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How to Use AutoWidget

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drinfernoo edited this page Jul 13, 2021 · 1 revision

AutoWidget is based around three core concepts: Groups, Paths, and Widgets.

Each group created with AutoWidget can contain any number of paths, and then widgets can be set up in your skin which will show one (or a selection) of the paths from the corresponding group.

To get started using AutoWidget, open the Kodi context menu on any other menu inside Kodi, like the "Popular" menu from your favorite add-on, or the "Movies -> Titles" section of your video library, and choose Add to AutoWidget Group. This will present you with a list of options for what to do with the item you've opened the context menu on. These options may include any of the following:

  • Shortcut
  • Widget
  • Clone as Shortcut Group
  • Explode as Widget Group
  • Settings Shortcut

The first two options (Shortcut and Widget) will allow adding the highlighted item to one of AutoWidget's two different kinds of groups:

Shortcut Groups

Shortcut groups are AutoWidget's answer to Kodi's native "Favorites" or the Super Favorites add-on.

Shortcut groups are designed to be used as a single widget which contains shortcuts to certain sections or actions inside Kodi. Examples of this might include a shortcut directly to a certain folder in your video library, your "My Subscriptions" section in the YouTube add-on, or actions for reloading your skin or exiting Kodi.

A Settings Shortcut is a special action that can be added to a Shortcut Group, that will open an add-on's settings dialog.

Widget groups

Widget groups allow you to have a widget which offers more features than a basic skin widget. These features include "paged" widgets, "merged" widgets, and most prominently, "cycling" widgets which automatically change their content periodically, in order to provide a more dynamic browsing experience.

Widget groups have three "actions" for widgets which are created from them:

  • Static Widget
  • Cycling Widget
  • Merged Widget

A Static Widget allows a widget which does not ever change the path which it pulls content from, but will allow for the "Paged Widget" feature. A Cycling Widget will automatically change the path which it pulls content from periodically, and update the widget in your skin. A Merged Widget can take a selection of paths from the corresponding group, and merge their contents into a single widget in your skin.

Cloning and Exploding

These are the "bulk addition" methods that AutoWidget offers.

Cloning a menu will create a Shortcut Group, which contains shortcuts to each of the submenus inside. For example, cloning a "Movies" section in a video add-on may end up with a shortcut group with shortcuts to "Popular", "Trending", "Genres", etc...

Exploding a menu will create a Widget Group, which contains paths for each of the submenus inside. For example, exploding the same "Movies" section from before would result in a widget group, which can be using to show any of the paths inside (like "Popular", "Trending", "Genres", etc...) as a widget.

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