Creating your own Kodi build Part One

Creating your Own Kodi build Part One

Creating your own Kodi build Part One

 

As mentioned in my intro blog I am going to be creating my own Kodi build and taking you all with me along the way. So, with that in mind, this is Creating your own Kodi build Part One.

It’s a new project for me and something that I have not done before. Sure, I’ve edited a few menus and changed a few backgrounds, but I’ve never done the whole thing from scratch.

As so much of this is new to me I will be needing some help. I have enlisted the support of the BestforKodi team. Expert Kodi builder Megamind is there to help me and I know we both will have plenty of questions for Sparky!

I will also draw reference to several of the excellent “Back 2 Basics” blogs by Ezzerman, which I recommend you all take a look at.

 

When I get going I encourage you all to contact BestforKodi with any suggestions of things to include. Also if there is anything that needs further explanation, just let me know and I’ll cover it.

 

Contact us either via:

Best for Kodi Twitter or

My Twitter account

 

At the end of the process I will make the build available so all of you can give it a go!

 

I will make sure I don’t cover too much in each blog and keep it in small steps.

 

I will be doing all of my build utilising a T8-AML-V2 Android box together with an Rii i12 keyboard. I am running Kodi 15.2 Isengard.

 

So here we go, let’s get started..

 

We will be starting with a totally fresh and clean version of Kodi, I have cleared data on my previous install.

 

Creating your own Kodi build Part One

 

It seems that the most logical place to start is by choosing and loading a “Skin”. This determines the look and feel of your screen and also the format of your menus.

 

Let’s scroll along to SYSTEM

Creating your own Kodi build Part One

 

Select Appearance.

Creating your own Kodi build Part One

 

And now Skin

Creating your own Kodi build Part One

 

Once you have done this, click into the box that says “Get More”

Creating your own Kodi build Part One

 

This will bring up all of the skin variations you can choose from (26 at the moment)

Creating your own Kodi build Part One

 

You can scroll through the list.

Creating your own Kodi build Part One

 

Now I am not sure what skin I will use so let’s take a look at a few.

When you select a skin it will load up (some take longer than others) and it will ask you if you want the keep that particular skin setting. Click on Yes, then you can take a look at it.

Creating your own Kodi build Part One

 

Rapier skin

Creating your own Kodi build Part One

 

Neon skin

Creating your own Kodi build Part One

 

Metropolis skin – I must admit, I do quite like the graphics on this one, sort of a Retro art feel.

Creating your own Kodi build Part One

 

Back Row skin – Cinema themed graphics

Creating your own Kodi build Part One

 

Amber skin – A very simple layout that I am sure would be very easy to work with. I was tempted to go with this one

Creating your own Kodi build Part One

 

Aeon Nox skin – Having used a few builds based on this skin , I decided it would be best to start with something I am a bit familiar with.

Creating your own Kodi build Part One

 

By the way, if you try to load one of these skin settings and for some reason, it doesn’t work, don’t panic. This happened to me and I was just left with a black screen.

All you need to do is go back to your Android settings and clear data. This will erase any changes and take you back to a clean start.

 

One great thing I thought, was that whist going in and out of different skins, there was a really good learning opportunity. In order to change from one skin to another, the steps as described above are the same but of course the menu layouts are all different. This means you have to do a bit of exploration to find what you need, for me, this was a challenge.

 

Once you have loaded a skin, you will find that it will now appear in the initial list of choices prior to clicking on the “Get More” tab. This will remain the case until you clear data. What I did was, once I settled on the Aeon Nox skin was to clear data and run through the steps again just to save a bit of memory.

 

Creating your own Kodi build Part One

 

So, one quick edit to the skin before we finish this blog, Lets go back to the skin page and select settings.

 

Creating your own Kodi build Part One

 

Now let’s chose Aeon Nox main menu horizontal position.

 

Creating your own Kodi build Part One

 

Click on it and change it to “low”

 

Creating your own Kodi build Part One

 

Back out of this menu, and now you can see we have moved the position of the menu bar to a more familiar place at the bottom of the screen

 

Creating your own Kodi build Part One

 

One more quick thing I did learn while doing the blog is worth a mention. I finally worked out the best way to take a quality screenshot on my system. As mentioned I am using a Rii i12 wireless keyboard. If you are thinking about getting a new keyboard, I can certainly recommend one of these which are available from “Entertainment Box” , (that’s where I got mine from).

Anyway, by holding down the Ctrl key and then pressing “S”, you take a crystal clear screen shot. The first time you do this your system will ask you where you would like to store your screen shots. Simply chose a suitable location and your away!

 

That’s enough on the build for now, thanks for reading Creating your own Kodi build Part One, next time we will be looking at what comes next in the process. In the meantime, please take a while to view some of the great blogs on BestforKodi.com

 

If you have any questions,

contact me on Twitter @Grendel1905 or @BestforKodi.

 

Keep dabbling.

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