kodi-control 0.2.0

Getting Started

Install using:

pip3 install --user kodi-control

Then, you need to create a file containing the settings. In ~/.config/kodi-control/settings.nt (a NestedText file) that takes the following form:

hostname: localhost
port: 8080
username: kodi
password: password

All the values are optional with the defaults shown (except for password which is empty by default).

Before using Kodi Control you must first enable the JSONRPC over HTTP interface. To do so, open Kodi and navigate to Settings → Services → Control and enable “Allow remote control via HTTP”. While there you can add a username and password if desired. Do not enable SSL.

You can run Kodi Control on a different from the one that runs Kodi, you just need to give the hostname for the machine that is running Kodi, and of course that machine must be accessible over the network from the machine running Kodi Control. In this case, some functionality, such as volume control and starting and killing Kodi, is not available. Alternately, Kodi can be run locally or you can open an SSH terminal and run Kodi Control on the Kodi host. In this case all functionality is available. To control a remote Kodi while using an SSH terminal, you must specify the name of your display in your settings.nt file. The typical value is :0 or :0, but you can examine your DISPLAY environment variable and specify whatever it contains:

display: :0

However you choose to do it, you would start Kodi Control in a terminal:

> kodi-control
Enter desired actions, use 'q' to terminate.
     : toggle play/pause       ENT: select                h: move left
    ': literal text            ESC: go to to home screen  i: show info
    0: go to 0%                H: go to to home screen    j: move down
    1: go to 10%               K: kill player             k: move up
    2: go to 20%               M: temporary mute          l: move right
    3: go to 30%               P: toggle player on top    m: toggle mute
    4: go to 40%               S: start player            n: toggle navigation
    5: go to 50%               T: show subtitles          p: toggle play/pause
    6: go to 60%               b: skip backward           s: go to start
    7: go to 70%               c: context menu            t: hide subtitles
    8: go to 80%               d: volume down             u: volume up
    9: go to 90%               e: go to end               x: stop
    BS: go back                f: skip forward

As it starts, it immediately prints a list of available actions. Then you simply type individual characters to run the desired action.

The temporary mute action (M) engages mute for settable number of seconds. This can be used to turn off the sound during commercials. Once engaged you will see a count down with the sound being re-enabled when the count reaches 0. During the interim all input is ignore except ctrl-C which immediately terminates the count-down and immediately re-activates the sound. You can specify the duration of the temporary mute with the following setting:

temporary mute duration: 30

You can specify the path to the Kodi executable and the name used by the Kodi binary in your settings file:

kodi: kodi-standalone
kodi binary: kodi.bin_v8

kodi holds the command used to start Kodi. It can be just the command name, in which case it must be on your path, or it can be the full path to the command. By default it is simply kodi. kodi binary is used when killing Kodi, by default it is kodi.bin. Change this setting if the K command does not work. With Kodi running, you can run the ps command and look for kodi to find the name of the running command. Generally you find two, one is usually kodi and the other is generally kodi.bin, kodi.bin_v8, or kodi.x11. You want to use the second.

Older versions of Kodi have a bug that interferes with proper operation of forward seeks of less than 60 seconds. Kodi Control works around this issue if you specify the version number of Kodi in the settings file:

kodi version: 18.7

Currently, the workaround is disabled if the version is 19 or later.

If you have any trouble, you can enable the log file and examine it for clues. To enable the log file, add the following to your settings file:

log: yes

Then the log file can be found at ~/.local/share/kodi-control/log. Feel free to post questions or bug report to GitHub Issues.