental Control settings so that different ratings from different countries can easily be mapped to 1 User rating system. Lets call this Kodi's Video Rating (KVR). The Parental Control will show a list of all the Ratings available in the database and which have and havenot yet been mapped to the Kodi Video Rating. Any video that is added in the future which has a rating not yet mapped will be shown again to be mapped. If a video has no rating, or the rating is not yet mapped, it will be blocked from viewing automatically by the pin code. A user can add a missing Video Rating manually to the video and have it imported in the next library update.  The user can create a hierarchy of Ratings. E.g.:
  1. XXX
  2. 16-18yr
  3. 12-16yr
  4. 6-12yr
  5. All ages
And than map the different Ratings available in the DB to the Kodi Video Rating. E.g.:
  1. XXX <-- NC-17
  2. 16-18yr <-- R
  3. 12-16yr <-- PG-13
  4. 6-12yr <-- PG
  5. All ages <-- G
For example: if a mom or dad sets the KVR to 4 (6-12yr) than video content of 4 and higher will be played. If video content is 3 and lower, it will ask for the pin code before it can play. Its that simple.

So any moms or dad out their which have the same challenges as us, please bump up this feature request and lets make this trend so that the Kodi team considers this to become a feature. Thanks all!
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#2
And than map the different Ratings available in the DB to the Kodi Video Rating. E.g.:
this could be done at skin level
with the menu linked to mpaa ratings 

rating young
xml:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes" ?>
<smartplaylist type="movies">
    <name>rating young</name>
    <match>all</match>
    <rule field="mpaarating" operator="is">
        <value>rated g</value>
    </rule>
</smartplaylist>
rating preteen
xml:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes" ?>
<smartplaylist type="movies">
    <name>rating preteen</name>
    <match>one</match>
    <rule field="mpaarating" operator="is">
        <value>Rated G</value>
    </rule>
    <rule field="mpaarating" operator="is">
        <value>Rated pg</value>
    </rule>
</smartplaylist>
Rating Teen 13+
xml:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes" ?>
<smartplaylist type="movies">
    <name>Rating Teen 13</name>
    <match>one</match>
    <rule field="mpaarating" operator="is">
        <value>Rated G</value>
    </rule>
    <rule field="mpaarating" operator="is">
        <value>Rated PG</value>
    </rule>
    <rule field="mpaarating" operator="is">
        <value>Rated PG-13</value>
    </rule>
</smartplaylist>
Rating Teen MA
xml:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes" ?>
<smartplaylist type="movies">
    <name>Rating Teen MA</name>
    <match>one</match>
    <rule field="mpaarating" operator="is">
        <value>Rated G</value>
    </rule>
    <rule field="mpaarating" operator="is">
        <value>Rated pg</value>
    </rule>
    <rule field="mpaarating" operator="is">
        <value>Rated M</value>
    </rule>
    <rule field="mpaarating" operator="is">
        <value>Rated PG-13</value>
    </rule>
    <rule field="mpaarating" operator="is">
        <value>Rated NR</value>
    </rule>
</smartplaylist>


like this Image
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#3
(2020-01-17, 07:22)the_other_guy Wrote: And than map the different Ratings available in the DB to the Kodi Video Rating. E.g.:
this could be done at skin level
with the menu linked to mpaa ratings 

rating young
xml:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes" ?>
<smartplaylist type="movies">
    <name>rating young</name>
    <match>all</match>
    <rule field="mpaarating" operator="is">
        <value>rated g</value>
    </rule>
</smartplaylist>
rating preteen
xml:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes" ?>
<smartplaylist type="movies">
    <name>rating preteen</name>
    <match>one</match>
    <rule field="mpaarating" operator="is">
        <value>Rated G</value>
    </rule>
    <rule field="mpaarating" operator="is">
        <value>Rated pg</value>
    </rule>
</smartplaylist>
Rating Teen 13+
xml:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes" ?>
<smartplaylist type="movies">
    <name>Rating Teen 13</name>
    <match>one</match>
    <rule field="mpaarating" operator="is">
        <value>Rated G</value>
    </rule>
    <rule field="mpaarating" operator="is">
        <value>Rated PG</value>
    </rule>
    <rule field="mpaarating" operator="is">
        <value>Rated PG-13</value>
    </rule>
</smartplaylist>
Rating Teen MA
xml:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes" ?>
<smartplaylist type="movies">
    <name>Rating Teen MA</name>
    <match>one</match>
    <rule field="mpaarating" operator="is">
        <value>Rated G</value>
    </rule>
    <rule field="mpaarating" operator="is">
        <value>Rated pg</value>
    </rule>
    <rule field="mpaarating" operator="is">
        <value>Rated M</value>
    </rule>
    <rule field="mpaarating" operator="is">
        <value>Rated PG-13</value>
    </rule>
    <rule field="mpaarating" operator="is">
        <value>Rated NR</value>
    </rule>
</smartplaylist>


like this Image

Thanks @the_other_guy for your response and input. Appreciated.

Not sure what you are telling us here.

What I can read from your gui code is that the code will segment media into these sub ratings groups based on mpaa rating available in the Kodi DB.

This brings me to the following questions and remarks:
  1. What if none mpaa rating system is stored in DB, this will make it very time consuming figuring out what ratings you have available in the DB that you need to rewrite into the gui code.
  2. I guess you will only show the media that has the rating defined in the gui code. However this also means that I wouldn't be able to see or play any other media which is above this rating because its not shown. Than the usage of Kodi in any environment with multiple age groups will not work.
Am I missing something?
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#4
What if none mpaa rating system is stored in DB mpaa only applies to movies rated in the us

However this also means that I wouldn't be able to see or play any other media which is above this rating because its not shown.
this can be locked down to a pin enter pin to show all with out pin kids page only 
i have been working out how to lock a skin down
https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid...pid2917041
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#5
(2020-01-17, 15:36)the_other_guy Wrote: What if none mpaa rating system is stored in DB mpaa only applies to movies rated in the us

However this also means that I wouldn't be able to see or play any other media which is above this rating because its not shown.
this can be locked down to a pin enter pin to show all with out pin kids page only 
i have been working out how to lock a skin down
https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid...pid2917041

Will this work with all skins? Or is it a custom skin you have made? The information supplied in the link is not giving me the full grasp of what you have done with the Rating on gui level. If you have found a way of doing, as I suggested in my original post, please provide more details in steps what you do and what for.
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#6
deleted
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#7
the way i see this working is in lock down custom page custom widgets linked to custom kid friendly nodes / smart playlists  custom menus linked to custom kid friendly nodes / smart playlists

addons can be run from a node or plugin:// link
nodes for movies would need reworking with rating filter 

i am working on a skin i have set it up as 2 custom pages with 5 programmable (tv movies music) widgets un locked 
2nd older kid enters pin and is shown page 1 2 and 3 with 5 programmable widgets
3rd older kid enters pin and is shown page 1 2 and 34
master pin unlocks all
Image
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#8
(2020-01-18, 14:25)the_other_guy Wrote: the way i see this working is in lock down custom page custom widgets linked to custom kid friendly nodes / smart playlists  custom menus linked to custom kid friendly nodes / smart playlists

addons can be run from a node or plugin:// link
nodes for movies would need reworking with rating filter 

i am working on a skin i have set it up as 2 custom pages with 5 programmable (tv movies music) widgets un locked 
2nd older kid enters pin and is shown page 1 2 and 3 with 5 programmable widgets
3rd older kid enters pin and is shown page 1 2 and 34
master pin unlocks all
Image

That is great that you have taking up the task to get something done at least at your end. I do hope that Kodi team will start implementing an integrated solution. Simple to start with, hopefully taking my idea inconsideration.

Have a good weekend.

And if any other moms and dads out there agree to having a parental control feature, please just bump up this threat! +1

:-)
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#9
I will save you some coding, and I will teach you how to become a better parent, without needing to learn how to code.

In the English language, there is the word NO

NO you cannot watch that, NO you cannot have more ice cream, NO you cannot borrow the car, you are only six after all.

Man up and start using it. You are the parent, not everyone else on the internet.

If you want better parental controls, start looking at the so called parent in the mirror.
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#10
(2020-01-19, 16:02)Video Titles Wrote: I will save you some coding, and I will teach you how to become a better parent, without needing to learn how to code.

I'm sure there are forums well-suited for your educational speeches on "How to parent". This forum is not one of them.
Kindly stick to the technical and coding side of Kodi.
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#11
What I do is share my kids media via smb and mine via nfs.  Not only is this easy to follow but my kids devices don't have the required permissions to connect to the nfs shares.  The main living room pc has access to everything, but there is always an adult around.
Learning Linux the hard way !!
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#12
(2020-01-19, 17:31)black_eagle Wrote: What I do is share my kids media via smb and mine via nfs.  Not only is this easy to follow but my kids devices don't have the required permissions to connect to the nfs shares.  The main living room pc has access to everything, but there is always an adult around.

Yes, that is an options, but as our living-room will not always have full supervision, this won't work. Lets hope Kodi will follow emby and plex with parental controls rather sooner than later.
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#13
I wished i could just add a pin to some of the.movies in my library so i dont have to worry that the kid is suffering a trauma from sumbling into a horror movie when no parent is around
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#14
(2020-12-19, 03:42)HanselMeizer Wrote: I wished i could just add a pin to some of the.movies in my library

And how is Kodi to detect who is at the controls of your Kodi setup?
There is no fingerprint scanner or Windows Hello support in Kodi yet.
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#15
(2020-12-19, 11:39)Klojum Wrote:
(2020-12-19, 03:42)HanselMeizer Wrote: I wished i could just add a pin to some of the.movies in my library

And how is Kodi to detect who is at the controls of your Kodi setup?
There is no fingerprint scanner or Windows Hello support in Kodi yet.


If thats a serious question:

E.g. user priviliges that need to be confirmed with a password when you set a pin lock to a specific title. I dont understand what that has got to do with fingerprints...
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A simple Parental Control (Mom's and Dads needed)0