XBMC skinning/scripting help, retrieving xml tags for each list item on focus

[SoftMachine]

I've been messing around with Rocky5's script for getting certain tags from a game's _resources/default.xml file like synopsis and release date info. I've trimmed it a bit to set my desired properties when I manually run it: https://pastebin.com/Tp8Ds103

Here's how it displays:

I'm trying to figure out a way to have the script either autorun when focus shifts to a new list item/game, maybe on some kind of delay so that when scrolling through lots of stuff the Xbox doesn't just freeze up, or somehow parse all default.xml files in the library on load so that the info is already ready to go when you scroll to a different game, but that might take forever tbh.

I'm also having a tough time figuring out how to trim a string, say I wanted to cut out "05 NOV " in the release date and just display the year. In the script:

Current_Window.setProperty('Synopsis_release_date', Output.release_year.string)

or in the xml:

<label>[B]$INFO[Window(MyPrograms).Property(Synopsis_year)][/B]</label>

Not sure where in there I'd do that, if I'd need to to load another utility in python, or if I can just do it in the skin's XML, which would be handy for other things.

Some help from someone with more experience with Python would be much appreciated.

Edited July 8, 2022 by SoftMachine

[KaosEngineer]

Try

Current_Window.setProperty('Synopsis_release_date', Output.release_year[-4:].string)