[sleeplesschris]

what am i doing wrong? i'm in the 'Includes_Home' file and this is what appears as content within the vertical menu:

<content>
<include condition="!Skin.HasSetting(Menu_Videos)">HomeVideosButton</include>
<include condition="!Skin.HasSetting(Menu_Movies)">HomeMoviesButton</include>
<include condition="!Skin.HasSetting(Menu_TVShows)">HomeTVShowsButton</include>
<include condition="Skin.HasSetting(Menu_MusicVideos)">HomeMusicVideosButton</include>
<include condition="!Skin.HasSetting(Menu_TV) + System.GetBool(pvrmanager.enabled)">HomeTVButton</include>
<include condition="!Skin.HasSetting(Menu_Music) + Library.HasContent(Music) + !Skin.HasSetting(Menu_Music_FileMode)">HomeMusicButton</include>
<include condition="!Skin.HasSetting(Menu_Music) + [!Library.HasContent(Music) | Skin.HasSetting(Menu_Music_FileMode)]">HomeMusicFilesButton</include>
<include condition="!Skin.HasSetting(Menu_Pictures)">HomePicturesButton</include>
<include condition="!Skin.HasSetting(Menu_Programs)">HomeProgramsButton</include>
<include condition="!Skin.HasSetting(Menu_Weather)">HomeWeatherButton</include>
<include condition="Skin.HasSetting(Menu_Favourites)">HomeFavouritesButton</include>
<include condition="!Skin.HasSetting(Menu_Settings)">HomeSettingsButton</include>
<include condition="Skin.HasSetting(Menu_PlayDisc)">HomePlayDiscButton</include>
<include condition="Skin.HasSetting(Menu_Custom1)">HomeCustom1Button</include>
<include condition="Skin.HasSetting(Menu_Custom2)">HomeCustom2Button</include>
<include condition="Skin.HasSetting(Menu_Custom3)">HomeCustom3Button</include>
</content>
</control>

nothing like this:

<item id="16">
<label>$INFO[Skin.String(Menu_Custom3_Label)]</label>
<onclick>$INFO[Skin.String(Menu_Custom3_Path)]</onclick>
<icon>special://skin/backgrounds/settings.jpg</icon>
<thumb>$INFO[Skin.String(Home_Custom_Back_Custom3_Folder)]</thumb>
<visible>Skin.HasSetting(Menu_Custom3)</visible>
</item>

please help.

[borgmanjayce]

I just want to say that this is a great thread and I'll definitely be trying this out, but I have a couple of questions to ask:

1) Does this work with things like Anime OAV's, Hentai and Tokusatsu (Japanese superhero shows)?
2) I'm using Aeon MQ4 as my skin and even though I can't seem to click on the button for the menu's that I made for each custom playlist, I can't seem to get the anime stuff to be recognised as anime at all, so is there any advice you can offer to people like me who use skins such as the Aeon series, and also if they want to, how to use the scrapers from Anime News Network and AniDB instead of the one from TVDB as it sucks when it comes to a lot of 80's and 90's anime such as Zillion.

[chaddt]

is this info still correct, i tried it but seems to be different, the end result was no menu....
has it changed?

[mngrl1]

yeah im pretty sure some things have changed i've been trying to add the

<onclick>ActivateWindow(Videosfiles,kids,return)</onclick>

but this makes it un-clickable if i put

<onclick>ActivateWindow(Videos,kids,return)</onclick>

it works but displays an empty folder.

fixed my problem

<onclick>ActivateWindow(Videos,C:/kids)</onclick>

[ryankeast]

Hi,

I think I’m getting my head around this guide, which if I’m understanding it correctly, then this is just what I am after to separate my comedy stand up shows.

Firstly, my current set up is a 3TB harddrive connected to my mini PC.
On that harddrive I have folders “Albums”, “TVSHOWS” and “MOVIES”

I want to start adding comedy stand up to my library, but like many do not want it in with my default Movie Library.

So I will create a new folder on the harddrive called “STANDUP”

I will create a source called STANDUP also within XBMC.

First question, what do people use to scrap StandUP and what media type do you use?

I understand the hacking of the xml files but before I start making special smart playlists for the three following sections – TVSHOWS, MOVIES and STANDUP, what I want to check is the following.

I have spent a lot of time and effort going through each of my movies individually and scrapping them with the fanart that I like the most. Can you confirm that the MOVIES and TVSHOWS art won’t be effected by doing what I’m doing?

Thanks to those that will reply and thanks for the originator of this post as this could be the answer to my dreams :-)

[csjjpm]

Hi,
would someone suggest how I can get mine to work properly.

I've added locations to sources.xml
<video>
<default pathversion="1"></default>
<source>
<name>Kids_TV</name>
<path pathversion="1">C:\Users\Public\Videos\Kids_TV\</path>
<allowsharing>true</allowsharing>
</source>
<source>
<name>Kids_Films</name>
<path pathversion="1">C:\Users\Public\Videos\Kids_Films\</path>
<allowsharing>true</allowsharing>
</source>
<source>
<name>Films</name>
<path pathversion="1">C:\Users\Public\Videos\Films\</path>
<allowsharing>true</allowsharing>
</source>
<source>
<name>TV</name>
<path pathversion="1">C:\Users\Public\Videos\TV\</path>
<allowsharing>true</allowsharing>
</source>
</video>

and edited the home.xml

<item id="19">
<label>Kids Films</label>
<onclick>ActivateWindow(Videos,Files,Kids_Films,return)</onclick>
<icon>-</icon>
<thumb>-</thumb>
</item>
<item id="19">
<label>Kids TV</label>
<onclick>ActivateWindow(Videos,Files,Kids_TV,return)</onclick>
<icon>-</icon>
<thumb>-</thumb>
</item>

this puts me into the 'Files' location and I can see my 'sources'

I've tried editing it to
ActivateWindow(Videos,Kids_Films,return)
but this puts me into 'Videos'

any idea how I can get straight into the 'Kids_Films' location?

thanks
Paul

[budswell]

Thanks, I've tried a few of the ideas in this topic and have custom front menu items for smart playlists working.
But I tend to do most of my video browsing on the ios remote, and it does not appear to have any way to access playlists for videos.
So for all my vids which i'd like to keep seperate from the movies (mainly sport) I am stuck with not adding to the library at all and browsing by file.
Is there any other way to get video library playlists and/or "sections" working in both the main UI and the iosRemote?

[Ernie11]

[Edit 2]
After sleeping I noticed what I did wrong, I changed the playlist paths but not the sources paths. I got it working now.

Hello. In the past I used your guide and after playing with it a little I got it to work. The problem I have now, hope you can help me figure it out, is that my main hard drive got full. I went out a bought a new hard drive so now I have 2 hard drives in my computer. I moved some of the videos to the new hard drive to open some space on my old one. I went into xbmc and edited the playlists so that it would look at the D: drive instead of the C: drive when it was looking up certain videos. Now the playlists of the videos on the 2nd drive doesnt work. All I get is the blank spaces with the popcorn background. When I go to the playlists within xbmc and open them I get the same, its like not finding the files. I did "update library" but nothing scans in. Am I forgetting something or am I doing something wrong? Thanks.

[Edit]
I changed the paths in each playlist back to the C: drive (havnt deleted it form the main yet) and all the videos show up again. Doesnt make sense to me.

Ernie.

[lonny]

thank yo so much.. so awesome

[vongikking]

Thank you very much, this helped me A LOT, but one thing wasnt clear for me.

I now have a smartplaylist that shows all my anime...but is there a way so that the same anime does not show on the "movies" tab?

[dgreen]

After watching a show on 17.1, how do you return to home screen without backing out?

[ronvp]

Excellent guide!!, but all this to create a couple of home screen folders??
Kodi needs some serious user friendliness upgrade!''' I have my movies in about 8 folders (Movies, Documentaries, Standup comedy, Animation, TV Shows, Home Movies and Music concerts, Music videos), Why in the standard skin( because that one is really good) after adding these, is it so hard in Kodi to have these show up under Movies, each in their own folder and still have all the same options as under the current "Movies" home screen item? To me there needs to be an option that allows for showing the root folder for each movie category folder.

[the_other_guy]

Excellent guide!!, but all this to create a couple of home screen folders??
Kodi needs some serious user friendliness upgrade!''' I have my movies in about 8 folders (Movies, Documentaries, Standup comedy, Animation, TV Shows, Home Movies and Music concerts, Music videos), Why in the standard skin( because that one is really good) after adding these, is it so hard in Kodi to have these show up under Movies, each in their own folder and still have all the same options as under the current "Movies" home screen item? To me there needs to be an option that allows for showing the root folder for each movie category folder.

based on kodi 18 may work on 17 it is just side menu with no widget screens
you would edit home.xml
you need to add new menu items

xml:
<item>

       <label>$LOCALIZE[427]</label>

       <onclick>PlayDisc</onclick>

       <property name="menu_id">$NUMBER[21000]</property>

       <thumb>icons/sidemenu/disc.png</thumb>

       <property name="id">disc</property>

       <visible>System.HasMediaDVD</visible>

      </item>

the way to set up a link
(links can be made by adding item to favourites \AppData\Roaming\Kodi\userdata just copy &quot;link\\&quot
E:\\=DRIVE PATH
&quot;E:\\Blu-Ray\\&quot;

xml:
<item>

        <label>Blu-Ray</label>

        <onclick>ActivateWindow(10025,&quot;E:\\Blu-Ray\\&quot;,return)</onclick>

       <property name="menu_id">$NUMBER[22000]</property>

        <thumb>icons/sidemenu/blu-ray.png</thumb>

       <property name="id">Blu-Ray</property>

       <visible>!Skin.HasSetting(HomeMenuNoMovieButton)</visible>

      </item>

&quot;D:\\Documentaries\\&quot;

xml:
<item>

        <label>Documentaries</label>

        <onclick>ActivateWindow(10025,&quot;D:\\Documentaries\\&quot;,return)</onclick>

       <property name="menu_id">$NUMBER[22000]</property>

        <thumb>icons/sidemenu/movies.png.png</thumb>

       <property name="id">Documentaries</property>

       <visible>!Skin.HasSetting(HomeMenuNoMovieButton)</visible>

      </item>

&quot;E:\\Standup comedy\\&quot;

xml:
<item>

        <label>Standup comedy</label>

        <onclick>ActivateWindow(10025,&quot;D:\\Standup comedy\\&quot;,return)</onclick>

       <property name="menu_id">$NUMBER[22000]</property>

        <thumb>icons/sidemenu/movies.png.png</thumb>

       <property name="id">Standup comedy</property>

       <visible>!Skin.HasSetting(HomeMenuNoMovieButton)</visible>

      </item>

 &quot;E:\\Animation\\&quot;

xml:
<item>

        <label>Animation</label>

        <onclick>ActivateWindow(10025,&quot;D:\\Animation\\&quot;,return)</onclick>

       <property name="menu_id">$NUMBER[22000]</property>

        <thumb>icons/sidemenu/movies.png.png</thumb>

       <property name="id">Animation</property>

       <visible>!Skin.HasSetting(HomeMenuNoMovieButton)</visible>

      </item>

https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=333279

[atd2]

is this still working?

[User 436809]

4. Preparing the skin, Transpancy!!
Again: From now on, things talk about the “Transparancy!” skin. This will be different depending on what skin you use!

In XBMC, go to Settings -> Skin settings -> Menu. You get a whole list of what items XBMC should or should not show. I only wanted the default “Pictures”, “Music” and “Settings” displayed. For all other categories I would create my own customized menu’s or simply not use them at all (for example, I never play any dvd’s or cd’s).

5. Editing the skin, Transparancy!
The file we’ll be editing is called “Includes_Home.xml”, and is located in “~/.xbmc/addons/skin.transparency/720p/” on my XBMC Live installation. The file location could be different on your system however. As things will be getting tricky from now on, making mistakes is possible. So it’s best to create a backup of your file first. Make a copy, give it a meaningful name like “Includes_Home.bak”, and then open the “Includes_Home.xml” file in a text editor.

Find the line with the following text:

Code:

<include name="HorizontalMenu">

or

Code:

<include name="VerticalMenu">

depending on what menu you prefer. For your information, choosing between horizontal or vertical is done in Settings->Skin settings->Home Window->Horizontal home menu.

After you found the line, scroll down until you see the lines:

Code:

</content>
</control>

Above </content> you should see something similar to

Code:

<item id="16">
<label>$INFO[Skin.String(Menu_Custom3_Label)]</label>
<onclick>$INFO[Skin.String(Menu_Custom3_Path)]</onclick>
<icon>special://skin/backgrounds/settings.jpg</icon>
<thumb>$INFO[Skin.String(Home_Custom_Back_Custom3_Folder)]</thumb>
<visible>Skin.HasSetting(Menu_Custom3)</visible>
</item>

Let’s start with creating our custom menu entry’s. They speak for themselves, so I won’t be explain this in detail:
Between </item> and </content>, add the following, and pay attention to the “item id”, always incrementing by 1:

Code:

<item id="17">
<label>Anime</label>
<onclick>ActivateWindow(10025,"special://profile/playlists/video/Anime.xsp", return)</onclick>
<icon>/share/backdrops/Anime/</icon>
</item>
<item id="18">
<label>Anime Movies</label>
<onclick>ActivateWindow(10025,"special://profile/playlists/video/Anime Movies.xsp", return)</onclick>
<icon>/share/backdrops/Anime Movies/</icon>
</item>
<item id="19">
<label>Comedy</label>
<onclick>ActivateWindow(10025,"special://profile/playlists/video/Comedy.xsp", return)</onclick>
<icon>/share/backdrops/Comedy/</icon>
</item>
<item id="20">
<label>Documentaries</label>
<onclick>ActivateWindow(10025,"special://profile/playlists/video/Documentaries.xsp", return)</onclick>
<icon>/share/backdrops/Documentaries/</icon>
</item>
<item id="21">
<label>Movies</label>
<onclick>ActivateWindow(10025,"special://profile/playlists/video/Movies.xsp", return)</onclick>
<icon>/share/backdrops/Movies/</icon>
</item>
<item id="22">
<label>TV Shows</label>
<onclick>ActivateWindow(10025,"special://profile/playlists/video/TV Shows.xsp", return)</onclick>
<icon>/share/backdrops/TV Shows/</icon>
</item>
<item id="23">
<label>Other</label>
<onclick>ActivateWindow(10025,"special://profile/playlists/video/Other.xsp", return)</onclick>
<icon>/share/backdrops/Other/</icon>
</item>

Now we’ve created our custom menu items and linked them to our smartlists. If you reload the skin (in skin settings, or by rebooting) you should be able to see and use them. If not, you probably made a mistake somewhere.

But we’re not done yet. I dislike the order they are in. As we are using the standard “Music”, “Pictures” and “Settings” , they will be displayed first. I want them alphabetically, with the exception of “Others” and “Settings”, I want those in the back.

Scroll up some and cut the following code (pay attention, 2 times item id 6):

Code:

<item id="6">
<label>2</label>
<onclick>ActivateWindow(MusicLibrary)</onclick>
<include condition="!Skin.HasSetting(Home_Music_Fanart_Background)">home-music-background</include>
<include condition="Skin.HasSetting(Home_Music_Fanart_Background)">home-music-background-fanart</include>
<visible>!Skin.HasSetting(Menu_Music) + Library.HasContent(Music)</visible>
</item>
<item id="6">
<label>2</label>
<onclick>ActivateWindow(MusicFiles)</onclick>
<include condition="!Skin.HasSetting(Home_Music_Fanart_Background)">home-music-background</include>
<include condition="Skin.HasSetting(Home_Music_Fanart_Background)">home-music-background-fanart</include>
<visible>!Skin.HasSetting(Menu_Music) + !Library.HasContent(Music)</visible>
</item>
<item id="7">
<label>1</label>
<onclick>ActivateWindow(Pictures)</onclick>
<icon>special://skin/backgrounds/pictures.jpg</icon>
<thumb>$INFO[Skin.String(Home_Custom_Back_Pictures_Folder)]</thumb>
<visible>!Skin.HasSetting(Menu_Pictures)</visible>
</item>

And paste it in between item 21 and 22.

Next, scroll up again, and cut the code for the settings:

Code:

<item id="12">
<label>5</label>
<onclick>ActivateWindow(Settings)</onclick>
<icon>special://skin/backgrounds/settings.jpg</icon>
<thumb>$INFO[Skin.String(Home_Custom_Back_Settings_Folder)]</thumb>
<visible>!Skin.HasSetting(Menu_Settings)</visible>
</item>

And paste it at the end, behind our “other” group.
Again, reload the skin or reboot, to check on our changes.

We’re almost there, but I’m still not happy yet. By disabling the default “movies” menu item, I lost access to the sub menu of “files”. And that item is important to manually update the library or add sources. What I choose to do was to add 2 items to my “settings” sub menu, for both the music and video files.

Scroll down until you see the following code:

Code:

<control type="fixedlist" id="8001">
<visible>!Skin.HasSetting(Menu_Settings_Sub) + Container(5040).HasFocus(12)</visible>
<include condition="Skin.HasSetting(HorizontalHomeMenu)">HorizontalSubMenuLayout</include>
<include condition="!Skin.HasSetting(HorizontalHomeMenu)">VerticalSubMenuLayout</include>
<content>

Below the <content> line, add the following:

Code:

<item id="8118">
<description>Menu Video Sub Files</description>
<label>Video Files</label>
<onclick>ActivateWindow(VideoFiles)</onclick>
</item>
<item id="8119">
<description>Menu Music Sub Files</description>
<label>Music Files</label>
<onclick>ActivateWindow(MusicFiles)</onclick>
</item>

And now we’re finally done. A home menu exactly the way I wanted it!

Finale
I hope this guide was helpful. It would’ve saved me some time. Should you have any questions or find any mistakes, do tell. And if you found this information useful, leave a thank you message. It might make me write more how-to’s!

EDIT: 24/04/2011: more info on how to create your own sub menu found here : http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?p=7...post782129 

Thank You, so much. This helped me a lot.