New module: Weather effects

[cgillinger]

Earlier, I shared a module that makes it snow on MagicMirror — as soon as you start it, snowflakes begin to fall. When I first created it, I thought it would be cool if it only showed snow when it was actually snowing.

@sdetweil gave me the idea that MagicMirror’s default weather module broadcasts notifications, so you can let the module pick up its notification using the following code:

if (this.weatherProvider.currentWeather()) {
	this.sendNotification("CURRENTWEATHER_TYPE", { type: this.weatherProvider.currentWeather().weatherType.replace("-", "_") });
}

So, I experimented a bit and got it to work! While I was at it, I also added rain. That is, if the weather module reports rain, raindrops will fall on the MagicMirror screen as well.

I should mention that so far, I’ve only tested this with the Swedish weather provider SMHI, but it should work with the others too.

I’ve tried to ensure that the annotations in the script and CSS make it reasonably easy to follow and understand if someone wants to tweak it themselves.

Screenshot:
Rich snow

Light snow (for Raspberry Pies etc)

Rain

Also, for obvious reasons this module requires the standard weather module to be active issuing “CurrentWeather” statuses.

https://github.com/cgillinger/MMM-WeatherEffects

[uros76]

Excellent! I was hoping someone would come up with this idea and module 😊. Thanks for this.
I have added allowOverrideNotification: true to the weather module config. At the moment we don’t have any rain or snow falling so can’t really confirm it works.

Can you share more about how to check the console for weather notifications?

[uros76]

I just inspected the pm2 log and under the latest entries I can’t see anything about weather module broadcasting notifications.
Do I need to looks somewhere else?

[sdetweil]

@uros76 weather is done all in browser, so no messages would appear in the pm2 log

you could install MMM-Notifications which has a window showing those events

[cgillinger]

I dont think PM2 shows module-specific broadcasts unless explicitly logged, but Im no expert. Maybe @sdetweil knows?

To test it I just bascially found locations with rain or snow, and set that in config.js.

[sdetweil]

@cgillinger correct. notifications are not logged

1 they are in browser
2 if the sending or receiving module does not console.log() a message there is nothing to see

you can install MMM-Logging which will capture the browser console and merge it with the npm start output

or install MMM-Notifications which will display them in a window on the MagicMirror screen

[mmmallday]

@cgillinger Very cool well done

[uros76]

@cgillinger duh, why didn’t I think of setting to a city where it rains LOL. I picked a random rainy city and presto, it works! Tnx again for this module.

@sdetweil thanks. I installed the MMM-Logging and checked the npm start console for any hint of notifications coming through but I can’t see anything related to notifications being broadcasted. I am probably missing something obvious again :(
And I can’t seem to find the MMM-Notifications location. Do you perhaps have a link to it?
I did thind this one but it doesn’t show anything https://github.com/glitch452/MMM-ViewNotifications

[sdetweil]

@uros76 yes, it was https://github.com/glitch452/MMM-ViewNotifications

it shows for me

[cgillinger]

And I just want to add here that I’m running it on a Raspberry Pi with a 7-inch screen, so there’s not much screen space to work with. I don’t have room for the weather module with the ‘current’ option as well. However, after testing, it seems to work perfectly fine to keep the module ‘hidden’ by simply omitting a location in the config.js file

I’m considering making the rain direction controlled by the wind direction from the Weather module. If it’s possible, it would look pretty neat.

[sdetweil]

@cgillinger yes, commenting out the psosition still allows the module to work in the background…
also do this for calendar with Ext3 family of modules

[sdetweil]

@uros76 said in New module: Weather effects:

I installed the MMM-Logging and checked the npm start console for any hint of notifications coming through

yes, if they don’t print a console message then its not in the the log for logging to forward…

[uros76]

@sdetweil said in New module: Weather effects:

@uros76 yes, it was https://github.com/glitch452/MMM-ViewNotifications

it shows for me

Well that’s interesting. I will keep trying to get this one to work. Not sure why it’s refusing to workfor me

[uros76]

On my test MM install the weather effects work. This confirms the module is getting the notification broadcast from wethaer after all.

But the viewnotifications module doesn’t come up. I will keep it running for a bit longer to see if notifications show up. Even the newsfeed notifications should come up I think…
It’s not the end of the world, I am just digging into why I can’t see notifications :)

[sdetweil]

@uros76 said in New module: Weather effects:

But the viewnotifications module doesn’t come up. I will keep it running for a bit longer to see if notifications show up

what position is it in?

[uros76]

@sdetweil top_left. It should show up under the clock.

[sdetweil]

@uros76 did you use the default config?

 {
            module: 'MMM-ViewNotifications',
            position: "top_left",
            header: "Notifications",
            classes:"page1",  // for MMM-pages
            config: {
                // See below for Configuration Options
            }
},

[uros76]

@sdetweil yes I used the default config. I also added timeout: 0 to see if I perhaps missed them. Default is 8sec timeout before notifications disappear.

[sdetweil]

@uros76 ok… did the header appear?

[uros76]

@sdetweil nope, cant even see the header of the notifications module. I am running this test enviroment as a server mode and on a windows 10 PC. If that makes any difference.