[Malmanian]

Greetings. I posted this question in the “(Helix) 1080XF 3.44 for Kodi 14.x” thread before but it got lost in between all the comments. I try here instead.

I’m trying to allow the usage of “Thumbnails” view for personal non-library music folders. In the default Confluence skin along with most other skins the simple “List View” & “Thumbnails view” can be selected/used in file-mode. I’ve tried everything that I can think of without any success. The method below has worked fine for other skins that are limited to “list view only” but not for this one and I’m not sure why.

--

I've added the line in red to "Includes_Views.xml"


<include name="MusicFileViews">
<include>Viewtype-MusicList</include>
<include>Viewtype-Thumbnail</include>
</include>


And also the thumbnail view ID "500" to "MyMusicSongs.xml"

<views>50,500</views>

as well as including:

<include>MusicViews</include> together or instead of <include>MusicFileViews</include>


but it is still only limited to list-view and the thumbnails view doesn't even show up in the selection-list despite being added and I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong.

Any help to solve this issue would indeed be much appreciated. Best regards

[Piers]

Have you added all the code required? the ID to the available list of views? Please realise this skin isn't designed to support thumbnail views where they aren't already - so, if you're doing what I think you're doing, it's going to require additional code in at least three files - it's not a simple matter of adding a couple of lines.

However, if you want to use existing view then it is pretty simple, but it's not supported.

[Malmanian]

Thanks for the reply. Yes I’ve added the codes that I think are required. In this skin by default the thumbnail view can be selected and works fine for non-library video contents and also for most of the addons etc. but not for non-library music content in file mode. I’ve also searched the visible/condition/conditional codes to see if it somehow limits the list view for music files but couldn’t find anything out of ordinary.

I’m not trying to add a complete new view, I’m just trying to use the existing thumbnail view for music content in file mode so that it can show the “folder.jpg” for the folders as it does for all other non-music content. No matter what I do it only shows “List view” in the selection .

Thanks again for your time and support.

[Neuronetix]

Greetings. I posted this question in the “(Helix) 1080XF 3.44 for Kodi 14.x” thread before but it got lost in between all the comments. I try here instead.

I’m trying to allow the usage of “Thumbnails” view for personal non-library music folders. In the default Confluence skin along with most other skins the simple “List View” & “Thumbnails view” can be selected/used in file-mode. I’ve tried everything that I can think of without any success. The method below has worked fine for other skins that are limited to “list view only” but not for this one and I’m not sure why.

After you have added the viewtypes you want under "MusicFileViews", just replace some lines in MyMusicSongs.xml.

Code:

<views>50,52,53,55,500,501,60</views>

Code:

Replace MusicFileViews with <include>MusicViews</include>

[Neuronetix]

Edit: I̶'̶m̶ ̶t̶e̶s̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶s̶e̶e̶m̶s̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶s̶k̶i̶n̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶l̶o̶a̶d̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶v̶i̶e̶w̶ ̶5̶0̶0̶ ̶(̶g̶e̶n̶e̶r̶i̶c̶ ̶t̶h̶u̶m̶b̶n̶a̶i̶l̶)̶ ̶f̶r̶o̶m̶ ̶V̶i̶e̶w̶t̶y̶p̶e̶s̶V̶i̶d̶e̶o̶s̶.̶x̶m̶l̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶a̶c̶t̶u̶a̶l̶ ̶t̶h̶u̶m̶b̶n̶a̶i̶l̶s̶.̶

[Piers]

The easiest way would be to copy code from Confluence and adapt it for the 1920x1080 resolution. You would need to, as Neuronetix has said, add the viewtype to <views>. Create a new id for the view you want to make. That way it won't break anything already existing.

You could also copy the viewtype from the particular file (ViewtypesVideos.xml) and place that viewtype in ViewtypesMusic.xml - then change the id and add it to the list of available ids. You would need a little extra tweaking but that's pretty much it.

You can also include the viewtype but you're going to encounter issues.

[Malmanian]

Many thanks for the replies and inputs, the codes that Neuronetix mentioned is what I’ve done and it doesn’t allow the selection of views and nothing happens when I press “List” in the menu-options despite all the correct codes being added. This method has worked fine for me with other skins in the past but not this one .

The list-menu only flips when clicked if I for example copy & rename “MyMusicNav.xml” to “MyMusicSongs.xml” but it still only uses & shows Viewtype-MusicList/50 as the only option. I’m not sure if some conditional code perhaps ignores/hides the rest of the views when musicfiles is used since it works fine with non-library video-files and other mixed contents but not music in file mode.

Edit: I duplicated the ViewtypesVideos.xml content to ViewtypesMusic.xml and renamed “Viewtype-List” to “Viewtype-MusicList" and also “Viewtype-Thumbnail” to “Viewtype-MusicThumbnail” within the file, they seem to share mostly the same id’s and the music files now loads correctly but still only locked to list view.

I’m not sure if creating a completely new view and id would help since it seems to be ignoring or hiding all the views added beside Viewtype-MusicList/50 for music files. I’ll defenitley give the Confluence method a go and hopefully this will be a solvable problem someday.

Best regards

[Piers]

You need to edit the menu to also allow that viewtype to be selected. I did say there are quite a few files to edit. Although it can be done with a copy/paste job (sort of), it's not nearly that simple.

[Malmanian]

If I manually force “Viewtype-Thumbnail “ or “Viewtype-MusicThumbnail” for music files it doesn’t display any content/files at all. So I guess there won’t be any point for me to try and adding these views to the menu when there is no usage.

The “Viewtype-MusicList” is the only view that works with non-library music files in this skin. I’m not sure if I’m wrong but it definitely seems like it so therefore I’m not so optimistic to fix this issue as it is right now.

I remember that older Confluence versions a few years ago also had this problem and only list-view worked for non-library music files. In my opinion “Thumbnails” view is not a fancy information based view that should only be limited to library mode only, it’s just a simple “large folder-view” that’s available in all operative systems for all the files. I understand the reasoning behind hiding all the other information based views in file-mode but not sure why a limitation like this for thumbnail view is needed.

The answer I got in the past from the official XBMC team members when I asked this question was that the goal then was to make the file-mode as limited/simple and unattractive as possible in order for the users to see the benefits of using the full library mode. But at least I’m glad that now both the official provided skins "Confluence & Re-touched" allows this basic view, especially since the official skin usually sets the trend for what’s functional, useful or not-needed for other skins as well.

[Neuronetix]

Modifying <view> within MyMusicSongs.xml to include all the viewtypes and adding the includes in Includes_Views.xml should then display the songs within an album as thumbnails (Files > Music > Item).



Or, are you trying to display thumbnails for the root page (Files > Music)?



If you want to modify the root page to show thumbnails, you will need to edit the Generic Thumbnail (500) Viewtype within ViewtypesVideos.xml. Find the panel id="500". Before the closing of the </visible> tag insert this code

Code:

| Window.IsVisible(musicfiles)

Is this what you wanted to achieve?

Note: If you want to display the list view panel and the "Specific Controls" menu items however, such as showing small/large thumbnails you will need to copy and paste code from id="9111/922/923" from MyVideoNav or MyMusicNav into MyMusicSongs. I am going to implement this for my skin so I would just wait, unless you really want to do it yourself.

[Piers]

A mockup would be helpful with what you would like to show.

[Malmanian]

...Note: If you want to display the list view panel and the "Specific Controls" menu items however, such as showing small/large thumbnails you will need to copy and paste code from id="9111/922/923" from MyVideoNav or MyMusicNav into MyMusicSongs. I am going to implement this for my skin so I would just wait, unless you really want to do it yourself.

Thank you sir for the help regarding this issue, that was indeed very helpful and this is exactly what I wanted to do. All the views was correctly included in Includes_Views.xml for MusicFileViews and also in the views for MyMusicSongs.xml. Yesterday when I forced the root level to display thumbnails all I got was a blank page.

Now I’m really hopefull to try the modification that you mentioned for the Generic Thumbnail 500 viewtype, the insertion of “| Window.IsVisible(musicfiles)” in the <visible> tag is what I was missing since all the other views beside list-view refused to display music-files no matter what I tried. I’ll report back when I manage to get it to work. Thanks again for your time and I’m looking forward to try your excellent MOD when it’s ready.

1080XF is in general a very top notch, functional and modern skin and I really hope that it someday becomes the default Kodi skin in a very near future.

A mockup would be helpful with what you would like to show.

Greetings Mr. Piers. I’ll attach three images to better show what I’m trying to do. All my music-files only uses a simple 3-folder structure "Folder>Folder>Files": (Genres>Artists>Songs.mp3), I would like to display the first root-level (Genres) and second-level (Artists) in a simple thumbnail view and the last level (Songs) in the simple default-list view. Please see the mockup images below.

Img1: Root level for music-files:

Img2: Level2 (Artists)

Img3: Level3 (Songs/Files)


Best regards.

[Piers]

...Note: If you want to display the list view panel and the "Specific Controls" menu items however, such as showing small/large thumbnails you will need to copy and paste code from id="9111/922/923" from MyVideoNav or MyMusicNav into MyMusicSongs. I am going to implement this for my skin so I would just wait, unless you really want to do it yourself.

Thank you sir for the help regarding this issue, that was indeed very helpful and this is exactly what I wanted to do. All the views was correctly included in Includes_Views.xml for MusicFileViews and also in the views for MyMusicSongs.xml. Yesterday when I forced the root level to display thumbnails all I got was a blank page.

Now I’m really hopefull to try the modification that you mentioned for the Generic Thumbnail 500 viewtype, the insertion of “| Window.IsVisible(musicfiles)” in the <visible> tag is what I was missing since all the other views beside list-view refused to display music-files no matter what I tried. I’ll report back when I manage to get it to work. Thanks again for your time and I’m looking forward to try your excellent MOD when it’s ready.

1080XF is in general a very top notch, functional and modern skin and I really hope that it someday becomes the default Kodi skin in a very near future.

A mockup would be helpful with what you would like to show.

Greetings Mr. Piers. I’ll attach three images to better show what I’m trying to do. All my music-files only uses a simple 3-folder structure "Folder>Folder>Files": (Genres>Artists>Songs.mp3), I would like to display the first root-level (Genres) and second-level (Artists) in a simple thumbnail view and the last level (Songs) in the simple default-list view. Please see the mockup images below.

Img1: Root level for music-files:

Img2: Level2 (Artists)

Img3: Level3 (Songs/Files)


Best regards.

So you want to take the existing thumbnail view and remove the part on the right?

This is how it looks by default (ignore colours, artwork and other bits - this is just my testing version)

[Malmanian]

So you want to take the existing thumbnail view and remove the part on the right?

This is how it looks by default (ignore colours, artwork and other bits - this is just my testing version)

Greetings, I assumed that Viewtype-MusicThumbnail 501 as seen in your screenshot was a library exclusive mode so therefore I just focused on getting the generic Viewtype-Thumbnail 500 view to work instead for non-library music-files. Any of the existing thumbnail views would be great, I wasn’t really trying to create a complete new view since I really like to keep up with your latest git version

Currently I have almost 3 A4 pages of .xml minor code modifications for personal use that I apply to 8 xml files within your skin after each release and it only takes around 20min each time, if I add more to it then I would be left behind as it has happened it the past with other skins when I changed too much. I was stuck on Babylon for a few years because of heavy personal mods on a skin that I really loved. My main goal is to rather avoid that this time around if possible since I don't want to be stuck on Helix version forever .

Thanks again for all the hard work and latest updates to this excellent skin, the new music-home section looks great now, I didn’t even noticed that the section was a bit narrower than the rest but the album covers looks really great now.

[Piers]

Oh, so it's a file view you want. Now I see. Possibly a stupid question, but why not use the library?

Also, which mods have you included with your release? If they provide function then they could be merged into the main skin.