Some keyboard shortcuts I forget:

I had to set my (default) skin to use an 'Arial based' font to get not-Latin characters to render.

System (cog icon) > Interface settings > Skin > Fonts > Arial based

You can use .nfo files instead of, or to enhance the data Kodi gets from databases like The Movie Database.

If you're setting this up after already having a big collection of stuff you can use a combination of tools like comm (or diff), find, and sort to check which directories don't have .nfo files.

They can just include a link to your movie on IMDB, or can contain XML.

• https://kodi.wiki/view/NFO_files
• https://kodi.wiki/view/NFO_files/Movies

The best way to get rolling is to use an online database to get all the data it can. Then from the settings you export your data as individual files that will be in the right place (in each films' directory) and you can make any needed changes (there'll be a bunch of misidentified films).

I have a file called movie.nfo in my ~/Templates directory that I use for new entries. Contents:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes" ?>
<movie>
	<title></title>
	<originaltitle></originaltitle>
	<set>
		<name></name>
		<overview></overview>
	</set>
	<sorttitle></sorttitle> 
	<plot></plot>
	<runtime></runtime>
	<uniqueid type="tmdb" default="true"></uniqueid>
	<uniqueid type="imdb" default="false"></uniqueid>
	<genre></genre>
	<country></country>
	<director></director>
	<year></year>
</movie>

I thought it'd be fun to be able to homebrew guest host Rage (instead of just keeping a mental list), and Kodi has a category for music videos I now understand the purpose of.

Like with movies, I have a template I use:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes" ?>
<musicvideo>
	<title></title>
	<artist></artist>
	<year></year>
	<album></album>
	<genre></genre>
	<tag></tag>
	<country></country>
	<director></director>
</musicvideo>

Supposedly 'director' isn't used, but I want that info for myself :)

The page on the Kodi wiki says you need to keep the files in one directory and use the filename format [artist] - [title].[ext], but as long as you have the .nfo files and tell it to search recursively (like you do with other media) it'll be fine.