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.

I tend to do them by hand because I'm overly picky about metadata, but (I've started using MediaElch to organise my metadata, both to make things easier and to help mitigate the misidentification issues I keep getting with Kodi) here're some tools to make the organisation process much less tedious:

• tinyMediaManager | https://www.tinymediamanager.org/
• MediaElch | https://www.kvibes.de/mediaelch/ - My fave so far.
• FileBot | https://www.filebot.net/

• Supplementary Tools on the Kodi wiki.
• Supplementary Tools for Kodi section on their forum.

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:

movie.nfo

<?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:

music-video.nfo

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

Supposedly 'director' isn't used, but I want that info for myself :) and it does seem to show in Kodi anyway. 'Plot' is for additional info. about the video, if it's from a live performance, or a film, etc.

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 I think this is more for people who use music video scrapers (which aren't great—). As long as you have the .nfo files and tell it to search recursively (like you do with other media) it'll be fine.

If you want to include your own thumbnail (poster) images (and fanart, etc.) there are some set filenames that'll let Kodi see them, eg: [artist] - [title]-poster.[ext]. Leaving the [artist] - part off the front seems to work fine. Having Kodi generate the thumbnails itself is a bit slow.

I haven't messed with playlists, but I think I'd find them useful for music videos. You can also mix music and music videos into one playlist.

• https://kodi.wiki/view/Playlists

You have four types (well, I'm ignoring one deliberately):

• Queue - Temporary list you can add videos to as you explore your library.
• Party Mode - Temporary list of ten random songs from your library, can set exclusion rules. Seems like a bad way to run a party to me.
• Basic - List of paths to files, in m3, pls, etc. formats, like you'd use elsewhere.
• Smart - A dynamic playlist based on querying Kodi's database. There's a playlist creator in the Kodi interface. They can also be used as menu items.

You can keep images like album covers and film posters in their works' respective folder if you don't want to rely on scrapers, or want to override their choices. It's not a feature I've made use of yet (though I do it for most of my music library anyway), but I was curious, so I'm reading about it. I think I'll find it useful for music videos at least, and maybe customising the odd film poster.

You can also add a 'theme' audio file (plays when you look at movie info.???)

• https://kodi.wiki/view/Artwork (See the links on the right)
• https://kodi.wiki/view/Artwork_types

• [movie] ([year])-poster.[ext] - Poster image, main image used in menus.
• [movie] ([year])-trailer.[ext] - Movie trailers.
• [movie] ([year])-theme.[ext] - Audio file…

• [artist] - [song]-poster.[ext] - Video thumbnail.
• Others: https://kodi.wiki/view/Music_Video_artwork

• Kore - Android app I use as a remote.