[Fuddster]

Hello Myth!

! ! ! This Tutorial Section is AWESOME ! ! !

Rearanged this for Neon and everything is working BEAUTIFULLY!!!!!!

THANK U VERY MUCH!!!!

Fuddster

[Fizzer]

Myth!!

Awesome!!! I know it's basic stuff.. But when ya first starting on XBMC this sort of info is PRICELESS!!!

Leading me onto further Menu ,mods..

THANKS!!

[Anasazi]

Thx for this tut Myth, it is extremely well writen and easy to follow..

I've added some mods to make it work in windows, but everything works perfectly for me..

I just have som questions:

1. When the menu is vertical, which i prefer, and you create about 8 menues they start hidding in the bottom of the screen.

my home menu looks like this
-Movies
-Movies 3D
-Cartoons
-Tv Shows
-Superhero Movies
-Superhero Series
-Animated Superhero Movies
-Animated Superhero Series
-Settings

Now settings is only half shown and i would still like to add "Dokumentaries" and "comedy" but then it would hide even further.

2. secondly i would like to make the menus wider because my tiltles are a bit long (ex. Animated superhero movies and Animated Superhero Series). Both titles only show Animated super... It would be cool to streech so i can view the whole title.

Hope someone has an idea to this.

/azi

[gmhhsv99]

Hi Myth and Others..

This is a great thread, and I have finally added Documentaries etc to the Home Screen.

I Can see that sub-menus is mentioned, and i have tried, but for the life of me, i cant find the way to add a sub-menu to confluence.

Bascially i want to have in the home screen:-


- DOCUMENTARIES
- Submenu - BBC
- Submenu - Nat Geo
- Submenu - Discovery Channel


I am sure you get the point and obviously BBC, Nat Geo and Disco will link to the smart Playlist I have already created.

If I could just have someone point me in the right direction regarding the Confluence Skin Sub-Menus, I would appreciated it alot.

Keep up the good work everyone.

Gmhhsv99

[Ryonez]

Hi Myth,

There is only one thing you haven't added - how the tell the skin to realign the menu categories. I've made the menu's to my liking, however the sub-menu's don't line up.

My layout is:

Weather (DEFAULT)
Anime (CUSTOM)
--Anime Series
--Anime Movies
--AMV's
Movies (CUSTOM)
TV Shows (CUSTOM)
Music (DEFAULT)
--(The default sub-menus)
Pictures (DEFAULT)
Settings
--(The recommended music and video file browser)
--(The default sub-menus)

I've sorted the backgrounds to what I want and the last thing is to align the menu buttons.

A rough example:

Code:

======
             ======
-------------======
-------------
-------------
-------------
-------------

The ====== are the sub-menus and the ---------- are the main categories.


I'm using the latest Transparency Skin(Well modified now )

Looking forward to you response.

Ryonez

[Myth]

Looking forward to you response.

Ryonez

Hey Ryonez. I'm guessing you are using the vertical menu from Transparancy? I'll be honest, I added some "info" about where and what to change for the vertical menu, but never actually tried it.

If I could just have someone point me in the right direction regarding the Confluence Skin Sub-Menus, I would appreciated it alot.

Keep up the good work everyone.

Gmhhsv99

Unfortunatly I have not done this with the Confluence skin. Though i'm sure it's probably quite identical, it would require some time for me to have a look, and write it down. I wrote this topic when I had quite a bit of spare time. Nowadays that time has become very limited. For which, I must apologize. I wanted this to be a helpful for anyone, but even while writing the post it was clear to me this wouldn't be very helpful for none-transparancy users.

In the end though, i'm hoping "custom categories" will become a default thing in XBMC, and every skin will have built in capabilities for this. Not some so-so imitation hacks that are currently implemented in many of them.

@Anasazi: I don't know either. Hate to disappoint all of you.

[Ryonez]

Hey Ryonez. I'm guessing you are using the vertical menu from Transparancy? I'll be honest, I added some "info" about where and what to change for the vertical menu, but never actually tried it.

As you seem to have a lot of experience with this skin, do you have any idea where to start looking. I'm not used to xml files and there a TON of lines

EDIT: From what I can see, because some of the main categories were removed, it thinks that there is only four(in my case). Even though we've added more, the settings haven't been modified to tell it there is more, and it has aligned the sub-menu's for 4 categories instead of 7.

This would suggest that there is a setting for this somewhere, I just don't know where.

Cheers,

Ryonez

[GR00F]

Hi guys

Im new to XBMC and this looks like its exactly what I need.

As I'm a complete noob with xbmc and have done no file editing how would I create home menus for 3 seperate folders MOVIES (already there), UNWATCHED MOVIES & ANIMATION. Thats pretty much all I want on the home menu really.

All my films are stored on an external hard drive under drive X:\

Does xbmc see shortcuts? As I was previously using mediabrowser I used to have my movies and unwatched in the same folder with a shortcut to the unwatched folder. I then deleted the film outside of mediabrowser when it had been watched.

Would this work with xbmc?

Thanks for any help anyone can give on how to adjust the code to show my movies on the menu.

[steve1977]

This is indeed a very cool tutorial, very well done. Thank you!!!

A few questions:

1) When building a playlist for all movies excl 3D movies, will this still allow me to have XBMC later sort (e.g., only 2010 movies) or does this ability "die" when working with a playlist rather than the full library?

2) When removing "TV Shows" in main menu and replacing with a new "custom button TV Shows", how can I keep the "recently added script functioning?

3) Anyone has tried whether all of this is still working with the new DB structure in Eden?

4) Anyone figured out yet what's the easiest way to have changes "survive" an skin and/or XBMC update?


Again, thanks so much!!!

[chemlab]

ok so i'm having probs getting my files to show up so i've got something wrong. i want to add buttons for Comedians, Home Movies & Music Videos.
i've managed to get the button to show up on the home menu but when i
select it i get a blank box.
xbmc is on c: drive, all my media is on d: drive with the following mapping..

d:\
Comedians
Movies
Music Videos
Tv Shows

settings as such ..

Comedians.xsp

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes" ?>
<smartplaylist type="movies">
<name>Comedians</name>
<match>one</match>
<rule field="path" operator="startswith">d:/Comedians/</rule>
<order direction="ascending">title</order>
</smartplaylist>

i've also tried /Comedians/, /d/Comedians/, smb://servername/Comedians/

and button ..

<item id="17">
<label>Comedians</label>
<onclick>ActivateWindow(10025,"special://profile/playlists/video/Comedians.xsp",return)</onclick>
</item>

for now i'm just trying to get a listing to work so i haven't done anything
for fanart/icons etc. any help would be appreciated thx.

[Myth]

Did you add them to your library? XBMC smartlists filter your library for items matching your rules.

[chemlab]

ah ya that was the problem, i wasn't scraping these folders. (duh) i fixed using the
<onclick>ActivateWindow(VideoFiles, "folder_here", return)</onclick> line. thx for this
hack/edit , i love my skin even more now

[cank]

Great idea. I got this working in Confluence by going to the Home.xml file. I found the right location when I searched for "Weather". It took me right to the spot where the item id's are, added the code and bam, new home menu items listed!

However, I haven't found where I can add the Sub Menu code, but for now I still have the Video menu.

This is Awesome. xbmc gets better every day!

[stealthy1]

Hey meth, great tutorial.

I am also having a little trouble like Chemlab, when clicking into Docos, it comes up with nothing. I have already added them to my library.

I am however using Aeon Nox, and have just gone into settings>skin>playlist>Add Video Playlist to Home Menu, and added Docos into there.

My docos folder is located at T:/Docos/

[shinner]

Nice tutorial for a very frequently asked question. It's rather code-y though. Can you update the opening post to mention that you can create the smart playlist within XBMC too, not just writing it from scratch?

Also, most skins allow you to add favorites to the home menu, so an alternative is to add the playlist to favorites, then add them. Easier than editing the xml by hand, and skin updates won't break it. Some skins allow adding video playlist to the menu straightaway (I know Aeon Nox does).