[pengipete]

Well, that is something of a "holy grail" you are looking for, and many free / open source and commercial teams trying to get there.  Given the dev resources available to Kodi, I don't think you are going to see what you want actually achieved, except maybe incrementally over time.

scott s.
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I don't see why - everything I've suggested already exists within the existing code for Kodi, it just requires a modicum of lateral thinking.

Put it this way.   I can have ten different drives - HDD. NAS, USB, local or remote - all of which have folders on them containing video files.   I can then add those folders as containing "Videos" (again, the confusing definition of that word within Kodi - it has multiple meanings?) and I tell Kodi that each folder added contains "Movies" - i.e., videos (small "v") that are listed on some online database such as TMDB.  Kodi then scans the folder or drive, identifies which files there are "videos" (small "v") and if the files are also then found to exist in that online database, they are automatically added to Kodi's "Movies" (capital "M") folder within the Kodi interface.   I then click on any entry in the "Movie" folder and it can be played - it makes zero difference where the file itself is stored.  In theory, I could have a thousand separate sources, each containing one video (small "v") file but so long that file is in TMDB, it will be added to and displayed in a single "Movies" folder.    The same applies to "TV Shows" for the same reason - they exist on an external database.

What I've said about NON-SCANNED "videos" is that they could be added to user's folders rather than just ignored.    If I have "guitar lesson" folders on multiple devices, I can't add them to a single "Guitar Lessons" folder on the Kodi interface - that's a real weakness and it seems to me that all that's required is reuse and minor tweaking of the subroutines that place scanned "movies" into a specific folder.    I'd say similar about "Music" - kodi's narrow definition of "music" makes it less than ideal for anyone whose "music" includes more than just commercial albums.   You have to be careful of imposing restrictions on users - fixed, preset "folders" and extremely weak user-defined layouts is holding Kodi back.  Why would anyone bother with such a complicated application just to get a fixed-format list of their old DVDs and CDs - there's a thousand smaller, faster, easier apps that already do that task with ease.   Surely the whole point of Kodi is that it goes beyond those applications - but that also means it has to evolve as those apps do.

Likewise, everything I suggested for displaying "apps" already exists - it's just hidden away in "repositories" and labelled as "add-ons".  What I suggested is to simply display those items in the style of an "app store" so that users aren't left to dig through hidden menus labelled with titles that mean nothing to anyone not already intimate with Kodi.    It's 2022 and Kodi is a GUI - it should be using icons, not menus for these "add-ons" (and "Apps" is a more meaningful term these days)  - no-one thinks of iplayer or Youtube as an "add-on" in any other program or application.

[scott967]

I suppose ultimately users care about content, and not the route to get to the content.  I just don't think achieving that is as simple as you seem to.  Kodi has some features, such as strm files, to integrate different routes to content.   I see the "channel" paradigm as one possible way to do it.   But from what I can tell channel organization is intended to keep eyeballs locked into a route to content (for ad serving among other things).

scott s.
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[pengipete]

My take is that Kodi already has a system of "special folders" - content which matches the criteria for "Movie", "TV Show" or "Music Video" is simply "scanned" to the relevant "special folder".  I fail to see how there can be anything difficult about recycling the same routine for "user folders" so that a user can create a "Holiday" folder in the Kodi interface and then tell Kodi to scan all videos from a drive's folder to that Kodi interface folder.   The key point being that only three specific types of content can be "scanned" - leaving all other content with no real definition, hence the mishmash of trying to collate content from different drives.  

If Kodi let user "scan" all content into "folders" of their own choosing - not just those three special cases - this problem wouldn't exist.   It only exists because there's simply no regard paid at all to user-produced content or anything that doesn't fit those three outdated categories.   That was fine ten years ago when the focus was on replacing WMC - all the content was on the local PC/PS or involved Live TV but that model is now more or less defunct and the priority surely needs to be on making access to all sources totally frictionless for the user - giving them a simple, on-app way to access all of their own vids and photos in a neat, consistent interface.  (The likes of VLC make it vastly easier to find the content - but they lack anything approaching an attractive front-end).  Trouble is, everywhere you look for advice or discussions on putting your own content on to your TV screen or similar recommends VLC and Plex - kodi is seen as an out of date app for pirates to watch ripped-off content - nothing else.  Surely it's to Kodi's developers' benefit to reposition the app - and the simplest way to do that is to make access to user-created content the priority.   (Do people even listen to albums anymore?  My experience is that people tell their smart device to "play some songs by...." or "Play some..." style of music - the days of playing once CD from start to finish are gone, but Kodi is built around ripped CDs.)

Prime example - I have posted elsewhere about an Android based device with a built-in hard-drive - the ONLY version of Kodi that can see and use that drive is 19.0 - not 19.x but specifically 19.0.  No other version from 17.6 to 20.x lets me view or access that drive.  No-one can tell me why - no-one has offered to sort it.   That simply shouldn't happen - a drive that is seen by EVERY other multimedia application I've tried and even by one specific edition of kodi SHOULD be seen and used by ALL versions of kodi; there should never be long-winded techie solutions to simply using a bloody hard drive.   I looked through a huge number of posts and see the same questions being asked over and over again - always about how to access files on commonplace devices and how to add files from commonplace devices to a Kodi folder.  When there's that many more or less identical questions, there's a problem that needs to be addressed.  And really - no general user should have to delve through thousands of (often out of date) posts and convoluted wiki threads or learn about SQL. Python, scripting, hidden files in hidden folders or editing text files to get basic functionality.  Kodi is still evolving but it's surely got to eventually get past the "fun for geeks and insiders" stage - and the biggest step needed is to accept that DVD & CD rippers are yesterday's users and a dying breed, otherwise Kodi will simple die from being a solution to a problem that no longer exists.