New Plugin for Kodi/XBMC

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Hi guys,

i just had a quick question,

i just started working on a new plugin to get XBMC/Kodi integrated in Pimatic.
i think this would be awesome if it works (my complete media (audio and video) in my livingroom is controlled by XBMC)

i found a nice API that i can use for this. but i was wondering what the best approach would be.

1. use button sensors for the events (play, pause, stop ect.)
   But this means it will get a shitload of devices. But the user can choose which ones they want and which they don’t need.

2. create a new device type.
   Which will contain all the events ect.
   and can be more easily extend to also send stuff to XBMC/Kodi. (like turning on internet radio as soon as you get home)

But i have a general idea on how to add a new device, but i have no idea how i can make them trigger events ect.
is really this enough:
http://www.pimatic.org/docs/pimatic/lib/devices/#contactsensor
and then the Button part? only an emit?

Can someone point me in the right direction here?

Hi Fjux,

sounds very nice. For the device I think it would be the best to create a AVPlayer device type in pimatic. pimatic-mpd already provides a MusicPlayer device: https://github.com/pimatic/pimatic-mpd/blob/development/mpd.coffee#L37

You can start with that by building a similar device. I will then create a abstract base class for that and move the ActionProvider to the framework so that they can be used for both (and other) plugins.

Triggering an event is just the emit, for using it in a rule you need an ActionProvider or PredicateProvider with corresponding Handler Example

Also take a look at the npm package for xbmc that could be easily used for your plugin (if you didn’t want to use it already )

Looking forward to see it. If you have further question feel free to ask.

Hi SweetPi,

Thanks for your reply!

i will look into it, looks promising.
It has almost the same basic functionalities that i wanted to start with.

Just another question, the ActionProvider is quite new, is there any documentation about it?
or for now just trail and error?

I am finished with a basic setup for the plugin!

I used a lot from the mdp-plugin, thank you for that @sweetpi !

Functions it supports:

• play
• pause
• next
• previous

it shows the current title
And you can use it in rule’s

Though don’t use it yet with Soundcloud. This somehow crashed the node-xbmc part, need to figure out what is causing this!

Please let me know if you have any requests! i have a lot of idea’s with this plugin, but could use some help if i want to make my own front-end for it (really bad at front end )

more can be found here:
https://www.npmjs.com/package/pimatic-kodi
https://github.com/Fjuxx/pimatic-kodi

Nice! Lets try it

Edit: Working, getting the current state (playing, pause, stopped) is not (yet) working isn’t it?

No that is not yet working.

Also there seems to be a load of bugs in de xbmc lib I use. So this weekend I will be fixing those, and then make support for is playing ect.

Also the state will be filled then!

After a restart of my device I get the following error;

20:00:47.362 [pimatic] A uncaught exception occured: Error: JSON parse error: Error: Unexpected end
20:00:47.362 [pimatic]>Line: 1
20:00:47.362 [pimatic]>Column: 0
20:00:47.362 [pimatic]>Char:
20:00:47.362 [pimatic]>    at Object.onerror (/usr/local/pimatic-app/node_modules/pimatic-kodi/node_modules/xbmc/lib/TCPConnection.js:186:17)
20:00:47.362 [pimatic]>    at emit (/usr/local/pimatic-app/node_modules/pimatic-kodi/node_modules/xbmc/node_modules/clarinet/clarinet.js:285:37)
20:00:47.362 [pimatic]>    at error (/usr/local/pimatic-app/node_modules/pimatic-kodi/node_modules/xbmc/node_modules/clarinet/clarinet.js:320:5)
20:00:47.362 [pimatic]>    at end (/usr/local/pimatic-app/node_modules/pimatic-kodi/node_modules/xbmc/node_modules/clarinet/clarinet.js:326:7)
20:00:47.362 [pimatic]>    at Object.write (/usr/local/pimatic-app/node_modules/pimatic-kodi/node_modules/xbmc/node_modules/clarinet/clarinet.js:341:32)
20:00:47.362 [pimatic]>    at Object.CParser.close (/usr/local/pimatic-app/node_modules/pimatic-kodi/node_modules/xbmc/node_modules/clarinet/clarinet.js:148:42)
20:00:47.362 [pimatic]>    at Connection.onClose (/usr/local/pimatic-app/node_modules/pimatic-kodi/node_modules/xbmc/lib/TCPConnection.js:162:26)
20:00:47.362 [pimatic]>    at Socket.<anonymous> (/usr/local/pimatic-app/node_modules/pimatic-kodi/node_modules/xbmc/lib/TCPConnection.js:4:59)
20:00:47.362 [pimatic]>    at Socket.EventEmitter.emit (events.js:95:17)
20:00:47.362 [pimatic]>    at TCP.close (net.js:466:12)
20:00:47.362 [pimatic]> This is most probably a bug in pimatic or in a module, please report it!
20:00:47.405 [pimatic] shutting pimatic down...

@skipper79 That problems should be solved now in the new version (0.0.4)

@sweetpi
Could you provide me with some help?
i’m having problems with the Predicate Provider, i think i mis understood a part of it. but have no idea where.

i thought to make a simple introduction to it by making the plugin accept kodi is playing instead of kodi.state == playing.

But all of the examples are either boolean based or only based on 2 things (like open/close ect)
What i want: playing, paused and stopped.
Can you take a look at it for a second and tell me where i am wrong?
https://gist.github.com/4e295f2734088569d0c8

everytime i’m getting the error on:
@emit ‘change’, (if @negated then not p else p)

And the error:
/Users//pimatic-dev/node_modules/pimatic/node_modules/cassert/index.js:54
return line.match(/assert\s*((.*))/)[1]
^
TypeError: Cannot read property ‘1’ of null
at getAssertionExpression (/Users//pimatic-dev/node_modules/pimatic/node_modules/cassert/index.js:54:43)

And the weird thing is, that this happens on boot, and the state is “state”.

If i remove the emit and only log, then i get a log with “state” at start, and after that it nicly logs playing paused ect.

The value emitted form the device for state is a string not a boolean, right? So p has type string in https://gist.github.com/Fjuxx/4e295f2734088569d0c8#file-gistfile1-coffee-L45-L47.

The PlayingPredicateHandler needs to emit a boolean and not a string. It should emit true if the predicate is true and false if it is false. So it’s not enough here to negate p because p can’t negated, its a string…

In you PredicateProvider I would save the state the user want’s to check for, so instead of negated = (s.trim() isnt "playing") I would do:

state = s.trim() # is one of  'playing', 'stopped', 'paused', 'not playing'

and pass this like negated to the PlayingPredicateHandler and check in the state listener:

      @playingListener = (p) =>
        env.logger.debug "checking for: #{@state} == #{p}"
        @emit 'change', (if @state is p)
        # TODO: handle 'not playing'

Thanks @sweetpi!

I understand how it works now,
though the new version will take a while, first holiday

@Fjux
Hi, i can’t configure this plugin, what i did:

1. installed Kodi to RPi
2. installed plugin for pimatic
3. added to config file new device:
   {
   “id”: “kodi-player”,
   “name”: “Kodi”,
   “class”: “KodiPlayer”,
   “host”: “127.0.0.1”,
   “port”: 9090
   }
4. added buttons array (play, stop, etc…)
5. added new rule, for example if play button is pressed then play Kodi

but nothing happend…
may be anyone can write HOWTO about install and configure Kodi plugin?

@mocart2 said:

@Fjux
Hi, i can’t configure this plugin, what i did:

1. installed Kodi to RPi
2. installed plugin for pimatic
3. added to config file new device:
   {
   “id”: “kodi-player”,
   “name”: “Kodi”,
   “class”: “KodiPlayer”,
   “host”: “127.0.0.1”,
   “port”: 9090
   }
4. added buttons array (play, stop, etc…)
5. added new rule, for example if play button is pressed then play Kodi

but nothing happend…
may be anyone can write HOWTO about install and configure Kodi plugin?

Try to add the kodi device to your dashboard. it already has buttons for play stop ect.
Also it shows currntly playing.

But note, it still has some issues if pimatic starts before kodi. hopefully i have some free time soon again to work on it!

Just released a new update.

This version supports the Predicates!
Big thanks to @sweetpi for the help!

It also reconnects properly now!

@mocart2 i just reread your question, please not that this is more of a remote for Kodi.
So it is the same as your DVD player, if no DVD is entered you can press play all you want, it wont do anything.

easiest thing to start with: Play a song on Kodi manually, and then use the play/pause buttons to control it.
In the future i will add more functionalities to get more control over Kodi.

i might need some extra help with getting the plugin working with multiple Kodi Instances.

it seems that the node-xbmc library i’m using makes a mess when i use it twice.

I first thought that the connection was not correctly set, or overridden. But that wasn’t the problem, as it was connecting fine to the first instance.

But i noticed this: The events that are emitted seems to be library wide instead of being limited to the initialized instance.

It seems to have something to do with the Pubsub.coffee, so i tried to initialize it in the constructor. but this didn’t help. Getting every pubsub in there with a @ (or this) didn’t work either. Well it didn’t work at all anymore.

Can anyone push me in the right direction?

Here is the repro i am talking about: https://github.com/Fjuxx/node-xbmc

@Fjux
Hi Fjux,
i have lot of sideeffects with cec controlling because at the moment i controll my tv with kodi and libcec directly at the same time.
http://forum.pimatic.org/topic/365/cec-tv-power-status/10

i have read some kodi pages
http://kodi.wiki/view/JSON-RPC_API/Examples
http://kodi.wiki/view/JSON-RPC_API
and my question/feature request is now:
is it possible to extend your kodi plugin to controll e.g. TV via CEC? so i could do the cec controlling via kodi at all.
i want to:
check the tv status (on or standby)
start and stop the tv.
thats it.
(by the way: my kodi runs 24/7 on raspberry pi 2)

would be very nice

thanks
dk00000

@dk00000 said:

@Fjux
Hi Fjux,
i have lot of sideeffects with cec controlling because at the moment i controll my tv with kodi and libcec directly at the same time.
http://forum.pimatic.org/topic/365/cec-tv-power-status/10

i have read some kodi pages
http://kodi.wiki/view/JSON-RPC_API/Examples
http://kodi.wiki/view/JSON-RPC_API
and my question/feature request is now:
is it possible to extend your kodi plugin to controll e.g. TV via CEC? so i could do the cec controlling via kodi at all.
i want to:
check the tv status (on or standby)
start and stop the tv.
thats it.
(by the way: my kodi runs 24/7 on raspberry pi 2)

would be very nice

thanks
dk00000

I’m afraid that is something else entirely.

CEC means that your TV is sending the commands of the TV remote over the HDMI to your Kodi.

i’m directly talking to Kodi, so you are looking for a CEC plugin for your TV.
And i highly doubt that if you TV has an interface, it will not send those commands over the CEC. Usually TV’s only send the Remote commands over CEC.

@Fjux
Maybe i was not clear enough.
I have a raspberry pi 2 with kodi and additionally libcec installation.

Kodi has CEC support and it has the ability to turn tv on and off via cec commands. E.g. if kodi shutdown switch tv off. And i can controll kodi with my TV IR-controll.
The same functionality i have via commandline via libcec without kodi. So i can send TV on and TV off commands via commandline.
Furthermore i can use some more commands like check the status of the tv (on or off?).
If i use libcec than the kodi cec connection will be terminated and vice versa.
My feature request is to use just one cec connection methode to controll kodi with my tv ir-control AND to check the tv status.
(maybe in german i could explain it better)
dk00000

Check this: https://github.com/joshjowen/script.json-cec. You can use this to Send CEC commands through Kodi JSON-RPC, I think this is will do.

Those CEC commands look interesting.

But for now, i just switched to a new Library. As the original one simply had way to many problems.
And they did a very very bad thing on a fundamental place.

All of the events triggered were Plugin wide instead of instance…
This made 2 or more instances impossible.

The new one looks a lot cleaner, and i think this won’t be a problem to integrate.
As one of the first few new functions i want to add a functionality to make users able to create their own calls to XBMC. Which should make it easy to get the CEC working.

Big update

i switched everything to a new library, which handles everything a lot better.

it uses introspect to get the functions from Kodi.

Also fixed some issues with the predicates. (not playing was not working properly)

And a very nice new feature:
you can add custom command to be execute to Kodi as Player.Open (http://kodi.wiki/view/JSON-RPC_API/v6#Player.Open)

This function is capable of running almost anything. (chrome to kodi extension is also using this)
with this you can add a custom command (lets say a youtube vid). and you can execute that command through the rule system.

This way you could also start your favorite radio station when you get home. (i will post an example later with the Radio plugin)

@dk00000 and @Mdesign with these custom commands it is also possible to execute script commands.
small example: (not tested)

        {
          "name": "scripttest",
          "command": "plugin://script.path.to.cec/?command=activate"
        }

Also it now should support multiple instances at the same time.
Let me know what you guys think!

edit: currently found a bug, i think it has something to do with the difference between nodejs V10 en V12. (it’s seems to be working on V12)