How to Make XBMC Easier to Use (Especially for Non-Geeks)
So you’ve created a cool media center with the ability to play whatever you want with XBMC , but it’s hard for your less tech-savvy friends and family to use. Here are some ways to make your home theater system simple enough for your 4 year old to use.
Blast From The Past is a weekly feature on Lifehacker in which we bring old but still relevant posts to life for your reading and hacking enjoyment. We’re making your home theater experience more user-friendly this week.
Get a new skin
The default Confluence skin is pretty pretty, and if you look around, there are even prettier ones . However, not all of them are easy to navigate, especially for those unfamiliar with XBMC. For example, Confluence’s horizontal menu is hard to see, and some add-ons are hidden in submenus. Experiment with other skins and see which ones are easier to navigate.
I personally really like Transparency for its easy-to-read vertical menu. You can see each menu item on the menu page (that is, you don’t have to scroll to see any of them) and nothing is hidden in the submenu. In the main menu, you can see movies, TV shows, play a disc and other options and go directly there with a few clicks. It’s a lot easier for a newbie to XBMC to navigate than something like Confluence, Aeon, or Alaska, and still pretty darn attractive. Of course there may be others out there, so search around and see what else you can find.
Program your remote for easy navigation
Some remotes work with the XBMC out of the box, but sometimes getting a simpler remote and programming it yourself can be more user-friendly (either with LIRC or using something like a custom Logitech Harmony remote). Take care to program the buttons in a way that makes sense – I wasted years on non-intuitive button layouts because I just mapped the XBMC functions to the buttons they look like, which was not ideal. Play around with your remote and see which layout makes the most sense. Watch out for the back and menu buttons, which I found to be the hardest to assign to something intuitive. If you really want to see if you did it right, give it to someone who hasn’t used XBMC yet and see if they can figure it out without help. If they can, you’ve found the perfect layout and should stick with it.
You can also try using a remote designed specifically for XBMC, such as one that runs on iOS or Android . Not only will they have buttons assigned to certain XBMC functions, but you can even browse your library directly from your mobile device and play it on your TV. It couldn’t be easier.
Clear the main menu
Go to Settings> Skin Settings and find the edit menu section. Take some time to remove any things you don’t use, such as Pictures, Music, and Weather. Remember to also clear the submenus if your skin has them – things like Recently Added, Random and Browse by Genre aren’t entirely confusing, but they can create a lot of clutter, making the menus harder to navigate … Some skins even allow you to completely remove a submenu. Remove the “Videos” option and replace it with separate “Movies” and “TV Shows” menu items. And, if Play Disc is not turned on, be sure to turn it on for those DVDs that you occasionally rent or borrow from friends.
Place the streaming add-ons on the main menu
XBMC has some great add-ons that let you stream videos from the internet, but digging through the add-ons section isn’t exactly fun. So, put some of the more commonly used add-ons on the homepage so you don’t have to rummage through other menus to find them.
It takes a few steps, but it’s actually quite simple:
- Navigate to one of the required add-ons in the main menu (say USTV VoD is an add-on broadcast from many cable channels). Call the context menu and select “Add to favorites”. This step is not necessary for all skins, but it is necessary for many, including transparency.
- Go to Settings> Skin and find an option to customize the main menu (in Transparency it’s called Menu). You should see several Custom or Favorite slots where you can add your own menu items. Turn them on and select the add-on you want from the favorites menu.
- Repeat this process for all add-ons that you want to place on the homepage. All of them should be displayed in the main menu for quick, easy and painless access.
If you cleaned up your main menu like we described in the previous section, you should now have a menu that is incredibly easy to navigate and has movies, TV shows, streaming videos, and everything else you could ever want.
Enable kiosk mode
One of the most confusing parts of XBMC can be when you accidentally enter the View menu while scrolling through movies or TV shows (what’s hidden behind the right edge of the screen). Once you’ve set everything up the way you want, you can enable “kiosk mode” to block the views of your choice and get rid of that hidden menu. This way, when someone is viewing your videos, they won’t accidentally stumble across this menu and change your viewing mode by accident. In the Transparency section, you’ll find Kiosk Mode under Settings> Skin Settings> General> Enable Kiosk Mode. Check your skin’s documentation to see if it has kiosk mode and where to find it.
XBMC has come a long way, but it’s still not the most user-friendly program on the planet. Hopefully, with these simple settings, you can instantly access your XBMC device to almost anyone. Do you have any suggestions for making XBMC easier to use? Be sure to share them in the comments below.