Kodi addon for launching big box?

[Paynemaster]

DOS76 said You could also set Kodi up as a platform in LaunchBox or an application platform with Kodi in it. Then you could use Kodi to launch BigBox and BigBox to launch back into Kodi.

this will also close Kodi when BigBox is launched?

[DOS76]

I don't know about that I'm a Plex guy personally. If I was going to shell anything I would probably shell BigBox and then use it to launch Plex and SlingPlayer for recorded media and live TV.

[Syriacn]

Hello, Sorry its been a little bit since I've been back on here, just been very busy. I never had the problem of Kodi not coming back up. In the settings of the BigBox app in Kodi choose "NO" when it ask if you want to quit. I recently installed Windows 10, and I am running the daily Alpha of Kodi v17.0 “Krypton” and the add-on still works great and I have no troubles when I close out of BigBox Kodi is ready and waiting on screen. I am also using a modified Estuary skin. Estuary is Kodi's new and improved skin, and Guilouz has modded the skin to allow for customization such as Home Menu buttons. I have added "Games" to the main menu and then set it to launch BigBox. Below is a link to the Modified Kodi Skin that I am currently using. http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=267343 Jeremy

[esnmb]

Hello, I am running Kodi 16.1 and just licensed LaunchBox for the BigBox integration with your Kodi package. When I try to launch any game I get a warning saying "The file you specified for the emulator application was not found." If I try to open the game or games from BigBox outside of Kodi, they run without issues. Any ideas? I am running Windows 10...

[Bedwyr]

Sorry if I missed this thread when posting a new topic. Cross referencing: https://www.launchbox-app.com/forum/troubleshooting/possible-kodi-issue-heads-up Do any of you observe the same control issue in Kodi? And also are any of you having trouble with the addon not closing Kodi?

[Bedwyr]

Ok, I'm trying to do a line-by-line comparison between the steam launcher and BB launcher. The Kodi shutdown code in the scripts appear to be exactly the same so I'll try to remove, reinstall both plugins, and test each between 16.1 and 17.0 alpha.

[Bedwyr]

The Steam launcher correctly closes Kodi with the proper setting. The Big Box launcher does not even after I removed the add-on, reset the system, and removed the user data. This is perplexing. The only difference I can see so far is that I have LaunchBox installed to D:\Games\Emulators\Launchbox\ on a different partition. Maybe both AHK scripts make wrong assumptions about relative folder locations... although my Steam install is also on D:\Games\ so that probably can't be it. I'll try comparing the scripts again, but there's nothing obvious going on. Anyone who knows more than me about this is welcome to chime in with any ideas.

[Bedwyr]

Ok, comparing the Kodi debug logs I noticed this in the BB launcher process:

18:43:44 T:6440 NOTICE: script.BigBox.launcher: attempting to launch: "C:\Users\HTPC\AppData\Roaming\Kodi\userdata\addon_data\script.BigBox.launcher\scripts\BigBoxLauncher-AHK.exe" "D:\Games\Emulators\LaunchBox\BigBox.exe" "C:\Program Files (x86)\Kodi\Kodi.exe" "0" "false" "false" "false" 18:43:44 T:6440 DEBUG: "C:\Users\HTPC\AppData\Roaming\Kodi\userdata\addon_data\script.BigBox.launcher\scripts\BigBoxLauncher-AHK.exe" "D:\Games\Emulators\LaunchBox\BigBox.exe" "C:\Program Files (x86)\Kodi\Kodi.exe" "0" "false" "false" "false" 18:43:44 T:6440 NOTICE: script.BigBox.launcher: busy dialog started 18:43:44 T:6148 DEBUG: Activating window ID: 10138 18:43:44 T:6148 DEBUG: ------ Window Init (DialogBusy.xml) ------ 18:43:45 T:6148 DEBUG: CWinEventsWin32::WndProcWindow is active 18:43:45 T:6148 DEBUG: CWinEventsWin32::WndProc: Focus switched to process D:\Games\Emulators\LaunchBox\BigBox.exe 18:43:54 T:6440 NOTICE: script.BigBox.launcher: busy dialog stopped after: 10 seconds

The Steam launcher process shows this:

18:46:52 T:5764 NOTICE: script.steam.launcher: attempting to launch: "C:\Users\HTPC\AppData\Roaming\Kodi\userdata\addon_data\script.steam.launcher\scripts\SteamLauncher-AHK.exe" "D:\Games\Steam\Steam.exe" "C:\Program Files (x86)\Kodi\Kodi.exe" "0" "false" "false" "false" 18:46:52 T:5764 DEBUG: "C:\Users\HTPC\AppData\Roaming\Kodi\userdata\addon_data\script.steam.launcher\scripts\SteamLauncher-AHK.exe" "D:\Games\Steam\Steam.exe" "C:\Program Files (x86)\Kodi\Kodi.exe" "0" "false" "false" "false" 18:46:52 T:5764 NOTICE: script.steam.launcher: busy dialog started 18:46:52 T:8564 DEBUG: Activating window ID: 10138 18:46:52 T:8564 DEBUG: ------ Window Init (DialogBusy.xml) ------ 18:46:52 T:8564 DEBUG: CWinEventsWin32::WndProcWindow is active 18:46:52 T:8564 DEBUG: CAnnouncementManager - Announcement: OnQuit from xbmc 18:46:52 T:8564 DEBUG: GOT ANNOUNCEMENT, type: 8, from xbmc, message OnQuit 18:46:52 T:8564 NOTICE: Storing total System Uptime 18:46:52 T:8564 NOTICE: Saving settings 18:46:52 T:8564 NOTICE: stop all

Why would focus be switched in the BB add-on but not in the Steam add-on? I'm going to switch to Kodi 17 and see if that changes anything. edit: no change in 17.0 Krypton (There's some interface issues with Mimic so I'll revert back to 16.1... Steam Launcher still shuts down correctly, BB Launcher does not).

[Bedwyr]

Ok, I'm confused now. Looking at the differences between the Steam and BB AHK scripts, the only difference is what I have highlighted:

;KODI steam launcher autohotkey script by teeedubb ;See: https://github.com/teeedubb/teeedubb-xbmc-repo http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=157499 ;Manual script usage: <strong>Big-Box.exe</strong> "e:\path\to\steam.exe" "d:\path\to\kodi.exe" "0/1" "true/false" "scriptpath/false" "scriptpath/false" ;$3 = 0 Quit KODI, 1 Minimize KODI. $4 = KODI portable mode. $5 = pre script. $6 post script. ;Change the 'steam.launcher.script.revision =' number below to 999 to preserve changes through addon updates, otherwise it shall be overwritten. ;You will need to have AutoHotKey installed to recompile this .ahk file into a .exe to work with the addon. ; ;<strong>BigBox.launcher.script.revision=999</strong>

Spoiler

#NoEnv #SingleInstance force SetWorkingDir %A_ScriptDir% if 0 != 6 { MsgBox This script requires arguments but it only received %0%. See script file for details. ExitApp } IfNotEqual, 5, false { RunWait, %5%,,Hide } Process, Exist, Steam.exe if ErrorLevel { IfWinExist, Steam ahk_class CUIEngineWin32 { WinActivate, Steam ahk_class CUIEngineWin32 } else { Run, %1% steam://open/bigpicture } } else { Run, %1% -bigpicture } GroupAdd, SteamBPM, Steam ahk_class CUIEngineWin32 GroupAdd, SteamBPM, Steam ahk_class Steam SteamLoop: WinWait, ahk_group SteamBPM if %3% { WinMinimize, Kodi ahk_class Kodi } else { Run, %comspec% /c taskkill /im Kodi.exe,,Hide Run, %comspec% /c timeout /t 1 && tasklist /nh /fi "imagename eq Kodi.exe" | find /i "Kodi.exe" >nul && (taskkill /f /im Kodi.exe),,Hide } WinWait, Steam ahk_class CUIEngineWin32 WinActivate, Steam ahk_class CUIEngineWin32 WinWaitClose, Steam ahk_class CUIEngineWin32 IfNotEqual, 6, false { RunWait, %6%,,Hide } if %3% { WinMaximize, Kodi ahk_class Kodi } else { IfEqual, 4, true { run, %2% -p } else { run, %2% } } WinWait, Kodi ahk_class Kodi WinActivate, Kodi ahk_class Kodi WinWait, ahk_group SteamBPM,,5 if ErrorLevel { return } else { IfNotEqual, 5, false { RunWait, %5%,,Hide } Goto, SteamLoop } ExitApp

These are in the comments though. There's no functional change in the script. I extracted the code from the AHK exe and it's exactly the same Steam script. Which means that all the references to Steam are non-functional? Why make a change to the comments but not the script itself?? I'm not really familiar with AHK, but I can try to look through and figure out what's likely happening. My guess at the moment is that BB is being loaded, Kodi is being dropped to the background, but Kodi isn't being correctly closed because a bad reference to a non-existent Steam Big Picture reference is preventing the Kodi->close part of the script for working properly. I could be wrong.

[Bedwyr]

Also the .sh scripts are exactly the same.

[Bedwyr]

I haven't gotten to try anything else in the last week on this issue, but hopefully I'll get to spend maybe a little bit of time. Could I get someone to at least chime in? I feel like I'm broadcasting in the blind and hearing static back. I can understand Syriacn being to busy to log in, but it would be nice to see some interest from someone else that this is worth investigating and understanding.

[ashramrak]

Bedwyr said I haven't gotten to try anything else in the last week on this issue, but hopefully I'll get to spend maybe a little bit of time. Could I get someone to at least chime in? I feel like I'm broadcasting in the blind and hearing static back. I can understand Syriacn being to busy to log in, but it would be nice to see some interest from someone else that this is worth investigating and understanding.

Hey there, I'm new to launchbox; one the things that made me pay for the product was bigbox + this addon I've been following this thread for a few days... it seems to me this addon has been adapted from the steam addon with a quick copy/paste; but I somehow got it to work like I want with launcher4kodi : I specified bigbox as a third party app and played on the focus settings; I can get back to you with my exact configuration if you are interested I've also noticed that the addon has been removed from teedub's repository lately, which is a shame

[Bedwyr]

It's not a critical use issue for me as I've reverted to XB360 controllers for the time being. The problem has been twofold. First, Kodi 17 implemented initial support for the XBOne controller under xinput, I believe. This was needed as Microsoft mucked around with the input assignments again in March, screwing up 16.x Jarvis use (Kodi reads the controller trigger at rest as "right-input-as-fast-as-possible"). Unfortunately right now the beta incorrectly reads controller input *even while Kodi does not have focus*. I put in a bug report but have yet to see activity or a single response from whoever on the team is responsible for developing the XB1 support. That makes the BB launcher problematical. It's more of a workaround to do this, but the XB1 controller could still be usable if the launcher correctly shut down Kodi just as the Steam launcher does; that's what had me uncover how much work went into it. Again, it's not a big functional deal for me as the launcher still works ok with Kodi in the background on the XB 360, but for the sake of others and unwelcome surprises, the advertised feature should work. I'd like to dig further into the AHK script and see if I can suss out what to change to correct this, but I'm mostly a C++ engineer and have to throw most of my time at work and a couple of related self-study project. Learning AHK and hacking the launcher has to take a back seat in favor of placating bosses, advisors, and colleagues. So I do appreciate the offer of your setup. But the objective really is to correct the launcher. If you're curious enough to dig into it, please have at it. Just report back so that, when I do have a bit more spare time, I don't duplicate your work. ps- can you clarify what you meant by teedub's repo? I didn't know this launcher was ever part of it; just the Steam Launcher.

[ashramrak]

Bedwyr said It's not a critical use issue for me as I've reverted to XB360 controllers for the time being. The problem has been twofold. First, Kodi 17 implemented initial support for the XBOne controller under xinput, I believe. This was needed as Microsoft mucked around with the input assignments again in March, screwing up 16.x Jarvis use (Kodi reads the controller trigger at rest as "right-input-as-fast-as-possible"). Unfortunately right now the beta incorrectly reads controller input *even while Kodi does not have focus*.

ok my bad, now I see why you need Kodi to close properly on bigbox launch (which would indeed be cleaner anyway...), and also I was considering buying a xbox one controller to replace my x360 one... I might postpone that

Bedwyr said So I do appreciate the offer of your setup. But the objective really is to correct the launcher. If you're curious enough to dig into it, please have at it. Just report back so that, when I do have a bit more spare time, I don't duplicate your work. ps- can you clarify what you meant by teedub's repo? I didn't know this launcher was ever part of it; just the Steam Launcher.

I know nothing about AHK either but I'll eventually look into it if I find some time... teedub is the author of both the steam launcher and bigbox launcher and I'm pretty sure a few days ago I saw the bigbox launcher sitting in his repo along the steam one... maybe he pulled it back to work some more on it I don't know... anyway his work is much appreciated; been using the steam launcher for a while now edit : ok my bad I've read the thread again and Syariacn did the addon... I could swear I saw the addon on teedub's repo guess I've been hallucinating a big deal about that

[ashramrak]

been investigating the addon a lil as well, seems indeed a total copy/paste of teeedub's steam addon with the biggest difference being the bigboxlauncher-ahk.exe executable... you can specify "pre big box script" and a "post big box script", kodi closes correctly if you put something like "cmd.exe /c taskkill /im kodi.exe" in the pre big box script, but for some reason the post bigbox script is not executed (tried this feature in steam launcher and it works) also there is still other issues, like if steam big picture is running minimized and you use the bigbox addon it just puts steam on the foreground instead of launching big box... My feeling is that in the current state of this addon it should not be "advertised" as a feature on launchbox front page... I had the feeling I was buying something ready to go, but it's not and needs some tweaking (not whinning here, just pointing out... I'm willing to help find some solution) edit : ok here is some really dirty stuff : create a bigbox.cmd with something like this inside : cmd.exe /c taskkill /im Kodi.exe cmd.exe /c "D:\Emulation\LaunchBox\bigbox.exe.exe" cmd.exe /c "C:\Program Files (x86)\Kodi\Kodi.exe" and point your bigbox executable setting to this .cmd instead of bigbox.exe... kind of work, but at this point it would be much much cleaner to use advanced launcher

[Syriacn]

Good morning, Sorry you are having issues with the plug in, as I mentioned before it's hard for me to pinpoint your trouble as I am unable to reproduce the same issues. I have 3 different setups in my house used daily with different OS's and versions of Kodi. Bigbox launches perfectly while Kodi minimizes, and appears back to full screen when closing Bigbox.

[ashramrak]

Syriacn said Bigbox launches perfectly while Kodi minimizes

what we are pointing out is that when the "quit kodi" setting is set to "yes" kodi should close completely and not minimize itself

[Bedwyr]

ashramrak said

Syriacn said Bigbox launches perfectly while Kodi minimizes

what we are pointing out is that when the "quit kodi" setting is set to "yes" kodi should close completely and not minimize itself

Yup, that's the issue. What I believe the Steam version does is use the AHK script to stay memory resident and wait until Steam is shut down so that it can re-start Kodi. So the primary issue probably? is in that script rather than the main Python script. Probably.

[Syriacn]

Oh ok, I'm sorry I was not understanding that. That's something I can fix when I get a second, sorry.

[Bedwyr]

No problem at all. Though if I could ask a teensy favor: could you explain the changes you made in the script when you get it complete? We may as well learn something new while we're at it.