Basic controls
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This page describes the basic controls that are used in most areas of Kodi, as well as the Kodi home screen. This page assumes you are using the default skin for Kodi, Estuary.
Home screen
The home screen in the default skin, as well as most other skins, show the user the major areas of Kodi, such as videos, music, pictures, etc. Menus can be laid out in various different ways, but in Estuary all menu shortcuts are on the left hand side of the screen.
Pressing up or down on the main menu section will highlight different main options, which then have additional more specific options that can be selected when the user presses right, which will take them to the main side of the screen →. The main options are:
- Movies - This is a short cut to the "All movies, by title" node in the video library.
- TV shows - This is a short cut to the "All TV shows, by title" node in the video library.
- Music - This is a shortcut to a file manager view, which when viewed, can show your music files either by genre, Artist, Album, Song, or by year.
- Music Videos - This is a shortcut to a file manager view, which when viewed can show your music video files either by Genre, Title, Artist, Albums, Directors, Studio or Tags
- Live TV - With a PVR add-on, this can give you Free To Air Television channels with an EPG (Electronic Program Guide) with Pause/Rewind/Fast Forward and Record facilities
- Radio - With a PVR add-on, this can give you Free To Air Radio Channels with an EPG (Electronic Program Guide)
- Add-ons - This shortcut takes you to a secondary menu that lists your installed add-ons by type, such as 'Video-addons', Music add-ons, Program add-ons. In this menu you can install add-ons from the official Kodi repository. See: Add-ons
- Pictures - Shows a basic file-based image viewer, as well as picture-related add-ons.
- Videos - Shows the top level of all video areas, including file views, movie library, TV show library, music video library, playlists, and video related add-ons. Users can also use this to navigate to more nodes in the library, showing movies or TV shows by year, genre, actor, or even custom created nodes for specific people, moods, etc.
- Favourites - Show all your meda that has been tagged as a 'Favourite'
- Weather - Once set up, this will show the weather forecast in your local area
Above the main menu there are three options. These are -
- The power button opens up the Shutdown menu
- System - All the system settings, system info, profile controls, and file manager.
- Search - Opens up the search function
The home screen also displays the current date and time, and can optionally show weather information, if set up.
The context menu gives you quick access to some functions that also can be accessed by the keyboard directly (e.g. Queue item), while other functions (e.g. Change content) are only accessible from the context menu.
You can bring up the context menu either by:
- right-clicking with the mouse.
- long press the OK key .
Examples of the context menu:
- EstuaryContextmenu1.png
The context menu in the Movie library.
The context menu in the YouTube add-on.
- See below for specific explanations of the contextual menu on different menus and areas of Kodi
- In the video library
- In the music library
- Favourites, playlists, the file manager, and various add-ons have management and editing options in the contextual menu.
Locating the Sidebar Menu
You can bring up the sidebar menu either by:
- bringing the mouse cursor to the left side.
- pressing the ← key, when browsing Files.
- pressing the ← key, when browsing the library views List, Big List, Thumbnail, Media info, Media info 2 and Media info 3.
- pressing the ↑ key, when browsing the library views Poster wrap and Fanart.
Available Options
- ViewType
- Change current library view.
- Sort by
- Select how the list of Movies/TV Shows/Episodes are sorted- eg Title, PlayCount etc
- Order
- Once the Sort by is selected, do you want the order Ascending or Descending
- Filter
- Allows you to filter your list on certain criteria- eg Director, Actor, Ratings, Tags etc
- All Videos / Watched / Unwatched
- Global toggle that allows you to select what is shown in the list - All Videos, Watched or Unwatched videos only
- Update library
- Scans the library for newly added Movies/TV Shows and Episodes
Additional information about the sidebar menu's functions in different parts of Kodi can be seen on these pages:
Profiles
Profiles allow users to save all of settings as a profile and change them at the touch of a button. It also allows you to grant access to specific folders and network shares based on the profile being used. This is ideal for systems that have multiple users. It works much the same as setting up individual users on your home computer.
Favourites
Favourites is a simple but useful feature that allows you to gather a selection of different items into one easily accessible location on the Main Menu. It allows quick access to commonly used items.
Pressing S on the keyboard, or by selecting the Shutdown icon in the lower left corner of the default Estuary skin the home screen brings up the shutdown menu.
The options on this menu are from top to bottom:
- Exit
- Exits Kodi to your operating system.
- Power off system
- Powers down your system
- Custom Shutdown Timer
- Kodi will shutdown your computer after you enter the countdown time.
- Suspend
- Suspends your computer.
- Hibernate
- Hibernates your computer.
- Reboot
- Restarts your computer.
File manager
The File Manager allows the maintenace of files from within Kodi on platforms that have no underlying and easily accessible operating system. It will allow you to perform functions such as Move, Copy and Delete to name a few.
On screen keyboard
- Kodi can use USB keyboards or you can use the remote control-friendly on-screen-keyboard.
- Kodi for iOS will use the native iOS on-screen-keyboard. This also allows iOS to have clipboard paste support.
- Windows, Mac OS X, and iOS have clipboard paste support for text entry.
System information screen
Profiles
Profiles allow users to save all of settings as a profile and change them at the touch of a button. It also allows you to grant access to specific folders and network shares based on the profile being used. This is ideal for systems that have multiple users. It works much the same as setting up individual users on your home computer.
Weather