MMM-CalendarExt3

pastormingle

@MMRIZE i changed due to time zones not displaying correctly. I having meetings that are at times from other countries and it wouldn’t display correctly and as Ext3 is the most current it was suggested to upgrade to it… Then my Raspberry PI SD card crashed and i lost my original configuration. So now it’s a learning curve either way.

pastormingle

@pastormingle Is there a location were i can look at more detailed instructions on Ext3 or some configuration files that i can look at?

MMRIZE

@pastormingle
I will show you some examples tomorrow.

pastormingle

@MMRIZE Thanks.

tjat

@MMRIZE No worries, it worked perfectly.

My latest issue is that I’m struggling to refresh the calendar when I add a new event to my google calendar. I’m temporarily working on a local copy to play around with the JS and have this step currently. Would this work or is there an easier/better way that you’ve already built?

forceRefresh: function() {
   console.log("forceRefresh called");

   if (this.refreshTimer) {
     clearTimeout(this.refreshTimer);
     this.refreshTimer = null;
   }
   this.tempMoment = null;
   this.stepIndex = 0;
   this.updateDom(this.config.animationSpeed);
 }

sdetweil

@tjat ext3 gets its data from the default calendar module…

there is no notification to force refresh its content. only the fetchInterval.

tjat

@sdetweil so do I instead need to cause the default calendar module to refresh with my google calendar content?

Everything updates when I close and reload the magic mirror so just trying to update on demand within the same instance.

sdetweil

@tjat you cannot cause the default calendar to refresh.
it DOES load the ics on startup…

so , only thing you could do is cause a complete restart of the MM app

MMRIZE

@tjat
The process would go like this;

Receiving events from events provider(default calendar module or something)
Regularizing them and keeping them in store.
The view will show in the next cycle of the refresh timer with current stored events.

1)+2) and 3) are separated by parallel running.

So, If you want to refresh the view with new events by force,

The provider should spit out notification ASAP on new events added.
After processing the received data, update DOM of the module.

For 1), You can shorten the cycle of the provider fetching. (fetchInterval of the default calendar module). However, you should know that frequent requests to .ics could burden the calendar hosting server.

For 2), your code may work.(Frankly said, you may need updateDom only enough) Or you can just reduce refreshInterval of CX3 to refresh the view sooner.

Ok. here is an additional opinion from an old dotard.
Do you really need real-time update of the event changing? Without any modification, it will show the change in a while. (default refreshing period is set as 10 minutes. ) You can reduce the value to 5 min or even 10 seconds. But is it worthy?

Refreshing only on change sounds promising, but using .ics doesn’t work like that. iCalendar service is hosted as a read-only thing, unlike CALDAV. so there is no easy mechanism to detect the calendar change quickly except for frequent requests. So literally, it would not be an on-demand solution.

Most 99% time of the pulling cycle would not find any new changes from the calendar. That would not be the performance issue for your MM, but for the ics provider, it will cost more traffic. (Of course, GoogleCalendar would be generous. :D )

MMRIZE

@pastormingle

All CX3* modules (CalendarExt3, CalendarExt3Agenda, CalendarExt3Timeline) need event provider(e.g. default calendar module or MMM-GoogleCalendar or something similar) as a source of events. (You can hide the module with configuration or CSS)

Configuration itself is very simple.

{
	module: "calendar",
	header: "Fun Holidays",
	position: "top_left",
	config: {
		broadcastPastEvents: true,
		maximumNumberOfDays: 45,
		calendars: [
			{
				fetchInterval: 7 * 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000,
				symbol: "calendar-check",
				url: "https://ics.calendarlabs.com/709/45a0bb64/Fun_Holidays.ics",
				color: "green",
			}
		]
	}
},
{
	module: "MMM-CalendarExt3",
	position: "bottom_bar",
	header: "My Calendar for 3 weeks",
	config: {
		mode: 'week',
	}
},

It will show;

Everything you need is described in README.md.
But you can get many examples in this thread itself. (Read from first post. :D)

The most important part of the configuration would be these;

mode: week or month.
If you adopt week view, you might need these also ; weekIndex, weeksInView.

All other options are… just options. You can try whatever you want with fun.

Heavy CSS tweek is possible. You can ask me.

Rather, you may need to carefully config your events provider(usually, default calendar module) - most ambiguous accidents happen there.