[bteamstephen]

I am using Kodi Nexus 20.2 with Aeon Nox: Silvo skin and I have a custom playercorefactory.xml to allow me to use VLC media player to view certain videos. I have it set to use the KODI player as default and to use VLC, I open the context menu, navigate to "Play Using..." and select VLC, then my video opens in VLC...

Is there a keyboard shortcut for the external player - "Play Using..." - function that would allow me to skip these steps - opening the Context Menu and scrolling down past all of the options that I never use.

Ideally, I would like to edit/customize the context menu to move "Play Using..." to the top of this list which would simplify the steps to get to this function, but I have looked around and I understand that the Context Menu is hard coded and I can't change it via .xml files.

So an easier solution would be if I could map a key to my remote for the external player/Play Using so that when it's pressed, the "Play Using..." menu is automatically opened and I would simply select VLC, cutting the process down from 9 button presses to 2 button presses. 

I have tried the keyboard shortcut "Y - Switch/choose player. For example, can be used to switch between internal player or a UPnP target player." but this does not do anything when highlighting a video. I have also tried this shortcut after I have started playing a video in the Kodi player, which brings up the "Play Using..." menu, but when I select VLC it does nothing.

My last solution would be to map a button sequence on my Logitech Harmony remote to automatically do all the steps (open Context Menu, navigate down, select Play Using, navigate down, select VLC) but I am really hoping for an easier solution.



Thanks in advance!

[Hitcher]

PlayWith() Play the selected item with the specified player core.

https://kodi.wiki/view/List_of_built-in_...built-in's

[bteamstephen]

@Hitcher thanks so much for the reply and pointing me in the right direction. This looks like exactly what I need!

However I think I need some more help. 

I created my keyboard.xml keymap file as follows, using the key "g" as it's not used by the default mapping:

keyboard.xml:
<keymap>

  <global>

    <keyboard>

      <g>PlayWith(VLC)</g>

    </keyboard>

  </global>

</keymap>

When tested, Kodi began playing the video in the default Kodi Player and not VLC. So what exactly do I need to put in the parenthesis when using the PlayWith() function?

My playercorefactory.xml is as follows, where "VLC" is the name of the player:

playercorefactory.xml:
<playercorefactory>

  <players>

    <player name="VLC" type="ExternalPlayer" audio="false" video="true">

      <filename>C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC\vlc.exe</filename>

      <args>--fullscreen "{1}"</args>

      <hidexbmc>true</hidexbmc>

      <playcountminimumtime>120</playcountminimumtime>

    </player>

  </players>

  <rules action="prepend">

  </rules>

</playercorefactory>

I also tried using the path to the vlc.exe with the same result.

[Hitcher]

I've no idea, sorry. Maybe post a debug log when you try and it might give us a clue as to what Kodi is looking for.

[SoulReaver]

Try using SwitchPlayer. It seems PlayWith() is not working for some people as an old similar issue by a Linux user was closed due to not providing a debug log so would be nice to see one this time.

[bteamstephen]

I have never shared a debug log before so please let me know if I have done this correctly. paste.kodi.tv made me split it into two files since it was too large.

Kodi.log Part 1
Kodi.log Part 2

I also don't know how to investigate a log file so in case this helps, what I did was:
1. Enabled debug loggig, then closed Kodi and re-opened Kodi
2. Waited for all Library Updates to complete
3. Navigated to a movie, pressed "g" on the keyboard
4. Kodi started playing the movie in the default Kodi Player instead of the VLC external player
5. Closed Kodi and copied each half of kodi.log file into paste.kodi.tv

Please note the post above which shows my playercorefactory.xml which and keyboard.xml keymap file.