[axbmcuser]

@SnakeCRO Feel free to check out the new version.


New releases out now for Kodi 19-22 (17-18 will be following)

Code:

6.7.47 (2025-01-04)

Further refinements to UI font styles (Follow-up to recent Font Rework)

[axbmcuser]

New releases out now for Kodi 18-22 (17 will be following)

Code:

6.7.48 (2025-01-05)

Minor code improvements for for Add-on Info Dialog (cross-generational code)

Kodi 18+ only:

Minor Game OSD improvements (cross-generational code)

[axbmcuser]

New releases out now for Kodi 17-22

All 6 Kodi generations now have feature parity again.

Code:

6.7.50 (2025-01-05)

Minor improvements for Video Info Dialog

Code refinements for Font Rework (cross-generational code)

6.7.49 (2025-01-05)

Minor improvements for Add-on Info Dialog

Code refinements for Font Rework (cross-generational code)
Added workaround for Kodi 17.6 (which does not support includes in Font.xml)

[axbmcuser]

New releases out now for Kodi 17-22

...and some more changes to the SideBar and Video Info Dialog.

Since we have touched all 6 generations of Kodi skin versions with the recent changes, user feedback would be very welcome besides extensive internal testing. :-)

Code:

6.7.52 (2025-01-07)

Improvements for left SideBar
Reworked and simplified "CommonNowPlaying_Controls" within Sidebar

Further minor refinements for Video Info Dialog
Minor code improvements
My Skin: Minor tree restructuring and label improvements

Textures:

Added new icons for SideBar changes (OSDFullscreenFO.png, OSDFullscreenNF.png)

6.7.51 (2025-01-07)

Refinements for Video Info Dialog

- "Movie Set" button is now icon based)
- "My rating" button has been moved to "More options" section
- Custom button label processing (This change is supported by a corresponding update of the "Cinema Helper" add-on)
- Optimized button label dimensions and positioning, Also: Automatically adapting to shorter/longer word lengths of different Kodi languages
- Also adapted changes to PVR Info Dialog

Minor code improvements

Textures:

Added new icons for Video Info Dialog changes (set.png, ratingstar.png)

[axbmcuser]

New releases out now for Kodi 17-22

Notable change:  See changelog in regards to Externalized Skin add-ons

This will make downloading future skin updates in Kodi much faster since the main Skin .zip size has been reduced from ~48.1 MB to ~3.3 MB)

Code:

6.7.53 (2025-01-10)

Externalized Skin add-ons

- Skin fonts and (large) textures have been moved to two separate add-ons
- Updated Skin folder structure (Removed "backgrounds" and "resources" folders, kept empty "fonts" folder with dummy file)
- Updated addon.xml accordingly

(With these changes Skin .zip size could be reduced from ~48.1 MB to ~3.3 MB)

Minor code improvements

Backported upstream language strings to Kodi 17 skin version (Custom backport; Kodi 17 only)
- Uncommented/re-added strings which have been removed for Kodi 18+ skin language
- Re-added #31328 ("Recently added") which is needed for Kodi 17 skin version since it's only available on Kodi 18+ core language

Textures:

Moved noise00.png and posterwall_fadeout_new_dither_2.png from Textures.xbt to textures add-on
(Renamed to noise00.jpg (png2jpg) and edge_fadeout_new_dither_2.png)

Added new icons for recent SideBar changes (OSDFullscreenFO.png, OSDFullscreenNF.png) to both additional UI color schemes

[axbmcuser]

New releases out now for Kodi 17-22

Code:

6.7.54 (2025-01-15)

Reworked Player Process Info Dialog

Add-on Browser: Minor code and rendering performance improvements while using "Wall Views" (Especially affects "Wall 3X" and higher)

Video Info Dialog: Further minor follow-up refinement for "Watched" button while using certain languages with an extra short translation string

Home screen: Header font size slightly increased for recording/timer info (PVR / Live TV)

Changed language strings to "CPU" and "RAM" for Player Process Info Dialog and System Info Dialog
Added CPU temperature to System Info Dialog bottom area (only shown if available)

Removed all deprecated language fallback-strings #416 ("Not available") which have been used by some views (Replaced with "-")
(Internal note: "Not available" aka #416 (Kodi 17) and #10005 (Kodi 18+) is still being used for a visible-condition in the Player Process Info Dialog and System Info Dialog)

Translations

- Updated language strings to latest Confluence GIT master
- Uncommented/re-added language string #31328 ("Recently added") which is needed for Kodi 17 skin version since it's only available on Kodi 18+ core language
- All 6 Kodi generations now use the identical skin language files with the latest available translations (Kodi 17 skin version is not held back anymore; Easier translations sync for future releases)

[axbmcuser]

New releases out now for Kodi 17-22

Code:

6.7.55 (2025-01-19)

Reworked Fullscreen Seek/Progress Bar

- Reworked fullscreen seek/progress bar (Custom solution for better seek/progress sync as a workaround for inaccurate Kodi progressbar handling)
This avoids the seek slider being shown to the left of the current progressbar-progress despite the seek step being forward, for example)
- Increased formerly very low precision of fullscreen progress bar from 100 to 1000 steps for more fluid visuals (This change is supported by a corresponding update of the "Cinema Helper" add-on)
This change is also highly noticeable when playing music tracks, which are typically much shorter in lengths than your 1-2 hour long video files
- Additional Cache Progress Bar improvements and more similar refinements like an increased mouse-control hit area size for improved usability while mouse seeking
- Code improvements and clean-up for better maintainability

Reworked Video OSD and Music OSD

- Moved "Disc menu" button to the end of the left side OSD buttons (Before: The button was placed at the very end of the right side OSD buttons)
- Recording icon size slightly decreased for recording indicator (Live TV)
- Code improvements and clean-up for better maintainability

Home screen: Recording icon size slightly decreased for recording/timer info (PVR / Live TV)
Slightly changed mouse pointer position
General code improvements and clean-up for better maintainability
Minor code improvements including description and (invisible) label changes

Textures:

Removed unused "GoFullscreen.png" (Due to recent SideBar changes)

[axbmcuser]

New releases out now for Kodi 17-22

Code:

6.7.56 (2025-01-21)

Video OSD
- Refinement of the 'Disc menu' icon
(Adapted the disc icon changes to all other icon variants and color schemes)
- Switched positions of 'Audio settings' and 'Video settings' OSD buttons

Music OSD
- Reworked and improved OSD buttons layout
- Added new 'More options' menu button

Added support for 4K Video/Music OSD player buttons; simplified code (Textures will be added in the future)

Video Info Dialog: Title has been moved up by a small amount
Fullscreen Video/Music OSD: "Next"-info below the seek/progress bar has been moved down by a small amount

Improved movie disc detection
Updated high resolution display detection
SlideShow: Fixed 4K texture detection for play button
Minor font type changes for first run helper dialogs
Minor code improvements

Textures:

Added new 'More options' OSD button textures
Updated 'Disc menu' OSD button textures
Removed 'Vizualization' OSD button textures
Updated all 'Disc' icon variants

[poo706]

It's not a big deal or anything, but there is a little bug that I've noticed.  Using a MediaInfo view on TV shows, I often swap out the fanart image for the show.  Sometimes I choose to use a locally stored image instead of the TVDB options.  When I navigate to the folder with my images and press the right arrow, it skips past the page up/page down scroll bar and goes to the OK button.  The only way to browse through the list is the up and down arrows.

[namalone]

I am running Omega (20.5) on a Windows 7 machine with version 5.7.56. I can't open the sidebar to change views in Favourites. I force installed a portable version of Nexus (21.1) on the same machine, and with 6.7.56 I can access that sidebar. Is it just something on my computer causing that?

I have switched off Always force Preset Views on all devices. Are changes to Views all saved in the same xml file, and if so, which one would that be?

I do not see a setting to allow the display of addon version numbers like the lists produced in Estuary. Is that a setting that I am missing?

Thank very much you for all the the improvements you continue to make.

[axbmcuser]

@poo706

Hi, thanks for the feedback.
This is by intent. As you might have noticed, there are barely any scrollbars which are accessible via a remote or keyboard.
Always having this extra-navigation steps to access such a scrollbar via remote or keyboard has more downsides for most users than the very rare upsides and i therefore opted for the variant which benefits most use cases.
These days, scrollbars in similar UI projects are mostly only visual indicators for the user to easily and quickly determine the position of the scrollable content.
Scrolling and also fast scrolling has to be achieved through regular means. Mostly with a good remote or keyboard with a high enough "repetition rate". On a keyboard, page-up/down comes to mind as an additional way

That being said, i fully understand why you would want to have the scrollbar accessible for your personal use case of this exact dialog.

I'll put it on my list to re-evaluate, but i think i even remember when i intentionally removed the navigation step on this dialog while testing while testing. Let's see. :-)


@namalone

Hi, all Kodi versions which still support the old Favorites implementation, i use the old implementation (which had it's own benefits compared to the new one).
Kodi 21 finally completely removed the old implementation and i therefore seamlessly switched to the new one with the sidebar on the Kodi 21+ skin version.
(Both implementations look visually identical)

Since the new favourites has a sidebar, but there are not any additional views besides the already known "favorites view" aka "Icons":

What use do you have for the sidebar of the new Kodi 21+ favorites dialog?


If it would be of a huge benefit for you to also be able to use the new favorites implementation even on the Kodi 20, i could think about adding a hidden but easy DEV CODE for you, which also forces the "new implementation" (with sidebar) on Kodi 20.

(We can't go below 20, because the new favorites implementation was only implemented in Kodi core 20, not below)


Just let me know with some further info - thanks & cheers

I will answer to your 2 additional questions in another message. A bit in a hurry right now. :-)

[poo706]

@axbmcuser

Ok, I got you.  I hadn't even considered that it was on purpose and that the bar was just a visual indicator.  Like I said, no biggie, don't feel like you need to change it based on one user.  I can just as easily map page up and down to my remote as well.  Thanks for the clarification.

[namalone]

I have Kodi installed on Windows 10 and Windows 7 computers, and on a Firestick and an Onn Box (Google TV). I decided to make the favourites items (addon links) and placement match on all four. I used the Sort feature to switch between Ascending and Descending to make it easier. The sidebar did not work on the Windows 7 machine so the process was a little slower. No big deal.