Forced subtitles AND default subtitles
#1
ETA: See message #8 for clarification. The "Default" flag is not set on any subtitle, but the issue and proposed solution is otherwise the same. The thread title would be better stated as "Forced subtitles AND toggling subtitles".

Suppose I have two subtitle tracks in my file flagged as below:

1. Default (Edit: Not actually flagged "Default," but it is the subtitle Kodi would ordinarily select when toggling subtitles, so Kodi's "default" choice for that operation.)
2. Forced

Kodi displays the forced subs (2) as I expect, but it seems that the Toggle Subtitles function applies to it instead of the default subs (1). It would appear that to show (1), I have to go into the settings and choose that track, which is very cumbersome when I just want to replay something that I missed. For example, I've programmed an Apple TV style "What did she say?" feature using Autohotkey, and it doesn't work at all with this. I'd like this to work like it does when the forced subs are burned in and don't exist as a subs track. Is this possible? I'm using 18.8 on a Fire TV 4K Stick.
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#2
There are many different situations where one subtitle would/should/could be favored over another. So if there is a "forced" subtitle stream in an mkv file, then that is to be chosen by default.

Personally I just strip all the unnecessary stuff from a media file (using a batch script using mkvmerge and/or ffmpeg), and all that remains plays automatically. So I end with only 1 subtitle.
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#3
Let me clarify. My forced subtitles are foreign language parts that should always be displayed. My default subtitle track contains the text of the full movie, which I want to display only on demand. When I can, I burn the forced subtitles into the file, so that there is only the one subtitle track, and this issue does not arise. I was hoping that Kodi would treat the forced subs as if they were burned in and apply "Toggle Subtitles" to the default track. Is this possible?
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#4
(2020-10-24, 11:24)crawfish Wrote: I was hoping that Kodi would treat the forced subs as if they were burned in and apply "Toggle Subtitles" to the default track.

Anything can be programmed I guess, but mixing those two subtitles into one in that way was never considered. It isn't a very expected way of handling subtitles if I may say so.
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#5
Thanks, I wanted to make sure I wasn't missing some workaround.

Is what I want to do really that strange? My understanding of the "forced subtitle" concept is that the user has no control over them when watching a Bluray disc; the player always shows them, hence "forced." OTOH, the main subtitles are always available, and they operate as if the forced subtitles don't exist.

Kodi could mimic this by turning off forced subtitles when another subtitle track is selected and then turning them back on when subtitles are turned off. The "Toggle Subtitles" function would work on the default unforced track, turning off the forced ones when toggled on, and vice versa. This should work fine because the "main" subtitles normally contain all the forced ones. I wonder if I can do this through JSON and add it to my Autohotkey code for my "What did she say?" function, which is basically the only way I use unforced subtitles.
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#6
In case you don't know, the l key can be used to switch between the subtitle tracks without needing to go into the menus, this is mapped to the NextSubtitle action which should also be possible with JSON.
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#7
I'll only ever have the two tracks for this scenario, so that could be really useful. Thanks.
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#8
I just wanted to clear up some confusion on my part, which ultimately doesn't affect the goal. I've since come to realize I misunderstood what the default flag is for. It means that the subtitle track should be played by default, not that it's the default track to be chosen when subtitles are turned on/off by "Toggle Subtitles." In any case, it didn't matter for this thread, because while mkvmerge allowed me to set the "Default" flag in its UI, it didn't honor it when it wrote the file, which I only just discovered. This is actually what I wanted, even if I didn't know it when I started the thread.

The proposed solution then is for Kodi to honor the "Forced" flag, and when "Toggle Subtitles" turns on subtitles, turn off the forced subs and turn on whichever non-forced one it would ordinarily select, by default the one that matches the "Preferred Subtitle Language" setting. When "Toggle Subtitles" turns off subtitles, it inverses this operation, turning off the non-forced subs and turning the forced subs back on.
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Forced subtitles AND default subtitles0