HOW-TO customize the home menu with custom categories

It seems that this tutorial only works for the transparency skin, which is a bad skin to begin with (mouse wheel scrolling is very buggy in this skin), so I tried to follow the guide and apply it to the default confluence skin, which works perfect for my needs.

Unfortunately, half the tutorial doesnt work, as the files you are asking to edit do not exist in the roaming folders, I checked the default program file for the confluence/720/includes_home, but no file there called that, found a includes file, and a home file, but neither of them contain the tag you asked to search for.

Too bad this article was written for a custom skin rather than the default one that most use

Would you be able to write the article or point me to someplace where I could do what this thread is doing for the confluence skin?

Thanks

@nfusion2011

I just did this with the confluence skin. What you need to do is edit the home.xml file. Mine was located in C:\Program Files\XBMC\addons\skin.confluence2\720p Im running windows 7 32bit in 64bit I think its located in the c:\Profram files x86\XBMC....

what I did was did a serch (ctr+f) for


what you get is


That is the code for the Weather Icon on the home page. If you look you can see the code for pictures music video and so on.

All I wanted to do was add an Anime Icon so what I did was add this code after the code for the Weather


as you can see Im still useing the old Pictures backgrould but all you have to do is edit the Icon code to point to background you want.

Hi, so ive set some time aside to go through this and give it a go but im stumped at the start, i dont have a playlist folder?
Ive just downloaded the latest xbmc for windows (26-03-11) but checked then searched within the xbmc folder,
theres definately not any folder named playlist
any ideas?

For windows, look in "C:\Users\[user]\AppData\Roaming\XBMC\UserData"

Just sat down to try this and Anime works well for me but Anime Movies doesnt. It just says the library is empty. I noticed that in my skin custom menu settings (Aeon MQ 2) that Anime Movies menu icon is underlined in red like something is wrong. I am guessing the issue is with my playlist. Any ideas?


<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes" ?>
<smartplaylist type="movies">
<name>Anime Movies</name>
<match>all</match>
<rule field="path" operator="contains">smb://xbmc:password@Bean/Anime/Movies/</rule>
<rule field="path" operator="contains">smb://xbmc:password@Bean/Anime HD/Movies/</rule>
<order direction="ascending">title</order>
</smartplaylist>

Thermos Wrote:Just sat down to try this and Anime works well for me but Anime Movies doesnt. It just says the library is empty. I noticed that in my skin custom menu settings (Aeon MQ 2) that Anime Movies menu icon is underlined in red like something is wrong. I am guessing the issue is with my playlist. Any ideas?


<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes" ?>
<smartplaylist type="movies">
<name>Anime Movies</name>
<match>all</match>
<rule field="path" operator="contains">smb://xbmc:password@Bean/Anime/Movies/</rule>
<rule field="path" operator="contains">smb://xbmc:password@Bean/Anime HD/Movies/</rule>
<order direction="ascending">title</order>
</smartplaylist>

<match>all</match>
->
<match>one</match>

amducious Wrote:@nfusion2011

Code:

<item id="4">
<label>Anime</label>
   <onclick>XBMC.ActivateWindow(MyVideoLibrary,special://profile/playlists/video/Anime.xsp, return)</onclick>
   <icon>special://skin/backgrounds/pictures.jpg</icon>
   <thumb>$INFO[Skin.String(Home_Custom_Back_Pictures_Folder)]</thumb>
   <visible>!Skin.HasSetting(HomeMenuNoPicturesButton)</visible>
</item>

This is a great hack, just what I needed! I used it to include a menu item for kids' movies only.

But I wonder how do I go about making it load *not* in library mode, but in plain file mode? The reason is that I have a mix of kids movies and shows, and they have learned to operate it in file mode.

Cheers!

Myth Wrote:<match>all</match>
->
<match>one</match>

Thank you that fixed it.

kaczor47 Wrote:This is a great hack, just what I needed! I used it to include a menu item for kids' movies only.

But I wonder how do I go about making it load *not* in library mode, but in plain file mode? The reason is that I have a mix of kids movies and shows, and they have learned to operate it in file mode.

Cheers!

Try to replace
with

Let me know if it works.

Myth Wrote:Try to replace

Code:

<onclick>ActivateWindow(10025,"special://profile/playlists/video/blablabla.xsp", return)</onclick>

with

Code:

<onclick>ActivateWindow(VideoFiles, "folder_here", return)</onclick>

Let me know if it works.

Works beautifully, thanks!

Not to be too greedy, but I wonder if there is a way to:

- make this the startup location. I know that you can make Videos the Startup Window in Appearance - Settings - Skin, but obviously this won't do.

- map a key to launch this menu item

This would make it child-proof (ie, they would not have to get me out of bed on the weekend to 'fix' the tv!)

thanks in advance!