[GrehnanSondra]

I am looking for some help in customizing the quartz skin for kodi,
I would like to give a bit of info on my setup, why i am trying to customize a really good skin, and what my goals are,
My setup is a home media server running Ubuntu with docker using jellyfin server for my devices around the home. The kodi box is a thinkcentre m93p with a i5 and 8gb of ram running LibreELEC.
I am trying to customize the quartz skin for my 5 year old non-verbal autistic son. I need to find ways to make the user interface as simple as possible for him, one of which is going to be getting a cheap wireless Bluetooth gamepad.. Tested with my switch pro controller works well with some button remapping it should be good to go. After trying a lot of different things (roku stick) different skins i have decided i needed to make something work for me that there was nothing that was going to really fit the bill for my little guy.
The Quartz skin seemed the right choice to mod into what I need in a skin.
The main things i want to accomplish are:
1:Move the main menu to the top of the screen.
2.Have all media load dynamically below based on selection ie Movies, TV Shows
3.Be able to add add-ons to the main menu IE YouTube, Hulu, Disney + exec …
4.Setup some sort of lock so he can't adjust settings by mistake
I am sure as things progress new problems will poke their heads out
I do have some old xbmc(OG Xbox) experience i use to mod my installs, set custom paths, edit memus, So i am not a complete noob when it comes to looking at code, I use to ,make websites in my earlier years when flash was still a thing,
But any tutorials or walkthroughs or anything else anyone could recommend will be a huge help.
Thanks for your time.

[the_other_guy]

looking at the info on the skin
"When I first looked at it, I thought Quartz was an unfinished skin – a work in progress. Soon, I realized that it is rather a raw skin that leaves a lot up to you to customize. It provides a fundamental structure but for the most part, you have to build it up from scratch. If you are new to Kodi, you might want to try other Kodi skins on our list. However, if you are an experienced user and familiar with how the Kodi skins are customized, you might like it.
The home menu is placed from left to right edge in the center and accommodates limited options. Movies, TV Shows, Music, Pictures, Add-ons, and KODI are the only items. Except for the last two, Add-ons and KODI, the other menu items almost do not have any submenu. From the KODI menu, you can go to Settings and start building up the submenu items.
You can enable/disable and rename any existing main menu category. However, you can’t add any new category. Given that it is such a basic skin, I believe the developers should have allowed at least this much.
You can link up to 5 add-ons to any category. When linked, these add-ons appear just above the menu bar. You can add custom background images too from the local storage.
Quartz is not the greatest Kodi skin, but it isn’t that bad either. You may give it a try."
you may be better off looking at a skin that uses skinshortcuts
https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=366400

if you edit Quartz
skin.quartz/16x9/
home.xml this looks like menu

xml:
<control type="image" description="Navbar">

<posx>-90</posx>

<posy>454</posy>

<width>2100</width>

<height>144</height>

<aspectratio>stretch</aspectratio>

<texture>img/HomeMenuBar.png</texture>

</control>

menu items

xml:
<content>

<item id="1" description="MyMovies">

<visible>Control.IsVisible(300)</visible>

<label fallback="20342">$INFO[Skin.String(MoviesName)]</label>

<onclick>SetFocus(300)</onclick>

</item>

<item id="2" description="PVR">

<visible>Control.IsVisible(301)</visible>

<label fallback="19020">$INFO[Skin.String(PVRName)]</label>

<onclick>SetFocus(301)</onclick>

</item>

<item id="3" description="TV">

<visible>Control.IsVisible(302)</visible>

<label fallback="20343">$INFO[Skin.String(TVName)]</label>

<onclick>SetFocus(302)</onclick>

</item>

<item id="4" description="Music">

<visible>Control.IsVisible(303)</visible>

<label fallback="2">$INFO[Skin.String(MusicName)]</label>

<onclick>SetFocus(303)</onclick>

</item>

<item id="5" description="Pictures">

<visible>Control.IsVisible(304)</visible>

<label fallback="1">$INFO[Skin.String(PicturesName)]</label>

<onclick>SetFocus(304)</onclick>

</item>

<item id="6" description="Addons">

<visible>Control.IsVisible(305)</visible>

<label fallback="24001">$INFO[Skin.String(AddonsName)]</label>

<onclick>SetFocus(305)</onclick>

</item>

<item id="7" description="XBMC">

<label fallback="KODI">$INFO[Skin.String(XBMCName)]</label>

<onclick>SetFocus(306)</onclick>

</item>

</content>

3.Be able to add add-ons to the main menu IE YouTube, Hulu, Disney + exec …
away of adding would be to add to favourites
then open favourites.xml
copy the add on ActivateWindow(10025,"plugin://plugin.video.crackle",return)
<item id="1" description="addons">
<label>addon name </label>
<onclick>ActivateWindow(10025,&quot;plugin://plugin.video.crackle&quot;,return)</onclick>
</item>

[nonJon]

looking at the info on the skin
"When I first looked at it, I thought Quartz was an unfinished skin – a work in progress. Soon, I realized that it is rather a raw skin that leaves a lot up to you to customize. It provides a fundamental structure but for the most part, you have to build it up from scratch. [..]

Saddens me to see garbage like this regurgitated here in the kodi forums. It comes from one of these vpn-pushing websites that purports to review and recommend skins but the chump that wrote those words couldn't be bothered to link any media to the build. Hence the "missing" submenu items and other nonsense commentary. Thanks for the graffiti.