[mYnDstrEAm]

I'm running Kodi 19 on Debian 10 and as of that version Kodi does not support documentaries and short films by default (with the default skin).

Documentaries and short films are not Films or Series which are main menu options. Still, they are major types of media lots of people like to consume. Hence this is a really important issue.

Current ways to kind of patchfix Kodi to support these media anyway are adding custom home items (requires a non-default skin) and Video playlists. If they work at all, they are the opposite of convenient, self-explanatory, coherent and user-friendly. This makes the formats largely irrelevant for Kodi as only a negligible share of users does so, making Kodi less competitive to other media centers / forms of media consumption. One problem with these ways is that adding media sources for these formats also makes them show up in other libraries and e.g. "Films" instead of just these documentaries pages.

Here I'm proposing adding support for these two formats. This would work just the same way as Films and Series do, including two new home items. One would simply add a new media source and select "Documentaries" instead of "Films". This would be very convenient, more self-explanatory and more user-friendly.

Even newcomers to Kodi could enable this, making Kodi a lot more interesting to users as it can then really manage all major digital media – from games (at least if using the Lutris-Kodi AddOn) and TV to these formats (no need for switching around anymore and one could manage e.g. things watched or towatch within one app).

If there are any concerns about too many home items or adding new home items before they have been tested for a long time, these home items could by hidden by default, requiring only a simple change if two options in the settings. There's all kinds of possible improvements, like an easy way to add youtube videos to documentaries which are otherwise just local files. Documentaries should not be neglected as they are important for adult education and for an educated public in general; shortfilms are important for being popular too and for new art and artists. The metadata could be fetched (indirectly or directly) from imdb just like for films.

[DarrenHill]

They are sub-categories of the existing TV shows and films classifications. There are no scrapers specifically for them, so making such a distinction is pointless as they would need to use the scrapers for one or other of the main classifications anyway.

The use of custom home items isn't a patch fix, it's the correct way to do it to be more specific within whichever classification is more appropriate for the type, depending on exactly what the media is and how those scraper databases classify it.

[mYnDstrEAm]

They are sub-categories of the existing TV shows and films classifications. There are no scrapers specifically for them, so making such a distinction is pointless as they would need to use the scrapers for one or other of the main classifications anyway.

The use of custom home items isn't a patch fix, it's the correct way to do it to be more specific within whichever classification is more appropriate for the type, depending on exactly what the media is and how those scraper databases classify it.

Sorry, but I don't think that this is correct. As I wrote, documentaries are not movies and there's no need for a separate scraper as usually just imdb can be used.
The distinction is not pointless – and the current way a bad adhoc patchfix – for the reasons I listed which include making it fast & easy to set up, accessible (including normal users who are not as literate in Kodi as you), competitive to other media centers in practice, more convenient and not throwing movies together with documentaries.

[DarrenHill]

Documentaries can be listed under either movies or tv series, depending on their length and their source (and how the scraper site decides to do it).

If the custom video nodes (wiki) (or playlists (wiki) if preferred) are set up correctly, then they can filter things to show only certain genre, type, tags or storage location. Any of those could be used to filter just documentaries.

In the end, the only potential justification for a new category would be if there was a scraper dedicated solely to that category. And there isn't one for documentaries (or short films either), for the reasons previously mentioned.

[mYnDstrEAm]

In the end, the only potential justification for a new category would be if there was a scraper dedicated solely to that category. And there isn't one for documentaries (or short films either), for the reasons previously mentioned.

The request is not about the technical possibility for a very small share of users and potential users of this software to – via a suboptimal costly manual patchfix solution – enable separated documentaries. For justifications please see / reconsider the reasons listed in the two previous posts. The proposal is about proper by-default support for documentaries and short films.

[himey]

If concerts and/or music videos aren't directly supported with the defult skin, documentaries seems like a reach...

[PatK]

Kodi does not support documentaries and short films by default

Well not true, I have a large source of both TV and Movie documentaries, and even a source of shorts. If it's IN the IMDB database, I can always get them into my library (usually using the TT# of the listing). Shorts never turn up with the automated scraper, I'm always digging into the #TT number with copy & paste (but once in the library, an export of separate files maintains the listing).

Ok so I'm guilty of dircect OTA grabbing, and 99% of that stuff isn't handled by most of the public database collections. So you either make up your own .nfo (not time for that). Or set-up a 'NODE' called clips, random grabs, or nice and neat with a folder structure. eg 
In essence, making your source available to your library with no scanner and contains nothing. I do add posters.jpg, fanart.jpg andf thumbs to easily differentiate what I'm looking at, but only on a category basis.

[mYnDstrEAm]

>If concerts and/or music videos aren't directly supported with the defult skin, documentaries seems like a reach...

• Just because something else isn't directly supported doesn't make proposal requests for other by-default support less important.
  
• Music videos are directly supported by default in Kodi v19 (imo the YouTube addon needs to be fixed though and e.g. not require a developer API key)
  
• Documentaries are more similar to movies and series that Kodi is predominantly used for, are more widely consumed in a way relevant to Kodi (Kodi is a perfect use-case) and documentaries are a more popular type of media than recordings of concerts
  

Well not true, I have a large source of both TV and Movie documentaries, and even a source of shorts. If it's IN the IMDB database, I can always get them into my library (usually using the TT# of the listing). Shorts never turn up with the automated scraper, I'm always digging into the #TT number with copy & paste (but once in the library, an export of separate files maintains the listing).

Ok so I'm guilty of dircect OTA grabbing, and 99% of that stuff isn't handled by most of the public database collections. So you either make up your own .nfo (not time for that). Or set-up a 'NODE' called clips, random grabs, or nice and neat with a folder structure. eg [images]
In essence, making your source available to your library with no scanner and contains nothing. I do add posters.jpg, fanart.jpg andf thumbs to easily differentiate what I'm looking at, but only on a category basis.

I think you misunderstood/misread what this proposal request is about: it's not about adding the technical possibility to feature documentaries and short films: as said it's about by-default separated documentaries via new home entries and separate media sources.

Thanks for the useful information about nodes, yet again it's about proper by-default support for this and not allowing some very small share of computer users who are both technically and Kodi-savvy and are ready to take quite a bit of time and effort to get this working for their individual media center. However easy it may be to get it working via "nodes" it's a suboptimal costly manual "patchfix" solution and not what this is about. If there are concerns about too many entries in the home panel one could make it a highly visible option in the general settings (i.e. "Show documentaries [y/n]") that's disabled by default (at least for now).

[PatK]

YouTube addon needs to be fixed though and e.g. not require a developer API key

I would agree, but bet Youtube management wouldn't. Youtube without commercials.. ?? damned if you do damned if you don't.

Proposal requests for by-default support is what this thread is all about, no issues there. I'm not a big music Kodi user, but if it works then Kudo's to this development. Documentaries can be a broadcast series, or individual movies so I'll always check the various meta-database online to see what scraper category fits, if it all (sometimes I'll use file name scraper, which isn't a scraper at all NFO files (wiki) ) to make the .nfo if I'm lazy (which is often).

think you misunderstood/misread what this proposal request is about

Indeed, getting the gist of your post we can see there is room for refinement. Be sure there is almost constant discussion of the future road map, detail driven architecture of the software behind the scenes. As previously discussed Kodi is a work-in-progress, open source for the community at large to contribute ideas, code, and efforts etc. Understanding Kodi history would likely bring some clarification to perceived shortfalls. Authors, developers and contributors are all part of the make up of this community and as I review 'other' competitive products, nothing comes close to what Kodi is from my bias view point  
 

documentaries are a more popular type of media than recordings of concerts

Oops.. think you might get a challenge on that statement, but perhaps not by me. Digging into Kodi categories one could see Music Videos as just a basic alterable node.

via "nodes" it's a suboptimal costly manual "patchfix" solution

Configuration of multimedia software is less than intuitive in many cases, consequently there are many work-arounds, and patchfix solutions, but key here is there IS options.

[esp123]

I'm running Kodi 19 on Debian 10 and as of that version Kodi does not support documentaries and short films by default (with the default skin).

Documentaries and short films are not Films or Series which are main menu options. Still, they are major types of media lots of people like to consume. Hence this is a really important issue.

Current ways to kind of patchfix Kodi to support these media anyway are adding custom home items (requires a non-default skin) and Video playlists. If they work at all, they are the opposite of convenient, self-explanatory, coherent and user-friendly. This makes the formats largely irrelevant for Kodi as only a negligible share of users does so, making Kodi less competitive to other media centers / forms of media consumption. One problem with these ways is that adding media sources for these formats also makes them show up in other libraries and e.g. "Films" instead of just these documentaries pages.

Here I'm proposing adding support for these two formats. This would work just the same way as Films and Series do, including two new home items. One would simply add a new media source and select "Documentaries" instead of "Films". This would be very convenient, more self-explanatory and more user-friendly.

Even newcomers to Kodi could enable this, making Kodi a lot more interesting to users as it can then really manage all major digital media – from games (at least if using the Lutris-Kodi AddOn) and TV to these formats (no need for switching around anymore and one could manage e.g. things watched or towatch within one app).

If there are any concerns about too many home items or adding new home items before they have been tested for a long time, these home items could by hidden by default, requiring only a simple change if two options in the settings. There's all kinds of possible improvements, like an easy way to add youtube videos to documentaries which are otherwise just local files. Documentaries should not be neglected as they are important for adult education and for an educated public in general; shortfilms are important for being popular too and for new art and artists. The metadata could be fetched (indirectly or directly) from imdb just like for films.

From a technical point of view (ie the way Kodi actually works/functions - backend, etc.), Kodi supports all Audio and Visual media. Weather its tv/docos/movies/personal vids or anything else, is really irrelevant.

From a USER point of view, Kodi support for custom menus is not very user friendly.

Perhaps the request should be to allow anyone to simply EDIT/ADD/DELETE all menu's/sub-menus, and link them to eithr Kodi Functions (which would include being able to browse to a folder, and automatically list the contents like that of the existing main menus - 'Movies' and 'TV Shows' rather than just Folders).

Rather than having the old locked-in Movies and "TV Shows", etc. main menus, which really show Kodi's age...

[DarrenHill]

Perhaps the request should be to allow anyone to simply EDIT/ADD/DELETE all menu's/sub-menus, and link them to eithr Kodi Functions (which would include being able to browse to a folder, and automatically list the contents like that of the existing main menus - 'Movies' and 'TV Shows' rather than just Folders).

Many skins already do allow this.

The default one does not, deliberately so as it's kept simple for usability across our entire user base. But it's not exactly rocket science to swap to another skin and do it there.

[mYnDstrEAm]

Just to be clear: this about the default skin, not anything that doesn't come bundled and preconfigured with Kodi.
There isn't any new progress on this, is there (if so please add a reply in this thread)?

Here I proposed a new view for the "Genre" page of the default skin, which could also show Documentaries and Short films. This would be useful if the "Movies" page could be made (by default) to not show Documentaries and Short films - for example by filtering the genres or by having separate excluded media sources for them. It could look roughly like so (and could be made highly configurable):
For some details see the post over there. I think the lack of by-default support (meaning available, preconfigured and accessible at first Kodi start) for documentaries and a multi-genre page that also shows items per genre are probably some of the few most important features that could be added this year.

[the_other_guy]

Just to be clear: this about the default skin, not anything that doesn't come bundled and preconfigured with Kodi.
There isn't any new progress on this, is there (if so please add a reply in this thread)?

Here I proposed a new view for the "Genre" page of the default skin, which could also show Documentaries and Short films. This would be useful if the "Movies" page could be made (by default) to not show Documentaries and Short films - for example by filtering the genres or by having separate excluded media sources for them. It could look roughly like so (and could be made highly configurable):
For some details see the post over there. I think the lack of by-default support (meaning available, preconfigured and accessible at first Kodi start) for documentaries and a multi-genre page that also shows items per genre are probably some of the few most important features that could be added this year.

this can be done by making a playlist 
saved in skin folder 
edit home.xml
new widget with <param name="content_path" value="special://skin/playlists/taged files.xsp"/>

[mYnDstrEAm]

this can be done by making a playlist 
saved in skin folder 
edit home.xml
new widget with <param name="content_path" value="special://skin/playlists/taged files.xsp"/>

Great! So it seems to be really simple to implement. 
My feature request proposal is about a preconfigured view that's available by-default with the default-installation of Kodi. It's not about a way for a very small group of experienced powerusers that are tech-savvy plus have the time, skills and interest to first know that this is what they want to have, then to successfully look up how it could be done and then manually implement it.

Imagine if people were expected to edit and configure xml files to get modern user-friendly views for popular online streaming services.
This is partly what I meant when I wrote that I think implementing this is very important or probably even critical for making Kodi a competitive, up-to-date, useful (and user-friendly) media center. Knowing how it could be configured is very useful info as it may make it very quick and simple to implement, meaning that this would be a feature request with a tremendous return for spent time/effort to implement.

[jjd-uk]

The best that could be done is probably a double list view, so something similar to



With the list of Genre types replacing Artists on the left and the list of movies of that type on the right replacing Albums in that screenshot.

To do to it how you want can only be done currently with manual work as it's simply not possible for a skin to do this in any sort of automated way. While it would me nice if such things could be done, it will likely require someone from the community to step up and make the necessary improvements to the core GUI engine that skins depend on.