Tanix Tx6 with Android 9

• Install Total Commander File Manager from Play Store 8)
• Allow installing apps from unknown sources for TotalCommander, disallow for all other apps
• Copy the 2 apks from USB to the Download directory
• Install Zattoo TV app for Android TV OS
• Install U Play TV app Thailand for Android
• Install ProxyDroid from Play Store
• Install SSHelper from Play Store (default username=admin, password=admin)
• Install Screenshot Easy from Play Store
• Install Kodi from Play Store
• Arrange home apps, my preferred setup is

1. Enable Show movie sets in Settings/Media/Videos. You might want to enable Include sets containing a single movie.
2. Add file paths through main menu Videos, then Files/Add videos…/Browse/Add network location…, and add the samba path to the folder.
3. Add file path for (example) Concerts, then create movie set concerts, then add all movies to the movie set.
4. Select the movie set, then select Add to favorites through the context menu.
5. Repeat for other movie types you want to group into it's own menu item, for example Billiard and Foreign movies.

The new default skin “Estuary” is very good, not too heavy, and well maintained. However, it lacks the ability to customize the home screen. This walk-through exists also for Kodi 18.1 on LibreELEC 9.0.1.

However, it is possible to customize the home menu items manually. With SSH access to your Kodi box, you can create custom menu entries.

1. Login to your box through SSHelper and copy the entire skin directory with TotalCommander or the following command:

   su
   cp -R /data/data/org.xbmc.kodi/cache/apk/assets/addons/skin.estuary /data/media/0/Android/data/org.xbmc.kodi/files/.kodi/addons
   ; source: /data/data/org.xbmc.kodi/cache/apk/assets/addons/skin.estuary
   ; dest:   /data/media/0/Android/data/org.xbmc.kodi/files/.kodi/addons

2. Rename the copied directory to skin.estuary.mod, then rename the skin id and name to “estuary.mod” in the 2nd line of the following file:

   /data/media/0/Android/data/org.xbmc.kodi/files/.kodi/addons/skin.estuary.mod/addon.xml

3. Reboot, first enable the new skin in Addons, then set the new skin in Interface
4. Make the desired view a favorite, for example you want to have a menu item for foreign language movies, so add all foreign language movies into the same movie set and make it a favorite.
5. Note the ActivateWindow command including the parameters in between the (brackets), this will be the command to open your custom menu, in file:

   /data/media/0/Android/data/org.xbmc.kodi/files/.kodi/userdata/favorites.xml

6. Modify all custom menu entries, and optionally the menu icons, in:

   /data/media/0/Android/data/org.xbmc.kodi/files/.kodi/addons/skin.estuary.mod/xml/Home.xml

7. For that, choose a menu item you do not use, for example “Games”, find the string “ActivateWindow(Games)” in Home.xml
8. Rename the entry within <label>, and replace the png file within <thumb>, for example with movies.png
9. Remove visibility check within <visible> except !Skin.HasSetting, with which you can enable/disable all custom menu items
10. If you want to remove the text when moving to your new menu item, first open file strings.po and find the string id (for “Games”, this is id 31162 as per Kodi 9.0.1):

     in /data/media/0/Android/data/org.xbmc.kodi/files/.kodi/addons/skin.estuary.mod/language/resource.language.en_us

11. Open Home.xml again and find id 31162, comment out from <include content=“ImageWidget”> to </include>, this will disable the text “Play your personal games…”
12. To create more than one extra menu item, copy the new menu item and rename the <label> and <onclick> directives, but keep property name (menu_id and id) the same as for the original games menu item
13. Reorder your menu items to your liking and reboot Kodi
14. Optionally, change the splash screen by replacing splash.jpg in the kodi install folder, or by placing splash.png into the user folder:

    /data/data/org.xbmc.kodi/cache/apk/assets/media
    /data/media/0/Android/data/org.xbmc.kodi/files/.kodi/media

Refer to the example file home.zip which contains custom menu items replacing the games entry. Note id 43 below, which is the id of the favorite selected.

<item>
  <label>$LOCALIZE[20389]</label>
  <property name="menu_id">$NUMBER[17000]</property>
  <onclick>ActivateWindow(10025,&quot;videodb://movies/sets/43/?setid=43&quot;,return)</onclick>
  <thumb>icons/sidemenu/musicvideos.png</thumb>
  <property name="id">games</property>
  <visible>!Skin.HasSetting(HomeMenuNoGamesButton)</visible>
</item>

In my setup, it is Concerts(1), Billiard(2), Thai movies (7), 3D(52).

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