Confluence Skin

    I installed the nightly RPi5 build 03-02 and running sweet. Just curious about when Confluence might be available. Please don't beat me up too bad but I happen to like the original Confluence skin. The default is OK but not my favorite and I have trouble navigating. Kinda like an old pair of shoes ya know?

    Best place to look/ask is in the Kodi forums support thread for the skin. Last I looked it hadn't been updated in a while and needed some work for compatibility with Kodi Omega. It's not uncommon for skins to remain outdated until after the Kodi RC releases start or the final release takes place; then people appear, send a few needed changes, then crawl back under whatever rock they've been hiding under. The folks who've maintained it in the past haven't been active/seen for a while though.. so no guarantees.

    I followed the link and instructions and sure enough got Confluence working! It has one small issue I noticed. I click on the Favorites icon and nothing. Any thoughts on a fix?

    I checked on the kodi forum snf found this:

    "2023-10-3 - Removal of DialogFavourites.xml

    Every skin supporting favourites needs to switch to use MyFavourites.xml for Omega instead of DialogFavourites.xml.
    We will remove DialogFavourites.xml for Omega. Replacement is MyFavourites.xml, which is available since Nexus.

    PR that introduced MyFavourites.xml for Nexus: https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/pull/22001"

    Now if I can find out where to change it I will try it.

    Edited once, last by Reddirt: Merged a post created by Reddirt into this post. (March 4, 2024 at 7:51 PM).

    The reason Confluence doesnt work with Omega is there have been changes to the skinning API. Change the version number in the XML file bypasses the version check so Confluence will run. But given you haven't fixed the underlying incompatibility you shouldn't expect it to run perfectly.

    A little bit of background to what I posted above. The skin maintainer I believe is waiting for an Omega Beta 3 release before doing any further work on the Confluence skin. https://github.com/xbmc/skin.confluence/pull/194

    Might be worth your while looking at doing your own bit of skin editing on the Confluence skin. It’s quite simple really. Just replace Confluence for Estuary in this example https://kodi.wiki/view/HOW-TO:Estuary_Modification

    If nothing else it will help you find your way around the skinning process.

    Thanks for the tips on the process. I expected a few things not working but the main reason was our use of Favorites and of course that's the one thing that is undergoing changes. We'll likely manage until it's updated. Thanks again for your help.

    Seems I just had to tinker some more. Thanks to Petedescrete's encouragement I got Confluence working with the new and improved Favorites. I have not checked everything but so far but all seems to work properly. I'm running LE RPi5 nightly 20240116.

    I'm more than happy to share it but seems it's too large to attach. Any suggestions?

    Quote from Reddirt

    Seems I just had to tinker some more. Thanks to Petedescrete's encouragement I got Confluence working with the new and improved Favorites. I have not checked everything but so far but all seems to work properly. I'm running LE RPi5 nightly 20240116.

    I'm more than happy to share it but seems it's too large to attach. Any suggestions?

    Most of what I edit in LE or Kodi is for use at local level only. It’s usually a hotch potch of dirty fixes purely to get over a temporary bump in the road at my end until a more eloquent solution arrives.

    Skinning in Kodi is quite straightforward really and I would encourage anyone here to take the time to delve into it a little deeper instead of waiting for one or two skinners to come up with a solution.

    Like yourself I’m a long time user of XBMC/Kodi and as a result the Confluence skin. Whatever your comfortable with, stay with it. As you’ve now seen you can achieve quite a bit on closer inspection if you’re pointed in the right direction.

    There’s never any harm sharing your achievements either.

    I'm of the same thinking about the skins. I started ten or so years ago with my first RPi . $25 back then too! XBMC , OSMC, OpenElec and finally my favorite LibreElec. I built three i3 powered HTPC systems for family and all running LE for years. It's fun to peek under the hood every now and then and see what makes this app work. Even more fun when I hose up the works and learn what not to do. Still struggling with Linux but able to muddle through and know just enough to be dangerous. Anyhow all systems running great once again and ready for the spring and summer in the RV with two RPis powering our TVs. Life is good.. Thanks again to the LE group for being here.:thumbup:

    Quote from petediscrete

    There’s never any harm sharing your achievements either.

    If you do fix something, send the fixes upstream for the benefit of all. Best case the fix gets merged. Worst case it might be critiqued (coached) for some improvement or borrowed/reworked by upstream devs or another contributor.

    I see the Confluence update was pushed today with the nice new Favorites change. Now you can select thumbnails for Favorites entries and for the sight challenged (like me) makes it really cool!

    Quote from Reddirt

    I see the Confluence update was pushed today with the nice new Favorites change. Now you can select thumbnails for Favorites entries and for the sight challenged (like me) makes it really cool!

    There you go. I knew it was imminent but on the plus side look what you’ve learnt in the meantime. A win/win for you.