modules day and time Depending represented

[ianperrin]

@bjoern - a common way of scheduling activity is use cron expressions which give an enormous amount of flexibility for defining when things should happen.

I would think this is a better way to tackle the solution rather than try to create custom scheduling logic.

I’ve built the basis of the module which hides and shows other modules based on the config options, but will need a little time to add and test the scheduling. Give me a day or so.

Ian

[bjoern]

Ok!

i have seen that by the cron Expressions i can only set the startTime and not the EndTime. it’s right?

[strawberry 3.141]

@bjoern you can make another cron task on the endtime

[ianperrin]

So, my current thinking is based around the following config

{
	module: 'MMM-ModuleScheduler'
},
{
	module: 'calendar',
	position: 'top_left',
	classes: 'scheduler',
	config: {
		// Show at 9:00 and hide at 18:00 every day from Monday through Friday
		module_schedule: {from: '0 9 * * 1-5', to: '0 18 * * 1-5'}
	}
},
{
	module: 'MMM-soccer',
	position: 'top_right',
	classes: 'scheduler',
	config: {
		// Show at 9:00 on Saturday and hide at 20:00 on Sunday
		module_schedule: {from: '0 9 * * SAT', to: '0 20 * * SUN'}
	}
}

Modules would then be shown and hidden based on the addition of a specific class classes: 'scheduler' and a module_schedule config option containing the cron expressions which control when the module should be shown (from) and hidden (to).

How does that sound?

p.s. here’s another useful cron resource - http://crontab.guru/

[bjoern]

YES! That’s gerat!

[KirAsh4]

You can easily have another module (module_scheduler?) keep track of time and when require, it can call another module’s .hide() or .show() routine. And you’d want to check on the other module every so often, in case the mirror restarted and re-displayed it.

[ianperrin]

@bjoern - I have created an initial version of MMM-ModuleScheduler and pushed it to github -https://github.com/ianperrin/MMM-ModuleScheduler

If you would like to test it, feel free to install it on your Mirror and report back here.

However, please remember that this is work in progress and has not yet been fully tested, so please do use with care.

[cowboysdude]

Seems to work pretty well! I did load it to test it to turn off at 7:50 and it took a while for the mirror to load but I assumed it was the cron preparing itself. The module is indeed off… it didn’t load the Holidays or News feed it just said loading…

So I stopped the mirror and restarted it. It loaded quicker [still slow so people don’t freak out :)]… the Holiday and News Feed did indeed load …

So the only thing NOT on the screen is the thing I attached to the scheduler… so it’s working… Only thing I can see wrong is the speed [decreased] of loading the mirror! BUT it’s not like you start and stop the mirror daily anyway so once it loads it works :)

I like it!! Thank you!!!

[cowboysdude]

It’s turning anything off with 'classes: ‘scheduler’, attached no matter what time you set it for ;)

[ianperrin]

@cowboysdude said in modules day and time Depending represented:

Only thing I can see wrong is the speed [decreased] of loading the mirror!

As part of the install process, npm install needs to be run to install the dependency on node-cron. This can take a little time, but is only required once. Having completed the install, I’m not seeing the performance issues you mention so we might need to look into that a little further.