Posts by LybsterKodi

I'm using Favourites to list the series currently being watched (right now: Robin's Nest, The Saint, Only Fools and Horses, Homeland). Itis doing what I want and I thought I'd change "Favourites" to "Watching". No problem with Home.xml but strings.po in the skin (eg "Add to Favourites") is giving me trouble. I can edit strings.po with Notepad++ but a) I end up with a much larger file (16kb -> 553 kb) and b) it doesn't work.

It seems to work if I edit strings.po in the Kodi system rather than the skin. I don't want to do this because of implications for upgrading.

Thanks, you've confirmed what I thought was happening.

Da Flex

I understand that, and have added ContextMenu onto a button (Option on my Panasonic remote). My problem is tht some buttons on the remote seem to be intercepted before they get to Kodi eg Menu or Guide. What I'm looking for is a way to use those buttons.

I've found and used the Keymap Editor but I'd prefer a name to Key ID = 229. The one link I could find relating to remore button names ended in a 404. Is there a list of them somewhere?

Thanks to guidance from chewitt I was able to add audio delay to the TV remote my wife uses (I use a mini keyboard). I'd now like to add the context menu and info to it. I'd like to put ContextMenu on the TV remotes menu button but it looks as though that is intercepted before it gets to Kodi. Is there a way round it?

As MatteN says not many PCs have built in support for CEC and even if they have there may be a number of obstacles.

You have 5 components 1. PC, 2. DisplayPort to HDMI adapter, 3 HDMI cable, 4. TV, 5. things connected to the TV any one of which could be the problem. My guess would be number 1 - the PC.

Simple tests:

If there is anything else connected to the TV disconnect everything, turn of mains power and leave to c10 minutes then plug the PC's HDMI cable back in. Why this may work I do not know but in my case (Dell Optiplex) I had to switch the DVD player to SCART.

If you have a RPi or can borrow one try that - it will prove (or fail) the TV and HDMI cable. If this works you'll probably need a Pulse-Eight adapter which is what I have.

I went down a similar route, in my case with a Dell Optiplex which does have an HDMI port.

You would need both the Pulse Eight device and a display port to HDMI adapter (just put that into Amazon) and, since I do have an HDMI port, I have no idea if it will work.

One thing I had to do was buy an HDMI cable with the CEC line disabled. Without going and poking the rats nest I think its without CEC from Pulse Eight to PC, normal HDMI (ie with CEC) Pulse Eight to TV, and its been running fine now for about a year.

Isn't that an item by item approach? Babylon 5 to continue with that example has over 100 episodes and on my system they are just videos.

If, as an example, I altered the plot for a number of episodes of Babylon 5 and wanted to update Kodi's database the only approach I know is to rename the folder Babylon 5 lives in on the HDD, run the clean database function in Kodi, rename the folder on the HDD back, and scan for new additions.

Is there a better way?

I had a Panasonic VCR/DVD combo expressly bought so I could backup my old VCR tapes.I loaned it to a neighbour who obviously put some tapes that needed decontamination in and the VCR part never worked since.

Good job I'd backed everything up to DVD.

Fully agree with chewitt and would also add having two devices connected to a TV via HDMI can cause grief. I did have a DVD player (just for when I hadn't ripped a disk to Kodi) connected via HDMI and its now connected via SCART. I did this because on a couple of occasions trying to get HDMI working correctly was a nightmare. Since the change I haven't had a problem.

What seems to be working for me is

- set keymap as shown in the link

- copied the skin to my PC

- edit xml files using Notepad++

- copy back to RPi4 using FileZilla

- press f5 on RPi4's keyboard

Kodi's skinning is extremely powerful, extremely flexible and extremely difficult for a newbie to understand

I'm getting there slowly - very slowly

chewitt

Thanks

bierbaron

I've just found these

You'd be better off asking these sorts of questions over on the Kodi forum. They have fora dedicated to skins.

Having said that I'm trying to modify Estuary myself and I think you need to look in \colors \t the .xml files. Colours are defined as ARGB not just RGB. The important file is defaults.xml

What workflow are you using? Mine is

PC modify the skin
PC zip it

RPi4 select Embury skin
RPi4 uninstall modified skin

PC copy modified skin to RPi4 userdata
RPi4 reboot
RPi4 install modified skin
RPi4 test to see if I've got it right

Unless I reboot the RPi4 I just get told the modified skin can't be installed due to an invalid structure - it installs fine after the reboot!

There must be a better way.

ian_j

Whilst I agree with chewitt about the extra info needed I have seen this and I know exactly why in my case. I only see it on videos that have been initially recorded from TV to VCR tape, then from VCR tape to DVD then from DVD to HDD for Kodi.

Da Flex

Brilliant - have an upvote

Eureka - all I have to do is setup on a 16GB (the 8GB one wouldn't work) microSD card initially then I can clone to a 128GB card, plug into my Linux laptop to resize storage (weirdly enough it leaves c300MB at the end) but everything works.

I just wish I'd thought of that a couple of days ago.

vaughng

At this point I have no idea if it will be useful but its a good description of dd. Good enough so that I might understand and use it - thanks.

chewitt

If it was simply to use LibreElec/Kodi I would be happy to use the backup, reinstall and restore approach. However, what I want to do is see if I can make some mods to the system, starting with something simple like skins (I like most of the default skin but some bits I want to change) and move on to a couple of addons. Whilst I couldn't clone an entire IBM 4341 or VAX 11/780 ever since the advent of micros that's what I've done. It means that when, inevitably, I mess up big time I can go back to my original start point. That, as I discovered recently, is not the case with backup, reinstall and restore.

Whilst I've never had trouble cloning a system before I've only once tried it with microSD cards and RPi before. I might buy a couple of cheap SSDs and try those.