fabxx / xbmc360

Tutorial on how to install and use blades dashboard on PC, based on XBMC

XBMC360

this is for XBMC 9.11 on Desktop, Linux (wine) and Windows

Skin was made by: Team BlackBolt

blades.mp4

Details

Changes from vanilla MC360:

corrected these sounds with the ones from blades dashboard:

back.wav

exit.wav

select.wav

based off MC360 2.1, which fixes some paths detections to add sources.

Installation

1. run the XBMC9.11 installer and install XBMC where you want.

-You can also choose to make it a portable installation, so settings will be saved in the install same folder.

-If installing on default path under "Program Files (x86)", when you want to create scripts you'll need to give admin permissions to modify the folder. If you want to avoid this, simply install under C:\ or any other path.

2. Drag & drop MC360 2.1 Folder into skins folder of XBMC, then select it from system settings of XBMC

3. To enable login screen go into Profiles and enable the tick of the login screen.

4. For Linux users: winetricks dxvk, needed to render properly the loop animation.

Customization - Profile Picture

Drag & drop the GamerPics folder into XBMC folder. then from the dashboard click on your gamertag and click "change gamer picture"

go into Q: Drive, which is the main XBMC folder then select your pic from there.

Boot Animation

Linux (Debian/Ubuntu): sudo apt install mpv

Linux (Arch): 	       sudo pacman -S mpv

Windows: extract the provided MPV folder where you want

now just edit the script XBMC 9.11.bat if on windows, or XBMC 9.11.sh if on linux

the file is self-explanatory, just change the paths with the stuff you need to point to.

when you're gonna run the script it will play the xbox 360 boot screen, then run XBMC

App Launchers

XBMC Supports python, so you can create game/emulator runners with python scripts.

Use this to generate .sh scripts (Linux) or .lnk and .ps1 scripts (Windows):

https://github.com/Fabxx/GSG

then extract the utilities folder and based on your OS run the pygen script to generate python scripts that will run the scripts

then you can go into System blade > Memory > File Explorer > Q: Drive > scripts and execute the python scripts.

Linux script showcase:

scriptusage.mp4

script.mp4

NOTE (linux users): if you don't have xfce4-terminal, change the string in the script from /usr/bin/xfce4-terminal to the terminal command you use or you can just install that terminal if you want.

Controller Mappings

enable debugging under System > System settings > Debugging in XBMC

now when you press a button on your controller, then in the XBMC.log file located in C:\User\AppData\Roaming\XBMC, you will notice these log messages:

02:09:05 T:8784 M:4294967295   DEBUG: Joystick 0 button 1 Down
02:09:05 T:8784 M:4294967295   DEBUG: Joystick 0 button 1 Up

for d-pads the button is indicated as hat:

first get all button IDs by pressing all buttons on controllers, you can write them down on a txt file along the pressed button name so you can remember.

then in the log file check the name of the detected controller, example in my case:

02:08:26 T:8784 M:4294967295  NOTICE: Enabled Joystick: Controller (XBOX 360 For Windows)

Now go into XBMC/system/Keymaps, here you need gamepad.xml

If you use a logitech controller or similar xbox layouts, you can copy paste the file joystick.Logitech.RumblePad.2.xml

you can also check a picture of that controller to get the idea.

rename it into the joystick name you've found in the log. Don't put spaces, use dots like the original file name. Example:

joystick.Controller.(XBOX.360.For.Windows)

NOTE: under wine you should have: Wine joystick driver as the gamepad name.

Now open gamepad.xml and your controller xml with notepad++ or anything useful for xml editing.

gamepad.xml contains the action names for XBMC

If the action already exists but it's wrongly binded, just change the button ID with yours.

if the action does not exist, you can create a new one by copy-pasting the line and editing it.

the main section to edit is the <global> section that maps the main keys

Now change all the name parameters into your game controller name.

Example:

<joystick name="Logitech Logitech Cordless RumblePad 2">

into:

<joystick name="Controller (XBOX 360 For Windows)">

I provided a pre-defined controller mapping for generic Xbox 360 controllers for windows and wine, you can tweak it too.

NOTE: the controller name must be Exactly the same as shown in the log, there must be no difference in terms of Upper/lower case letters.

[Troubleshooting]

Fix Extreme lag (Linux/Wine)

in your wine prefix folder, go into dosdevices folder

create a symlink like this:

ln -s /dev/sr0 e:

ln -s /dev/sr0 d:

apparently this creates a symlink to the fake dvd drive looked by MC360, which then stops lagging, however the DVD button will be stuck on "Reading"

Fix Animation Loop (if broken)

As you can see in media i've provided the "bkgd_frames" folder. This should already fix the animation loop but if it doesn't do these steps:

1. Check the "skin.xml" file in MC360 2.1 folder, specifically these two parameters:

	<defaultresolution>pal</defaultresolution>
 	 <defaultresolutionwide>pal16x9</defaultresolutionwide>

2. Get in the indicated folder based on your aspect ratio.

3. Open includes.xml, find this section:

<include name="Background-animation-commons">
		<description>Background Animation</description>
		<imagepath>BKGD_Frames</imagepath>
		<timeperimage>0</timeperimage>
		<fadetime>70</fadetime>
		<loop>yes</loop>
		<randomize>false</randomize>

change BKGD_Frames value to the absolute path of the folder, for example:

C:\Users\Desktop\XBMC\Skins\MC360\media\bkgd_frames

save the xml, now the animation is fixed.

NOTE FOR LINUX USERS:

If using under wine, instead of C:\ you have to write the index disc as: Z\\\\, then each separator must have a double slash, example:

Z:\\\\media\\username\\mydisc\\XBMC\\MC360\\media\\bkgd_frames

xbmc360's Issues

Skin lags under Linux/Wine if D, F, G, H drives are not mapped

if not mapped or manually unmapped from winecfg, other tabs except the System tab drop to 1.5 FPS.

XBMC Takes priority on controller input

Need to update pygen.sh to generate python scripts that will kill XBMC.exe once the application is executed.

then the sh itself will restart XBMC, without the first boot video.

LinuxGSG has been updated to generate the scripts that reopen XBMC.

UPDATE: The command to apply has been found, however the kill $(pidof XBMC.exe) fails because the whole command is taken as a unique string. Need to figure how to properly escape the command.

make a windows version for pygen.sh

Needed to automatically generate scripts that run applications in batch/powershell instead of bash/shell from Linux.