HOW-TO customize the home menu with custom categories

Is there a way to add submenus for these new smart playlists like Recently Added and Genres?

probably...

How to add sub menus i've talked about a little bit in the tutorial. As for creating them for a specific genre, try the following in a new smartplaylist:
<rule field="genre" operator="contains">Comedy</rule>

Might be easier to use the editor inside xbmc to create the playlist.

Havent tried it, and at this time i can't as my XBMC box died. Still need to send it for repairs.

@Myth

First off, thanks so much for this tutorial bro. I would have changed skins long ago if not for this, and I am constantly getting compliments on my HTPC because of you. Your tutorial is extremely well written, and it is insanely cool of you to continue to help people with it.....and that brings me to my reason for posting.

My home menu is getting extremely crowded. I've got about 6TB's of media which i continue to separate to make it easier to navigate. My current home screen menu shows:

Anime
Anime Movies
Cartoons
Animated Movies
TV Shows
Movies
Documentaries
Music
Pictures
Settings

I'd like to clean it up by creating some submenu's, but can't for the life of me wrap my head around it. I'd like the home screen to read:

Anime
-Shows
-Movies
-OVA's
Animated
-Shows
-Movies
TV Shows
Movies
Documentaries
Music
Pictures
Settings

That would eliminate 2 items for the list and give me a separate spot for my OVA's. I've gone over the section of your tutorial that speaks about submenus...

Myth Wrote:
We’re almost there, but I’m still not happy yet. By disabling the default “movies” menu item, I lost access to the sub menu of “files”. And that item is important to manually update the library or add sources. What I choose to do was to add 2 items to my “settings” sub menu, for both the music and video files.

Scroll down until you see the following code:

Code:

<control type="fixedlist" id="8001">
<visible>!Skin.HasSetting(Menu_Settings_Sub) + Container(5040).HasFocus(12)</visible>
<include condition="Skin.HasSetting(HorizontalHomeMenu)">HorizontalSubMenuLayout</include>
<include condition="!Skin.HasSetting(HorizontalHomeMenu)">VerticalSubMenuLayout</include>
<content>

Below the <content> line, add the following:

Code:

<item id="8118">
<description>Menu Video Sub Files</description>
<label>Video Files</label>
<onclick>ActivateWindow(VideoFiles)</onclick>
</item>
<item id="8119">
<description>Menu Music Sub Files</description>
<label>Music Files</label>
<onclick>ActivateWindow(MusicFiles)</onclick>
</item>

And now we’re finally done. A home menu exactly the way I wanted it!

[i][u]Finale
I hope this guide was helpful. It would’ve saved me some time. Should you have any questions or find any mistakes, do tell. And if you found this information useful, leave a thank you message. It might make me write more how-to’s!

...but can't figure out how to create one for a smart playlist. I'm a n00b with xml but pick stuff up quickly and can follow directions. If you could show me how to create one, i'm sure i could apply that to the rest on my own.

Edit: Almost forgot, would you also know of a way to add the "Recently Added" info box to the TV Shows playlist?

Thanks for all the hard work and taking the time to read this.

Ok I am using the NEON(SVN) skin everything seems fine they show up in the home list and everything. But the only way I could get them to get the files info is to add them via the video. Which then it adds the exact same anime to my non anime tv show category. I only want them to go to the new playlist under anime not TVshows. I must of missed a step somewhere. Any one have ideas?

Update: Figured out what I was doing wrong. I had to go to the home.xml and make the TV Shows, Movies point to thier playlist. I don't know why I didnt do it but it now works. Except for one issue. For whatever reason I can't get my Anime Movies to show. I tried "all" and "one" but nothing. I am happy So far that I got my anime out of TV shows. Now I am moving on to Concerts.

Zyeox Wrote:Except for one issue. For whatever reason I can't get my Anime Movies to show. I tried "all" and "one" but nothing. I am happy So far that I got my anime out of TV shows.

I'll need some more info about where you keep your anime and anime movies, and need to know what your playlist file currently looks like to find out what might be wrong.

Talontd Wrote:...but can't figure out how to create one for a smart playlist. I'm a n00b with xml but pick stuff up quickly and can follow directions. If you could show me how to create one, i'm sure i could apply that to the rest on my own.

Edit: Almost forgot, would you also know of a way to add the "Recently Added" info box to the TV Shows playlist?

Thanks for all the hard work and taking the time to read this.

Something that is missing from the tuorial is indeed how to create a submenu from scratch. I only edited one from an existing item.

I'm currently installing XBMC on my desktop (my media player is still broken and I been too lazy to send it for repairs). Then this weekend i'll update the tutorial but with the anime series and movies in a sub categorie.

As for the "Recently Added", no idea at this time. Might have a look at it when i'm done with the sub categories. But no promises there.

Thanks Myth, this "How-to" has helped me alot...

atm my home menu looks like:
MOVIES
TV-SHOWS
CARTOON
DOCUMENTARYS

When I browse the Movies and TV-Shows category I get the fanart backdrops for yhe movie / series, but not while browsing the cartoon and documentary category.

Movies, Cartoon and Documentarys are all smart playlists added your way


So Why does the movie "FILM" category show the fanart
while the cartoon "TECKNAT" and documentary "DOKUMENTÄR" dont show it, only shows popcorn... and I hate the smell of popcorn

Thanks again Myth for all the time you put into it

How to create your own sub menu

Due to popular demand, here's some more information about sub menu's in Transparancy!. This post will be rather straight to the point, but i'm hoping after reading the main tutorial you should be able to customize this the way you want it. If you are having trouble, post here and i'll try to help.

As an example we'll be making 1 Anime home menu, with Anime Series and Anime Movies as sub menu. I was trying to get the main menu item to show both the movies AND the series. But havent been able to get it to work (so far).

The smart playlists
Anime Series.xsp
Anime Movies.xsp

The skin configuration, Includes_Home.xm
Main menu item
Find
You will find this 2 times, once for the vertical menu, once for the horizontal menu.
After, add


The sub menus
Find

Before

Add (Note the HasFocus(17) thingy. the 17 is the id of our main menu item.)

barly Wrote:So Why does the movie "FILM" category show the fanart
while the cartoon "TECKNAT" and documentary "DOKUMENTÄR" dont show it, only shows popcorn... and I hate the smell of popcorn

Thanks again Myth for all the time you put into it

Have they been scraped and added to the library?

Hi Myth,
i make this with AEON MQ2 using smartplaylist menu but not work. when i open my playlist the result is empty library


<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes" ?>
<smartplaylist type="movies">
<name>DVD</name>
<match>all</match>
<rule field="path" operator="is">smb://admin:#####@192.168.0.10/Dvd/</rule>
</smartplaylist>

i try all and one in <match> but nothing
can you help me please? thanks