[rb1604]

hello

I have looked for information on this subject to no avail so apologies if i have missed the relevant documentation.

I am using the latest stable version of kodi and successfully created NFO files for music videos and my movies are all being displayed with good art work from the scrapers.

My question is regarding artwork for Sources and Folders (my collection is organised into categories or actor) and I would like to make it more interesting by displaying artwork for my Sources and Folders (which do not contain any media as such).

I have tried adding jpg files and nfo files within the folder and also at the higher level but to no avail.

Any advice would be appreciated.

[PatK]

my collection is organised into categories or actor

This is a case of micro managing Kodi as a media manager which already has features to handle actors, and different ways to organize categories. IMHO: to do this is a lot of unnecessary work and may be counter intuitive in the end. In the case of actors in most skins, clicking on an actors name, or the search function should bring all the associated titles up (some skins implement this better than others).

Suggest you investigate smart playlists for the actors Smart playlists (wiki) then create an 'Actors' node Video nodes (wiki) to link this up with your library with some graphic icons. Used in combination with your sources will likely allow for unlimited flexibility using rules, path, smart playlists. Getting all of this up on your home screen might be either a trick of a customized skin, or sub-menu favourites.

e.g.

https://imgur.com/xSygg4J

https://imgur.com/gallery/9vbw7bT

[rb1604]

u investigate sm

thanks very much for this which is most informative.
you are absolutely spot on when you say that there is a lot of effort in micro managing the media but the driving force is to give access to my elderly mother who is a technophobe and has difficulty in using a menu.
i will however look forward to investigating the smart playlist suggestion.
thanks again

[rb1604]

i've been looking at this a bit further and it seems to me that what I am trying to do is replace some of the icons associated with the skin eg the folder icon.
The names of the default icons can be found in the documentation https://kodi.wiki/view/Default_Icons

I can also now recall looking at smart playlists in the past and as I have a rather large media library which is used on a number of kodi applications around the house it would take a lot of effort to set this up eg) for all the different actors and directors.
it might be possible to set up an instance of kodi as a server.

thanks for all the input it was very helpful in getting to the bottom of the issue.

[PatK]

Suggest you look at Add-on:Library Node Editor (wiki) part of the function is to assign image icons to folders within nodes. Copy all your smart playlists & nodes to new installations while keeping all the images to a select folder path shouldn't be a difficult exercise.  Re:Syncing and sharing (wiki)

my elderly mother who is a technophobe and has difficulty in using a menu.

Set-up some auto play list that just handles new additions, and let her skip the ones she doesn't like.