GUI tutorial

Development

Add-on development

Python development

GUI tutorial

Introduction

This How To will explain several ways of showing a "Hello World" popup on screen

Examples

Using xbmc modules

Simple example using xbmc python modules showing a notification dialog that will show for 5 seconds.

using built-in functions

More info on Built-In functions can be found here: List of built-in functions Following are two examples. One with just a simple notification dialog and the other with the same dialog but with using variables. It all depends on how extended you scripts will be. Since we require all used strings to be localized (translatable) we recommend the second option.

import xbmc

xbmc.executebuiltin('Notification(Hello World,This is a simple example of notifications,5000,/script.hellow.world.png)')

import xbmc
import xbmcaddon

__addon__ = xbmcaddon.Addon()
__addonname__ = __addon__.getAddonInfo('name')
__icon__ = __addon__.getAddonInfo('icon')
 
line1 = "This is a simple example of notifications"
time = 5000 #in miliseconds
 
xbmc.executebuiltin('Notification(%s, %s, %d, %s)'%(__addonname__,line1, time, __icon__))

using xbmcgui module

This will show a OK dilaog box with the message More info on xbmcgui functions can be found here: [ http://mirrors.xbmc.org/docs/python-docs/16.x-jarvis/xbmcgui.html#Dialog ]

import xbmcaddon
import xbmcgui

__addon__ = xbmcaddon.Addon()
__addonname__ = __addon__.getAddonInfo('name')

line1 = "This is a simple example of OK dialog"
line2 = "Showing this message using"
line3 = "XBMC python modules"

xbmcgui.Dialog().ok(__addonname__, line1, line2, line3)

Using xbmc modules & JSON-RPC API

More info on JSON-RPC API can be found here: JSON-RPC API

This JSON-RPC command send through various ways and will execute the addon code that is shown below.

{
    "jsonrpc": "2.0",
    "id": 0,
    "method": "Addons.ExecuteAddon",
    "params": {
        "addonid": "script.popup",
        "params": {
            "image": "D:\\heartagram.jpg",
            "line1": "Hello World",
            "line2": "Showing this message using",
            "line3": "Combination of Kodi python modules and",
            "line4": "JSON-RPC API interface",
            "line5": "Have fun coding"
        }
    }
}

This python code will create several controls using xbmcgui module and fill these will the message send through JSON-RPC:

import xbmcgui
import sys
import urlparse

class PopupWindow(xbmcgui.WindowDialog):
    def __init__(self, image, line1, line2, line3, line4, line5):
        self.addControl(xbmcgui.ControlImage(x=25, y=25, width=150, height=150, filename=image[0]))
        self.addControl(xbmcgui.ControlLabel(x=190, y=25, width=500, height=25, label=line1[0]))
        self.addControl(xbmcgui.ControlLabel(x=190, y=50, width=500, height=25, label=line2[0]))
        self.addControl(xbmcgui.ControlLabel(x=190, y=75, width=500, height=25, label=line3[0]))
        self.addControl(xbmcgui.ControlLabel(x=190, y=100, width=500, height=25, label=line4[0]))
        self.addControl(xbmcgui.ControlLabel(x=190, y=125, width=500, height=25, label=line5[0]))

if __name__ == '__main__':
    params = urlparse.parse_qs('&'.join(sys.argv[1:]))
    window = PopupWindow(**params)
    window.show()
    xbmc.sleep(5000)
    window.close()
    del window

See also

Development:

• Addon Settings
• Python development
• Skinning