I want to create a touchscreen life dashboard - MM or React + Browser?

[wfsaxton]

I’m debating whether to use MM for this project. I love the community and modules that exist for non-interactive MM’s, but it doesn’t seem like touchscreen support is great, especially when it comes to using the existing modules.

Part of me is considering creating my own dashboard, using React and a full screen web browser. I’m a novice React developer looking to hone my skills so this could pay off. At the same time, I would like to have a finished product, and I’m nervous about implementing everything on my own, such as a calendar or Todoist module (both of which I’d like integrate).

Feedback would be appreciated!

[sdetweil]

@wfsaxton MagicMirror is a composable information panel… an output medium.

given the lack of general purpose touch screen monitors, its hard to develop support for input actions…
and then some services are not remote friendly

getting the calendar ICS data is easy…

ADDING/EDITING a calendar entry is some totally other interface…

i can do it by voice with Alexa, so don’t need anything on MM…

[wfsaxton]

@sdetweil What do you mean lack of general purpose touch screen monitors? Here’s a reasonably priced RPi supporting touchscreen.

I did think about keeping the MM display-only and using other interfaces to add/modify data (my phone, Alexa, etc) but I have a specific use-case where I want my kids to be able to each view their own schedule, chore chart, etc and check off items on their todolist. External buttons could certainly solve the problem of switching kid profiles, but checking off todoist items does require physical interaction.

[sdetweil]

@wfsaxton well, that didn’t exist last year…

so you can use real buttons (MMM-Buttons via GPIO) or soft buttons (with the MMM-pages module to switch between user views).
there are a couple modules that provide soft buttons, and the MMM-page-indicator module enables switching via touch

input into the data services is the primary work task…

[wfsaxton]

@sdetweil Can you give an example of another module that uses soft buttons/touch support? If I could modify the Todoist module to support the closing of tasks, the rest of my functionality could probably be had out of the box with MMM-pages…

[sdetweil]

@wfsaxton no. I’m not aware of any modules that use the input to update remote systems

[wishmaster270]

@wfsaxton Hi,

MMM-Bring uses touch input for putting new items to the list.

[sdetweil]

@wishmaster270 count 1!

[wfsaxton]

@wishmaster270 Thanks, I’ll check it out.