Made a birthday module

[sdetweil]

@plainbroke you can also use the environment variable to set the config file

export MM_CONFIG_FILE=config/xxxxx.js
npm start
or
npm run server

Both will use that config

export MM_CONFIG_FILE=

To reset it

[plainbroke]

@sdetweil
I got it to work on another pi4 with only 4 mb ram.
On the exact same setup
Bookworm
MM 2.30
fully updated.
It seems it has to be the only module besides some of the default ones.
Which it covers up completely like the MPlayer does…
Good thing I have an extra pi, I guess. The wifey likes it alot…
I thought it would be cool add-on for my main mirror that is in the living room right above the TV. Gives us something to focus on during commercial’s…
Updated your MMM-Config. LOOKING better every update…

[sdetweil]

@plainbroke if you use my fork of mmm-pages it has the ability to show different pages for different amounts of time

See the pageTimeout property

[plainbroke]

@sdetweil
I am using your mmm-pages. I just haven’t gotten that involved in it yet…
I know sooner or later I will definitely take advantage of the different amounts of viewable content.

[cgillinger]

@sdetweil said in Made a birthday module:

@cgillinger the other thing you can do is add support for the

suspend(){}
and resume{}

methods in your modulename.js

suspend means being hidden

resume means being shown

Done, but haven’t tried it with MMM-Pages yet, a bit to busy at work to install and try it that way. But its in the repo now.

[plainbroke]

@cgillinger
Works on the fireworks, but not on the MESSAGE part, It stays on the screen.
The fireworks came and went with the page it was supposed to.

[cgillinger]

@plainbroke said in Made a birthday module:

@cgillinger
Works on the fireworks, but not on the MESSAGE part, It stays on the screen.
The fireworks came and went with the page it was supposed to.

This annoys the hell out of me, if I get the time, I’ll try to set up a MM with MMM-Pages to test it here.

But to be clear:

The fireworks (and confetti?) works
But the message a) doesn’t show or b) shows, but does not get removed when MMM-Pages initiate page change?

[sdetweil]

@cgillinger b

[cgillinger]

@sdetweil said in Made a birthday module:

@cgillinger b

Huh?

[sdetweil]

@cgillinger you said a or b

I responded he said b

[plainbroke]

@cgillinger
As Sam said b it stays on the screen always. Just the message though.
Sorry it annoys you so.
Take your time I am not in a hurry, never am.
Just thought I would let you know. I am sure others are watching this to add to their pages too…

[xIExodusIx]

Unfortunately I have a few problems with your MMM-Birthday module. When I start the MM and there is a birthday, it is immediately displayed in the
middle (middle_center) on all pages without taking the position from config.js into account. The display is not yet dimmed on all pages.
Confetti is displayed in the correct position (lower_third) on the specified page as specified in the config.js, fireworks only sometimes but the
icons are missing!
On the 2nd and all subsequent runs of the pages, the birthday is also displayed in the correct position (lower_third) but without a name (undefined!)
with confetti (always) and fireworks (only sometimes) but still without icons. The display now will be dimmed on all pages.
If I start the MM and there is no birthday, everything is fine, nothing is displayed.
If a birthday is coming up from 00:00, it will be displayed as described above in the correct position (lower_third) with confetti but without a
name (undefiend!), without fireworks and without icons. The display is darkened on all pages so that it is barely legible.

See Pictures!

Hardware:
Raspberry Pi4 4GB RAM RaspiOS: Bookworm
Software:
MM 2.30 with MMM-Pages

[cgillinger]

@xIExodusIx Yes, there is an issue with it working alongside MMM-Pages. It seems that the methods I use to make it display interfere with MMM-Pages. MMM-Birthday doesn’t play well with others and tends to do its own thing, which doesn’t work with MMM-Pages. I’m working on a solution, but I haven’t had much time to spare lately.

[sdetweil]

@cgillinger

see the

suspend() and resume() functions you can add to be notified when being hidden (suspend) and shown (resume)

[plainbroke]

@cgillinger
I was going to ask if you had found a work around for pages and MMM-Birthdays. I also tried it with pages and just one other module. MMM-Birthdays takes over even MMM-MPlayer and it is a bully too.
Always wanting to be on top… You idea is awesome, but the deployment needs a little work…
I am trying a few different setups now that I have a “test setup”.
I really want to make MPLayer and Birthdays to play nice on one of my displays. So far no bueno…

[sdetweil]

@plainbroke they cannot be on same page

[cgillinger]

@plainbroke Working on it! The plain and simple truth is I took a few shortcuts with the behaviour of the module, and that came back to bite me. I’m working on it, but its in my spare time and right now I have precious little of it. But as soon as I get it fixed, I’ll post here.

[plainbroke]

@cgillinger
Sounds good. I will watch this form post for the update.

[cgillinger]

I THINK I’ve solved it. At least, it works on my test installation MagicMirror running on Linux Mint. I’ve tested it with MMM-Pages and MMM-Carousel, and now the transitions are working. However, there are a few things to note:

It looks really weird when you first start MagicMirror. The reason is that the system starts up, immediately detects that a birthday is happening, and then triggers an untimed startup where the module isn’t fully initialized yet. It sorts itself out after the first transition, and since it’s somewhat of an edge case to start from scratch, I haven’t spent time fine-tuning it. A more reasonable scenario is that MagicMirror runs continuously, the day changes, and then the birthday event occurs—where everything works as expected.

I wasn’t able to make the module overlay existing modules while dimming them slightly, as it did in my first version. This is due to the fact that my initial solution aggressively took control over the display. To make it work with Pages and Carousel while respecting their handling of module visibility, I had to take a different approach. This means that the module now displays on its own. Im going to look into how this might be solved next, I’d really like for it to show above the other modules of that page. Because of this, I had to rename it and treat it as a completely separate module, now called “MMM-Birthday-Paged”. I’ll also mark the original module so that users who rely on module switchers don’t accidentally pick the wrong one.

As a bonus, after all my tweaking, I ended up with several different fireworks effects, so I left them in a separate subfolder. If you want to test them, just copy the existing “fireworks.js” from the root directory.

Give it a try, and I hope it works for you too!

URL:
https://github.com/cgillinger/MMM-Birthday-Paged

[sdetweil]

@cgillinger instead of using the start function directly

Use the ALL_MODULES_STARTED notification
Then call your renamed startup() function

See https://docs.magicmirror.builders/development/notifications.html#system-notifications