Add-on:VideoExtras

Forum and Issue Report Pages
If you have any questions, found an issue to report or would just like to know a little more you can take part in the forum discussions at:


 * VideoExtras Forum

If you find any bugs or have an enhancement requests, these can be recorded at the following location:


 * VideoExtras Google Issue List

File Naming Convention
For your video extras files to be found they must follow a specific naming convention. Here are the supported conventions:

Extras Folder
(Recommended Method)

If you put all of your movies in their own folder you can simply add an &quot;Extras&quot; sub folder and add all of your bonus content in that directory. (The name of this folder can be changed via the settings menu). The script will simply display the filename (without extension) in the UI. By default the list of videos will appear in alphabetical order.

Same Directory
If for some reason you don't want to create an &quot;Extras&quot; folder or you want to associate a bonus feature with a specific TV show episode there is an alternative naming convention. Simply use the same name as the file you want to associate the extra feature with and then append &quot;-extras-&quot;. (This tag can be changed via the settings menu)

Remote Location
If you did not want your extras stored in the same directory structure as your Movies or TV Shows, then there is a settings option "Use Custom Extras Location" that can be set to point to a different location. The format of this location should have 2 directories at the top level "Movies" and "TvShows". Under each of these should be directories (That match the name of the directories containing the Movie or TV Shows) containing the extras files.

e.g.


 * Movies/Die Hard
 * TvShows/Blake's 7
 * TvShows/Blake's 7/Series 1
 * TvShows/Blake's 7/Series 2

In this case, when clicking on the "TV Information" for the whole Blake's 7 Series you would see all files in "TvShows/Blake's 7" and the two sub-folders (if nested search is enabled), if viewing Episode Information for an episode in series 1 of Blake's 7 then you would only see the extras in "Blake's 7/Series 1"

With this method (based on where this root directory is), there may not be a need to add the "File Exclusions" section into advanced settings.

XBMC File Exclusions
Since these are video files sprinkled in among all of your other video files we need to tell the xbmc scanner to ignore these files. If we don't then the scanner will try and match them up with one of the online sites and you probably won't be happy with the results. To do this we just need to add some new regular expressions to the advanced settings. It is recommended to add these settings and reboot xbmc for them to take effect before adding the files to your library so the scanner doesn't try to parse them.

In this example the default name "Extras" has been used for the directory containing the extras, if you have changed this in the settings, then this name should also be changed to match.

Obs.: beware that if any of your sources contains the word 'extras' in it, e.g. a source named 'Extrasy' or 'Extrascent', nothing new that you put in it will be scanned to the library. This is because that source matches the exclude rule RegExp:'Extras'. To solve this either rename your source or change the default name 'extras', which VideoExtras operates with, to anything different.

Images: Thumbnails, Icons and Fanart
In order to have thumbnails or custom fanart images displayed on your Extras listings (and player overlay) you can either reference them via an NFO file (see NFO section), or by having the image in the same directory as the extras file. Images referenced via NFO (locally or remotely) will have priority over any other. Thumbnail/icon images in the same directory as extras will be picked up in the following order:


 * .tbn/png/jpg
 * -poster.tbn/png/jpg
 * -thumb.tbn/png/jpg
 * poster.tbn/png/jpg
 * folder.tbn/png/jpg

For fanart, the images are picked up in the following order (if no custom fanart is specified, fanart is automatically inherited from the parent video file, if there's any):


 * -fanart.tbn/png/jpg
 * fanart.tbn/png/jpg

NFO Files
The recommended method to give a name or sort order to your "Extras" is to add an NFO for each extra file. This follows the standard XBMC method of having the same name as the file with the extension being replaced with ".nfo" (Sitting in the same directory as the original file). This nfo can take any of the followoing formats (These are in line with the default XBMC behaviour), additional data in these files will be ignored as it is not relevant for the extras file. (Note: The only mandatory element is the "title")

Legacy Naming Format
The following are the legacy naming formats, they are supported in the short term only to allow easy migration from DVDExtras to VideoExtras. (If an NFO file is specified, the settings in that file will be used)

By default the list of videos will appear in alphabetical order. If you would like to specify a custom order just start the filename with brackets containing the text to sort on. For example you could create files &quot;[0]Deleted Scenes.mkv&quot;, &quot;[1]Bloopers.mkv&quot;, and &quot;[2]Behind The Scenes.mkv&quot;. In this case instead of sorting on the name it will sort on the numbers. The bracket portion of the filename will not be displayed in the UI.

For extras tagged on a per file basis (rather and all in a sub-directory) the name will be taken from anything after the extras tag. So append &quot;-extras-Display name here&quot; will result in the name &quot;Display name here&quot;. To customize the order here you can use the same format as the extras folder. Example: &quot;s01e01-extras-[99]Extended Pilot.mkv&quot;

Settings
This section details all the settings options for VideoExtras

Extras

 * Extras Directory Name
 * The name of the sub directory that stores all the extras files
 * Search Nested Directories
 * If directories below the selected TV Show or Movie should be searched for more extras. This is useful if you select a given TV Show and have all your seasons for that show in separate directories under that show.  This means that all extras will be displayed when viewed via the root TV Show, and only the seasons extras if selected from inside a given season.
 * Enable Extras with File Tag
 * Finds extras based on a "tag", listing anything containing that tag
 * Extras File Name Tag
 * If "Enable Extras with File Tag" was enabled, this gives the name to search for as the tag
 * Use Detailed List Screen
 * Displays a more advanced listing screen which displays resume points and a watched flag
 * Window to show after exiting detailed list
 * (If detailed list screen is enabled) - Which screen to go to after exiting the detailed list screen, options are: "Video Selection", "Information", "Home"
 * Menu to show after playing an extra
 * (If detailed list screen is disabled) - Which screen to go to after playing an extra, options are: "Extras", "Video Selection", "Information", "Home"

File System

 * Use Custom Extras Location
 * If extras are not stored with the Movies/TV Shows, this allows them to be stored in a different directory structure.
 * Path
 * The path that the extras are located in (Only if "Use Custom Extras Location" is enabled)
 * Custom Movies Sub-Folder
 * The name of the folder under the "Path" where Movie extras are stored (Note: a directory with the movie name will be located under this directory containing the extras for that movie)
 * Custom TV Shows Sub-Folder
 * The name of the folder under the "Path" where TV Shows extras are stored (Note: a directory with the TV Show name will be located under this directory containing the extras for that TV Show)

Database

 * Enable Database Support
 * Enables the use of the Extras stand-alone database, this enables the display and storing of data such as
 * Which extras have been viewed already
 * Resume playing an extra from the last stop point
 * Clean Database
 * Clears the extras database (resets all play states for the extras) - Note: This does not do anything to the default XBMC database.

Advanced

 * Force Extras Button Display
 * Will always display the "Extras" button on the Video Information screen (Normal behaviour is to only show the button if there are extra's detected for the given video.
 * Exclude Files Regular Expression
 * Regular expression for files that will be deemed "Not to be extras" even if there are present in the Extras directory.
 * Enable Debug logging
 * Enables VideoExtras debug logging into the XBMC log file

Skins With Build In Support
The following skins have built-in support for Video Extras, so require no user skin modifications:

If your skin does not support the "Detailed List Screen", then you can either:
 * 1) Switch the "Detailed List Screen" off - reverting to the basic list dialog
 * 2) Convert the Window XML file in the addon and post a link to it in the forum.
 * 3) Use the default "Detailed List Screen" (May not fit in visually with the skin you are using)

Skin Modifications
A skin modification is required in order to see the extras in the UI. This is a fairly simple process but will depend on your selected skin. The file that needs modified is DialogVideoInfo.xml. This is the code needed for the default confluence skin.

To add an [Extras] button to the Confluence skin, edit DialogVideoInfo.xml in:

Ubuntu Linux: /home/ /.xbmc/addons/skin.confluence/720p/ OR if not found there, try: /usr/share/xbmc/addons/skin.confluence/720p/ Windows 7: C:\Program Files (x86)\XBMC\addons\skin.confluence\720p\

To add an [Extras] button to the Aeon Nox skin, edit DialogVideoInfo.xml in:

Ubuntu Linux: /home/ /.xbmc/addons/skin.aeon.nox/1080i/ Windows 7: C:\Program Files (x86)\XBMC\addons\skin.aeon.nox\1080i\

N.B. Remember to create a backup of any file before altering it i.e. DialogVideoInfo.xml.old.

Add to the top of the file (after ):

Add to near the foot of the file after the last control statement:

You should be able to use something similar for other skins.

Alterations for other (non confluence) skins:

Icon Overlay on Video List Screen
There have been several requests to to add an overlay or flag against TV Shows or Movies so that you can see if a given selection has any Extras without going into the Information Dialog. I have tried to suply something to do this, however, I have now reached the conclusion that this is just not possible. This was confirmed in the following post:

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=190090

Request To Skinners (Detailed List Screen)
VideoExtras uses a custom window to show the extras, I have written the Window XML files for Confluence. With the large array of different skins available it is not possible to write versions for every skin. If you would be willing to support Video Extras I would really like to include a skin specific Window XML file for your skin and would be greatful for any contribution.

The files are very small, so hopefully will not take long to convert for your skin.

Debugging
If reporting a problem, please also provide a debug log. To do this you need to enable BOTH: Please do not paste the log into the forum thread, just link to it.
 * XBMC logging from the main setting menu
 * VideoExtras debug from the VideoExtras addon settings menu

Donations
If you have found VideoExtras useful and would like to help support future development and bug fixes, then please feel free to make a small donation. Any donations made will be put towards hardware to enable support and development on different platforms (I can currently only test Windows - however I would like to be able to verify changes on Android and Mac - and this is what donations would go towards)

Please use the link on the top of the VideoExtras Forum

Note: Donations will not make any difference to the level of support I will give people on the forum - this project is Open Source - and is completely free!! Also, this plugin is built on top of XBMC - so please donate to that first.

Thanks
Thank you to everyone who has assisted with the development of this add-on, From suggestions to testing. Most of all to brentosmith who originally wrote DVDExtras, the precursor to VideoExtras, although the current VideoExtras doesn't look anything like the original DVDExtras it was his original idea.