Developing for MagicMirror....Where do I start?

[JordanArgueta]

Hey everyone!

I have been avoiding this post for a while because I’m a little too embarrassed to ask some of these questions I have regarding the project. I started working on my own magicmirror with a friend as a fun side project to do in between our college assignments. So far we have gotten the magic mirror to run flawlessly on a Pi, added modules, and have even edited some of the scripts. Now that we have done that we want to take it a little further but we are getting stuck on probably the most simple part…

We cannot get the program to run on our local. We do not know the best practice for making modules or just editing the software and so we thought it would be smart to develop on our computers rather than on the Pi. However, we have no clue how to get this thing to run properly on our locales. Currently, we are trying to use webstorm as our IDE but we cannot get anything to work. So here I am with some damaged pride and a lot of beginner questions:

What is your tech stack for developing for this project?
Whats the proper way to make new modules?
If you use webstorm how did you get this project to run on your local? (Please answer this like I’m tech illiterate. I’m obviously missing something so too many details could be a big help!)
If you use some other IDE or just use something simpler walk me through your process for creating, running, and testing your new scripts?

Thank you in advance and feel free to just throw links to other resources! It’s one of those instances where I am not sure what questions I want to ask so any direction would be super helpful.

[A Former User]

@jordanargueta said in Developing for MagicMirror....Where do I start?:

• What is your tech stack for developing for this project?

Experiences about HTML, CSS, Javascript(Or NodeJS), *nix

• Whats the proper way to make new modules?

Copy other’s module and research it how it works.

See
https://github.com/MichMich/MagicMirror/blob/master/modules/README.md
https://forum.magicmirror.builders/topic/8534/head-first-developing-mm-module-for-extreme-beginners

• If you use webstorm how did you get this project to run on your local? (Please answer this like I’m tech illiterate. I’m obviously missing something so too many details could be a big help!)

I’m not using webstorm. anyway, you should install nodejs on your computer first. Then install MagicMirror like you did on RaspberryPi.
I think *nix machine (Debian/Ubuntu) is good for development, Personally, I develop my modules on Mac OSX. But you can do it on your Windows Powershell.

• If you use some other IDE or just use something simpler walk me through your process for creating, running, and testing your new scripts?

Usually I’m using atom or vim, sublimeText and textWrangler. I don’t care whatever IDE.
In my case, I begin from creating git Repository with module name. Then clone it to my workspace (under MM directory where is installed on your dev-machine). Copy some template files from my previous work or You can use https://github.com/roramirez/MagicMirror-Module-Template

Or just create file named with MMM-BlahBlah.js.
Then doing coding, testing, making manual, then updating git repository. Then release here.