[phate89]

You can't because right now every home menu items are defined by the skin and every skin decide how to handle them and how to handle the widgets. Some skin can't even add a new menu option (confluence), some skin can add new menu items but not customize the widgets (amber) some skin can do both (aeon nox 5), and some skin can also actually take a playlist and customize itself from it (with a lot more code though, like aeon mq5).
I use this method because:
a) it's easier to configure. I create one playlist and everything is based on that playlist and i don't have to choose between tens of playlist.
b) it's native. So there is more support for it in the skins and i can navigate in the categories like i do with the main real library.
But they are not real separation because in the end in the database there are only movies, tv shows, movies and music videos so it's all up to the skins and every skin is different than the others.
Probably it's possible to built a skin that automatically use this separations but right now there aren't and you have to manually customize them

[black_eagle]

Yeah, I understand what you are saying, especially the bit about it being native, which makes a lot of sense. I'm just glad that the community has such skilled skinners that can create skins that are user modifiable and give me the results I want to obtain.

Nox is a great skin, but I've not played with it enough to know if the widgets work correctly or not with smart playlists. MQ5 I have played with a lot. The sub-menus are copied from the original library, so they remain the same whilst the actual content is generated from the smart playlists.

I was initially surprised that the widgets worked correctly, but hats off to MarcosQui for coding his skin that way.

I don't have to choose between lots of playlists either. I only have the two for the movie section. Probably I could set up more for the TV stuff, such as comedy, documentary, etc etc, but I don't need my media separating that much (yet anyway!!)

I'll look into video nodes though, as I'm all too well aware of how skin dependant my current method is !!

[steve1977]

I would actually prefer to work with video nodes and really loves the guide how to formally split them. Major advantage is that I can filter each splitted library by year, which is something MQ5 cannot do for the smart playlists.

I would like to keep the widgets though and this does not work unless I switch to MQ5. Given I am using a rpi, MQ5 is not an option and I am stuck with Amber....

I am trying to convince the Amber developer now to add widgets for customized menu items. Let's see whether I will be succesfull.

Any additional ideas appreciated!

[Ned Scott]

Being able to have some kind of auto-population of nodes on the home screen, or at least some kind of standardization for costuming the home screen for multiple skins, is something the team has talked about before. I have no ETA on this, but I think it will almost be a given, as a kind of natural evolution of the video nodes feature. (along with a built-in nodes editor, eventually, since a lot of the same stuff is shared with smart playlists).

[revalex]

Oh, I got it. I think I understand what this is doing. This would still not allow to display recently added on the main menu screen? I don't mean as a sub-menu point, which I could actually do, but the posters and names as part of the screen? I assume this would be limited to the "real" original movie library and menu button?

Did you mean to have them visible in those skin widgets about the main menu bar?

So far I was only successful to make it work for MUSIC VIDEOS. I was able to create a new main menu window MUSIC VIDEOS (with custom video nodes) and with sub-sections (based on smartplaylists), and populate skin widgets with 10 recently added music videos and I can "shuffle" between them. I also have a sub-menu named "Recently Added" and clicking on that I can see 25 recently added music videos.

It required changes/modifications of couple *.xml files. But I was not able to make skin widgets work for Kids Movies, Camcorder Movies, and similar new home menu windows.

Video nodes are actually similar to smartplaylists. There are many ways how to combine rules to sort the large movie library to specific needs.

I am using Gotham 13.1 and a default Confluence skin. I find it the best for my needs -- I have over 15 main menu windows and like to have a "clean" simple background with only 5 skin widgets on the top where I can shuffle between 10 recently added movies (or music albums, music videos) and even choose a movie directly from them.
I tried some other skins, and while they really have awesome features, I returned back to a default Confluence skin that has an option of unlimited main menu windows and large thumbs. There are some limitations, but it works the best for us (some users in our family had difficulties to navigate through some advanced skins).

I am trying to convince the Amber developer now to add widgets for customized menu items. Let's see whether I will be succesfull.

Any additional ideas appreciated!

A few days ago, I actually started a new thread: How to show "recently added movies" for custom "KIDS MOVIES" window in skin widgets? where I am looking for some ideas about getting custom menu items to work with skin widgets. It seems that at this stage, it is not possible, because there has not been any replies yet. I do not want to hijack this thread.

[revalex]

Being able to have some kind of auto-population of nodes on the home screen, or at least some kind of standardization for costuming the home screen for multiple skins, is something the team has talked about before. I have no ETA on this, but I think it will almost be a given, as a kind of natural evolution of the video nodes feature. (along with a built-in nodes editor, eventually, since a lot of the same stuff is shared with smart playlists).

The new option to make custom video nodes is really an awesome feature and very much appreciated! It gives a new dimension to the organization of a large movie library directly from the home menu screen.

I just hope that there will be more options to connect custom video nodes with skin widgets (ones used in a default Confluence skin over the main menu bar) and a possibility to use custom video nodes the same way as other video nodes.

Currently, I cannot use "Activate Window(Videos,KidsMovieTitles,return) to get from the custom home sub-menu directly to Kids Movies Titles (under the custom home menu window KIDS MOVIES). I have to use Activate Window(10025,... with a path to a playlist ...) to get there.

XBMC knows where to look for movies if I use "Videos,MovieTitles" infolabel in <onclick>...</onclick>. However, I do not know how (if it is even possible at this moment) to make XBMC understands e.g. a "Video,KidsMovieTitles" infolabel.