[dcolak]

People, I am at loss with words.

Where the hell is the option to tell KODI NOT TO HIDE PLAYER CONTROLS (play, stop, pause, track length, current position etc.) while the song is playing?

I put the music on, I see the player controls... and a couple of seconds later, controls disappear and visualizer is shown.

I do not want my player controls to disappear! 

How? 

Thank you! :-)

[jjd-uk]

This is not default behaviour with the Estuary skin, so are you using a skin other than Estuary? as some skins have a settings to auto-hide player controls.

[jjd-uk]

Alternatively would you happen to be using a mouse? as mouse movement triggers the OSD menu? then as soon as you stop moving mouse the OSD menu will auto-hide? This does not happen if you use a remote or keyboard where you press a button to open the OSD menu, then another press of the button to hide.

[dcolak]

This is not default behaviour with the Estuary skin, so are you using a skin other than Estuary? as some skins have a settings to auto-hide player controls.

I use Estuary as is. No changes at all. On my RPI4.

It keeps auto-hiding player controls, it's infuriating.

[dcolak]

Alternatively would you happen to be using a mouse? as mouse movement triggers the OSD menu? then as soon as you stop moving mouse the OSD menu will auto-hide? This does not happen if you use a remote or keyboard where you press a button to open the OSD menu, then another press of the button to hide.

I use mouse to control the cursor, no reason to use keyboard, for me.

[jjd-uk]

Well that's your problem then, use anything other than a mouse.

For example with a keyboard using the M key to activate the OSD menu, it will remain on screen until you press M again to dismiss it. Similarly with a Remote either the OK or Menu button could be used to activate the OSD menu, and again it will remain on screen. There's also apps that run on a smartphone that will give you far more control.

This purely a mouse control problem, and that's because a mouse is a very limited device to control an app like Kodi.

[dcolak]

Well that's your problem then, use anything other than a mouse.

For example with a keyboard using the M key to activate the OSD menu, it will remain on screen until you press M again to dismiss it. Similarly with a Remote either the OK or Menu button could be used to activate the OSD menu, and again it will remain on screen. There's also apps that run on a smartphone that will give you far more control.

This purely a mouse control problem, and that's because a mouse is a very limited device to control an app like Kodi.

What you say is not true. I just connected my keyboard and the behavior is 100% the same.

It has nothing to do with mouse.

I do not want to use another device to control Kodi that already has its own UI.

[JBA6]

Hi @dcolak
You are absolutely correct, blanking the controls after 10 seconds is the default way Kodi behaves when playing music.
To stop it doing this when using the Estuary skin you need to add an advancedsettings.xml file to your Kodi setup. It needs to have the following contents:
<advancedsettings>
  <!-- Stop Music OSD from disappearing for 2 hours -->
  <songinfoduration>7200</songinfoduration>
</advancedsettings>

Create the file using a text editor and save it with a name of advancedsettings.xml
It needs to go in the relevant location depending on the player you are using.

On a Windows 10 PC add this file to:
C:\Users\MSI X2B\AppData\Roaming\Kodi\userdata\
Once the file is in place simply restart Kodi to activate.

On a CoreELEC Media Player add this file to the following hidden directory:
STORAGE/.kodi/userdata/

On an Nvidia Shield add this file to the following hidden directory:
Main Storage, Android, Data, ORG.XBMC.KODI, Files, .Kodi (which is a hidden directory), userdata.

If you are using a different player hopefully you can figure out the correct location to store the file from the examples above.

--
JB

[jjd-uk]

@JBA6 That's for the Info OSD which is not what's being talked about, beside that's not needed either, this topic as I understand it is the Menu OSD with the playback controls, settings button etc. If I manually call Menu OSD via remote button press then it always remains until I manually dismiss it via a button press, this is the way it's always been on a default install.

As you're using a RPi4 then what distro are you using? as it seems something has been changed in the one you're using.

[jjd-uk]

To show how it should be working



It's starts with the Info display which by default times out after 10 Sec (this can be changed to be permently on if you so wish without that advanced setting) and then I open Menu which remains there simply by pressing Menu button on my remote which to mapped to M which calls the Kodi Menu action.

[JBA6]

You are correct @jjd-uk I was confusing the Info display, which I like to have permanently displayed along with the synced song lyrics during full-screen music playback, with the player motion controls. I control my CoreELEC player using an air mouse which has the standard navigation controls on the front and a mini keyboard on the back. I press the M key on the mini keyboard to bring up the motion controls during full-screen music playback and as you say they will then remain on screen until I press the M key again. Apologies for any confusion caused. The only thing I would add is that in my opinion the Metropolis skin, once it's configured to suit, is much better than either Estuary or Confluence for music playback with an excellent full-screen music display. Worth a try if you haven't tried it already.

--
JB

[jjd-uk]

@JBA6 your advanced setting is not necessary either, I explained to how change behaviour so it is permanently displayed without that before see https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid...pid2958341

[JBA6]

@jjd-uk an interesting trick but of course it relies on the user being able to press the I key at least once during music playback - a not unreasonable requirement that any user setting up Kodi could be doing it with the aid of a keyboard.

I've not tried your trick on my CoreELEC player but on my 64 bit Windows 10 PC running Kodi 19.3 it doesn't work. If I remove my advancedsettings.xml file, run Kodi, play a music track full-screen, press I to bring up the info display, stop playback, exit Kodi and restart Kodi it still blanks the Info display after 10 seconds of full-screen music playback. This is true for the Estuary, Confluence and Metropolis skins.

My alternative, once the advancedsettings.xml file is in place, does not require the user to make any key presses once full-screen music playback is underway so a standard remote without keyboard can be used.

--
JB

[dcolak]

Hi @dcolak
You are absolutely correct, blanking the controls after 10 seconds is the default way Kodi behaves when playing music.
To stop it doing this when using the Estuary skin you need to add an advancedsettings.xml file to your Kodi setup. It needs to have the following contents:
<advancedsettings>
  <!-- Stop Music OSD from disappearing for 2 hours -->
  <songinfoduration>7200</songinfoduration>
</advancedsettings>

Create the file using a text editor and save it with a name of advancedsettings.xml
It needs to go in the relevant location depending on the player you are using.

On a Windows 10 PC add this file to:
C:\Users\MSI X2B\AppData\Roaming\Kodi\userdata\
Once the file is in place simply restart Kodi to activate.

On a CoreELEC Media Player add this file to the following hidden directory:
STORAGE/.kodi/userdata/

On an Nvidia Shield add this file to the following hidden directory:
Main Storage, Android, Data, ORG.XBMC.KODI, Files, .Kodi (which is a hidden directory), userdata.

If you are using a different player hopefully you can figure out the correct location to store the file from the examples above.

--
JB

Thank you I will try it! I started using Material Unity skin which has the option "do not hide OSD controls during music playback (in fullscreen)."

I prefer the default skin.

For everyone, some of us use JUST THE MOUSE to control Kodi. They are cordless mouses which you can use from your sofa. We do not want to use keyboard, we do not need it. 

[jjd-uk]

Kodi is primarily designed to be used with a remote, the same as any other entertainment device such as Tv, dvd/bluray player, dvr etc, with the on screen controls meant to help with limited button remotes which don't have playback controls.

However with all said, if a mouse is your preference then one of the great things about Kodi is the amount of user custimisation that can be done, and for controls that is in the form of keymap files that are customisable. For more info on keymaps see https://kodi.wiki/view/Keymap

In the keymaps while in fullscreen video or music there's 2 actions:

OSD which brings up the overlay with the playback controls and other actions/settings:



Info which brings up only the info on the playing item



Looking at the default mouse.xml, can be seen at https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/blob/master.../mouse.xml, there's no explictly defined actions for the Visualisation window (the fullscreen music playback window) so this is problem, because for the OSD to remain on screen then a defined OSD action must be done, so it appears there must some default fallback routine for mouse movement. Having looked at what can be done to change this I came up with

https://gist.github.com/jjd-uk/8175be865...573fa58598

Click Raw then use browser right click to access Save As to download, then refer to wiki for where to place.

In this I've add a section for the Visualisation window.

xml:
 

  <Visualisation>

    <mouse>

      <mousedrag>OSD</mousedrag>

      <mousemove>OSD</mousemove>

      <leftclick>OSD</leftclick>

      <rightclick>Info</rightclick>

    </mouse>

  </Visualisation>

So any mouse movement triggers the action OSD, however now because the action OSD is explictly defined it will remain on screen, at least it does for me in my tests. In addition I've added action OSD to leftclick so that you can close the OSD if you so wish to leave the visualisation with no overlay. I also explictly added the action Info to rightclick to match Fullscreenvideo section (window for video playback) which toggles the Info overlay.

However change this to whatever you want for your preference, the file will show the various possiblitites that Kodi can act on e.g. middleclick, doubleclick etc. then see the wiki keymaps page for possible Kodi actions.