Total Revolution Management Console

So you've got yourself an account setup and you're a little overwhelmed with all the features available and not sure where to start? Well fear not, this is a full guide which takes you through each of the pre-configured options you can modify/delete. We recommend going through each section (top down) one by one, if changing one of the initial startup features then you may find you have to wipe your Kodi folder a number of times until you get it exactly how you want.

1. Importing Macs

To use the system you need to import your ethernet mac address of your device(s), full details can be found here.

If you want to see how the software acts without a valid MAC address being assigned you can skip this step and go straight onto the next step.

2. Installing TRMC

There are two options when it comes to installing our software on your device, full details can be found here.

• TRMC APK: The most popular is using the TRMC apk, we find most of our clients get their manufacturers to pre-install this on their devices and have TRMC run as the launcher in Android. This means the user no longer has to deal with the clunky standard Android launcher and the APK guides users through the whole setup including Wi-Fi.
• TRMC Setup Wizard: If you're not using an Android device or you prefer to just get your customers to install via an add-on then you can install the TRMC Setup Wizard and this should work on all versions of Kodi (including forks).

3. Startup Wizard

Loading Screens: During the initial install process of your build the user will see 3 different update screens, these can be fully configured with your own artwork/branding/text. If you haven't yet played around in the Startup Wizard section of admin panel you'll see 3 different examples showing various items that can be modified. We recommend running the software at least once before making changes in admin panel just so you can get an idea of what can be achieved. Full details of how to configure the Startup Wizard loading pages can be found here.

Language: After the 1st update screen the main Startup Wizard will open up. You'll be greeted with a disclaimer, this is optional and we'll go into more detail on this matter further on down the page. After the (optional) disclaimer it will ask the user to select their language - this is mandatory and cannot be removed. Once set it will change the master Kodi language setting meaning the interface should show correctly for that user. Please note although Kodi itself has language strings available for all the sections in virtually every language that does not mean all add-ons have the relevant language strings available. The majority of add-ons only use the developers main language so in this case if the user opens an add-on and their language is set to Spanish there is a good chance the add-on does not have multi-lingual support and it will default to showing in the developers native tongue which is often English. Our TRMC software is capable of multi-lingual support, if you wish to submit converted language strings for any of add-ons please send details via this helpdesk.

Startup Wizard Artwork: You can change the image used for language and any of the Startup Wizard images (see below) via the admin panel, full details here.

Startup Wizard Order: After the language screen the Startup Wizard will open into a number of menus; if you've not yet edited the details in admin panel then by default this will open into sections for Screen Calibration, Weather, Add Local Content and Register. We find these particular configuration screens are commonly used by clients as they are all very useful features which are often hard to find inside the standard Kodi interface. The "Register" option is a unique TRMC feaure, it will allow a customer to register for free and use our Social TV features which includes one click keyword backup, social sharing and much more to come. You can choose which options you want to show via the admin panel, full details can be found here.

Disclaimer: This is completely optional but if you have certain content you only want installed if a disclaimer has been agreed then that's possible with our software. The example we've used has a default add-on (Vimeo) and a custom zip pack which both get installed if the disclaimer is accepted. You can also set Super Favourite Social Shares to only be available if a disclaimer has been accepted, more info can be found on this further down the page. For full details on disclaimer configuration can be found here.

Install Complete: By default a dialog will appear once the install is complete. You can disable this dialog or edit the text via admin panel, in the unlikely event your device encounters problems loading into your setup you can also choose to have the system reboot upon completion - this is disabled by default. Full details for both these options can be found here.

4. Intro Video / Splash Screen:

Each time you boot up the system and Kodi/TRMC loads you can either have an intro video play or a splash image appear. The intro video is optional but we do recommend setting the splash screen even if you're not planning on using a "splash screen". Although primarily used as the initial splash screen this image also has a secondary use, it will appear as the default image for any sections which have no fanart set so it's yet another great opportunity for branding. Full details on how to configure these items can be found here.

5. Skin:

This section relates to every item found on the homepage. You can fully configure everything from artwork, branding, menus, custom buttons and widgets. The first thing you'll most likely want to edit is the background images and your branding icon, please note when editing these we recommend clicking on Add-ons -> Manage -> Check For Updates. This will force the system to check for updates meaning you don't have to wait for the standard update interval to kick in, once you get the message to say the update has completed you can restart Kodi and your changes should be visible. By restarting Kodi it will force any new images to be re-cached, without a restart artwork based changes may not show.

Background Images: In your admin panel click on Skin -> Artwork. In here you can upload your very own images. For background images we recommend using 1280x720px jpeg files as jpegs will give optimal performance in Kodi and 1280x720 is not only the correct aspect ratio but again it will give better performance.

Branding Logo: It's very important you get this right, DO NOT upload any image file other than a png with a transparent background. This image needs to be 1280x720px and it's overlayed on top of your homescreen, if you accidentally upload an image which isn't a png with a transparent background you'll find your image completely takes over the whole screen and you won't be able to see where you're navigating! If you do make this mistake just go into admin panel and replace your branding logo image with a transparent image then reboot your Kodi. Give it 5 minutes to complete all the updates then restart Kodi and hopefully it should be fixed. When creating your logo we recommend placing your logo in the top left corner of the transparent background as that isn't used for any widgets in our default skin. This logo can be uploaded at: Skin -> Artwork -> Home Background LOGO.

Enable/Disable Menus: In your admin panel click on Skin -> Nav-bar configuration. In here you'll see a number of pre-configured menus and each section has a dropdown menu where you can choose what you want that menu item to open into, you can also disable the menu in this dropdown and it will no longer be available to your customers. By default we have the XXX item disabled, feel free to enable this and test it out.

Auto Enable Menus: Our system allows for full configuration by the end user and they can choose to enable/disable whatever menus they want via the +- button on their homepage however you still get to choose what menus are enabled by default when the build is initially installed. Using the "Skin -> Nav-bar configuration" section just tick the "Auto enable this menu" option on the menus you want to be automatically enabled on startup.

Change Menu Names: If you prefer to use your own naming convention for the menus you can edit the "Display Name" in the section mentioned above. This can be extremely useful if you have a product you want linked to a menu, for example you may have your own Android app you want opened when a customer clicks on the relevant menu. To achieve this locate a menu you're not intending on using (e.g. "World") and rename that to "My Super App" (or whatever your app is called), you can then setup a custom command to have it open directly into your app (see below).

Choose What The Menus Open Into: By default we've setup some examples, most of which are custom lists which can be set in admin panel - this will give a dialog selection when you click on the menu and the user can select any item you have setup in your "custom list". If you click on the Movies section this is set to "dynamic list of add-ons" which means the user will be shown a list of movie based add-ons found on the system, even if they manually install their own the system will automatically pick up the new ones and add them to the list. As well as the automatically generated list of add-ons you'll notice we also have 2 other entries at the top of this movies list which open into QlickPlay options - any extras or special commands you want added to these lists can be entered in the bottom section (My Custom Menus) of the same page. All menus are fully configurable, we recommend only altering one item at a time until you become more familiar with how this feature works. Full details explaining what features are available and how they work can be found at the top of this configuration page (Skin -> Nav-bar configuration).

Custom Buttons (Upper): Our default skin has custom options where you can create your very own buttons and have them appear on top of the main nav-bar. To edit these buttons head over to Skin -> Upper Menu Items. This is a slightly more advanced feature but if you take a look at how we've setup the example "CLICK ME" option it should make a little more sense. In this example we've added a button called "CLICK ME" and we have it opening into a custom command. At first glance the command may look a little complicated but if you study it a little you'll see it's just telling Kodi to open into a custom script we created on admin panel called "tutorials.py" (more on this later). Details of what commands are available can be found at the top of this configuration page, if you remove all entries on this page the system will revert to the defaults which are: ADD-ONS, MEDIA, INTERNET, SEARCH & WEATHER buttons.

Custom Buttons (Sub-Menu): Our default skin also allows for sub-menu items to be created, these are buttons which appear beneath the main nav-bar and each main menu item can have it's own unique set of sub-menus. To edit these it does require a little bit of technical knowledge but don't worry it's not too difficult, we've tried to make it as simple as possible to configure via the admin panel. Head over to "Skin -> Sub-Menus" and you'll see there's a list showing all your different menu names. If you click on one of these menu items you'll see the option to download the file, you'll most likely need to right click that link and "save link as...". This will allow you to download the xml file to your computer and if you edit this in Sublime Text Editor you'll be able to add/remove sub-menu items for that particular menu, once you're done editing this file you can upload in that same section. You'll notice there are sections in those XML files where we've commented out lines, these are commands we feel you may find useful and if you wish to use them you just need to uncomment out the relevant lines (remove instances of <!-- & -->). If uncommenting lines please make sure you DO NOT uncomment out the lines describing what the function does, if you uncomment these Kodi will try and run that line of code and because it's supposed to be a comment and not code you'll get continual skin shortcut errors until it's fixed.

Widgets: If you want a bit of extra eye-candy then widgets may well be for you, you can setup widgets at Skin -> Widgets. By default we have two widgets setup, one for movies at the cinema and one for popular tv shows however you can setup as many widgets as you want in this section. We have a set of pre-configured widgets you can choose from in this section but as these hook into third party services such as TMDB and Trakt we cannot guarantee their reliability as we have no affiliation with these third party sites. If you find any of the pre-configured options are no longer working feel free to let us know and we'll take a look and see if a fix can be made our side but it may be you need to create your own custom widget path. Details of how to create a custom widget path can be found at the top of this widget configuration page.

Custom Dialog Select Menus: We briefly mentioned above that the "CLICK ME" button was opening into a custom script created on admin panel, well that script was created using this simple to use feature in admin panel. You can create a custom dialog with up to 20 entries and each of these entries can open into whatever you want; whether it's an add-on, an apk or a specific Kodi window/function your menu items can open into any of these. Head over to "Sync Center -> Custom Dialog Select Menus" and we'll take a look at the example tutorials script we created. Click the script path on that page and it will show the contents of our script, if you read the comments at the top of the page it should hopefully make sense what we've done. Try adding a 4th menu item in there - maybe you want to link to your own YouTube channel, if so just follow the example for item 1,2 or 3 (depending if you want to open a video, playlist or channel). You can create as many of these custom scripts as you want and you can call them from wherever you want in Kodi using the RunScript command as seen in the "Custom Buttons (Upper)" example above. If you have a script called tutorials.py a tutorials section will automatically be created in Social TV -> Support and linked to this script but more on that later.

6. System Settings:

If you have specific Kodi settings you want set then it's very easy to do so with our system, there is a very simple solution and a more complex solution...

• Simple: Sync Center -> System Settings. In here you can browse through a number of popular settings available in Kodi and each of them has a dropdown menu where you can choose the defaults you want set. These settings are only set during the initial install process but if you absolutely want to force them on you customers and not allow any user customisations then there is also an option to "force setting". We would discourage any use of this unless there's a setting you know for certain must be set on your devices for it to work correctly.
• Slightly more complex: Sync Center -> Individual Files -> Master Kodi Settings. If you can't find a setting you require and you know it's available in Kodi then you can use this option, we would however recommend contacting us before going down this route as we may be able to add this setting to the simple option above. If you use this option this will force the setting on your users, they will not be able to change any settings set in here (well they can but it will revert to your defaults when the system checks server for updates).

Further information on this subject can be found here.

7. Synchronise Zip Packs:

The TRMC system can fully synchronise with any zip packs you have hosted on your own server, as and when you edit your zip file on your server all devices hooked up to your admin panel will automatically re-download the zip and install the contents. The contents can contain anything you want; add-ons, images, settings, playlists... if it's something you'd find in the hidden Kodi folder then it can be added. You can create as many custom zips as you want and you can even add the option to only install if a disclaimer has been agreed, setup your own zip packs at Sync Center -> My Custom Zips. The default example one we have setup just contains an example add-on and a userdata folder containing a readme file explaining how to create a custom zip and what to put in it.

8. Synchronise Individual Files:

The simplest solution for synchronising your own files is probably the zip pack method mentioned above as you only set it up the once and then all you have to do is maintain that zip on your own server. That being said our system does allow for individual files to be sync'd and this can be found at Sync Center -> Individual Files.

There is a file upload limit of 1MB and it's designed more for any custom text/code you need to be continually synchronised on your devices, for example there may be an add-on you like to tweak slightly but still want it to auto-update via the repo. Using this method you could have it auto update but always have a specific file synchronised with the one you have on here. Of course you need to be careful with this - if it's an important file the developer has made updates to and yours then overwrites it you could find you have a broken add-on until you fix this file! If you're looking to alter default add-on settings take a look at the option below.

9. Default Add-on Settings:

There's a good chance you have add-ons installed where the defaults aren't setup how you want them. You could of course just use the method above to synchronise your own settings but there are problems with this. Take a look at this page for full details on how to use this unique feature and the benefits it has over using the alternative methods.

10. Auto Install Add-ons:

This is an experimental feature but by entering add-on id's the system is capable of auto installing that content. You will of course need the relevant repositories installed if you want these add-ons to automatically update and you can use the custom zip pack option for that. Each add-on can be set so that they only install if the disclaimer has been accepted, you can enter these details at Add-ons & Shares -> Default Add-ons. In our example we have Vimeo setup as requiring a disclaimer and the TRMC TV Guide (script.trtv) not requiring a disclaimer.

11. Repository Management:

Addons & Shares -> Repository Management. By default the two options in here are disabled due to the fact it relies on information supplied by a third party website which we have no control over. Members of the community are free to edit details on the Add-on Portal at noobsandnerds.com, they can mark different add-ons as belonging to specific repostiories and our system is capable of scanning this information and then automatically managing your installed repostitories based on this information.

• Auto install repositories: If enabled this will use the information grabbed from the site mentioned above and any add-ons you have set in the default add-ons section will automatically have the relevant repository installed. Of course this does rely on the community supplying the correct details, if someone marks up the "official repo" as being the wrong one then you may end up with a repository installed which has outdated non-working versions of your add-on.
• Cleanup repositories: If you enable this feature the system will regularly check all installed add-ons and all references to add-ons in the locally installed Super Favourite xml files. It will then check the Add-on Portal to find out what the official repo is for each of those add-ons and remove any old repo's found on the system which are no longer in use.

Please note: As we have no control over third party websites you should only consider enabling these features if you're intending on contributing to their project and help maintain the Add-on Portal. Any changes made on their website will dynamically change on your systems so if an add-on is marked up as being on the wrong repo and you edit the information you should see the changes take effect on your units within 24 hours.

12. Super Favourite Social Shares:

This is another unique TRMC feature, Super Favourite Shares can be created by a registered user or admin. Using the excellent Super Favourites add-on anyone can create whole sections linking to various add-ons or online content and users can choose to install these shares at the click of a button.

If you head over to "Add-ons & Shares -> Super Favourite Shares" you'll see a number of default example shares have already been created in your account, these are shares which are created by you the admin. By default anyone on your system can choose to install these via the Add Content option found in each of their main menu items on the home screen. You'll notice you can also set these to only become available if the disclaimer has been accepted and you can also set these to auto-install on all of your customers devices.

Any shares that are set to auto-install can still be uninstalled/re-installed by the end user allowing them to fully configure their device. It may be you have a share containing "BBQ recipes" you want auto-installed into your cooking section but the end user isn't interested in that genre, maybe they are vegetarian and only want your vegan, vegetarian and desserts SF Shares installed - well this allows them to be in full control of exactly what their menus contain.

Just like the custom zip option SF Shares automatically synchronise on all devices they are installed on. Whether a user updates one of their social shares via their device or admin (you) update a share in admin panel the content will change on all devices to have installed that share.

A very nice feature of using SF Shares is you don't have to install/maintain any content via zip files. The relevant repositories are automatically installed and when the user clicks on a menu which links to an add-on not yet installed they will get the default Kodi system message appear asking if they want to install the add-on. You can of course beef up this message with your own disclaimer if you wish by editing the relevant language file, for example the default English strings can be found in this file:

addons/resource.language.en_gb/resources/strings.po

If you find any add-ons in SF shares are failing to install it may be the system has found no details for that particular add-on. Please notify us if you encounter such a problem giving full details of what repository this add-on is found on.

13. Send Messages To Users:

You can send messages to a selection of devices or all your devices in Manage Boxes -> Maintenance/Messaging. There are a few different types of messages you can use, these can be set via the dropdown menu titled "Select Action":

• Big text announcement: This will allow you to send a full screen page of text, unlike many other full screen windows you may have seen in Kodi before this one comes with an OK button so it will remain on the screen until the user acknowledges the dialog.
• Dialog: This is the standard OK Dialog which appears in the middle of the screen, this is great for very small notifications but bare in mind you can only fit 4 lines of text in this notification.
• Show notification: This is a small notification that appears at the top of the screen for x amount of seconds.
• Show full screen picture: If you have an image you'd like to show then enter the URL of the image and it will appear on screen.

When sending messages make sure you remember to tick the devices you want to send to, if you want to send to every single device linked to your account then you only need to tick the "Tick here to send to EVERY active box on your system" option.

Confirm Dialogue: If enabled this sends the user a yes/no custom dialog prior to completing the main action and will only perform the main action if yes is pressed. It's probably fairly pointless using this with a message but it can be useful other options on this page (see below).

14. Send Video To Users:

Using the same method as sending messages you can also send videos to users, you have two options:

• Play YouTube video: Just add the youtube id and your video will be played via the YouTube add-on. The YouTube add-on is officially supported by the XBMC foundation (kodi.tv) and we have no control over the reliability of this add-on.
• Play standard video: If you have a URL to a playable video you can add it in here, please make sure the video is a final resolved link - in other words when you paste this link in a browser it should just play a video without any extra buttons needing to be pressed on the page.

15. Install Content On Users Devices:

Using the same method as messaging it's possible to install content on users devices:

• Download a single file: Download an online file and save it to a location on a device. This is for single files only so is useful for sending individual images or pieces of code to seamlessly enable any subscription based options you may offer.
• Download/extract items: Similar to above this will download an online file but it will save this to a temporary location on the device and extract the contents to to a location of your choice.
• Download & install Android APK: Enter the URL of an Android APK and you can send this to as many devices as you want, this will be downloaded to a temporary location and the user will be asked if they want to install the APK.
• Update firmware: Currently it's only possible to update firmware if you have a rooted device. All you need is to enter the URL of the firmware zip file but be very careful, sending incorrect firmware can brick a device. If you have a LibreELEC or OpenELEC system we recommend updating using a tar file, this can be done via Manage Boxes -> OE/LE Firmware Updates.

16. Remove Content:

There are a number of options available when it comes to removing content from devices. First of all we'll go through the options available in the Manage Boxes -> Maintenance/Messaging section:

• Fresh install (wipe Kodi): As you'd expect this command will completely wipe all content in the currently running app (whether Kodi, SPMC, TRMC or some other fork).
• Delete folders: Enter a path to a folder you want removed, all sub-folders will also be removed so use with extreme care. This is particularly useful if you created a custom zip but named the folders incorrectly, this would also work if you want to mass delete a particular add-on or repository.
• Delete single file: Use the same as the above option but with this function you can completely wipe an individual file opposed to a whole folder.
• Wipe old thumbnails: It should be extremely rare you need to use this option (if ever) but should you feel the need to wipe all cached artwork this will do just that. This does require a restart for any new artwork to be scanned in and show up.

Always Remove Specific Files/Folders: If there are problematic files/folders that you want to always make sure are deleted you can create a text file listing these paths and upload it at: Sync Center -> Individual Files -> Remove Problematic Files. It may be something on the system is automatically downloading these files on a regular interval and if that's the case then this is probably not the solution for you, the real solution would be to find out why these files are getting downloaded. This method will not stop files from being downloaded but it will continually delete them if they exist.