Magic mirror dual screen

1a2a3a

Hi all, many thanks to everyone who have helped me setup my first mirror especially @MMRIZE and @sdetweil. Having completed the mirror, my wife general sense is that I have too many modules cramp into a 24 inch.

Therefore, I’m thinking if it possible to drive the pi 5 across 2 monitor since the pi 5 has 2 hdmi?

I read previously that it is possible but that’s about 3 years ago and I’m not sure if it still works?

Basically I have to rename my existing mm folder to mm2. Then install mm again from fresh. So in my folder I will have mm(newly installed) and mm2(existing mm).

Install necessary module to each mm where desired.

Edit electron config file (in mm or mm2?)

Run npm start in mm and mm2 folder?

But then I saw another thread where you can have your modules in 1 folder and just set the config to whichever mm or mm2 you wana use.

I’m rather confused about the steps to be honest. Anyone kind enough to walk me through from the beginning again?

MMRIZE

@1a2a3a
What you really want?

expanding screen with 2 monitors on 1 mm instance
2 individual mm on each screen

1a2a3a

@MMRIZE hmmm ideally… 1 pi connect to 2 monitor and both monitor running … this is the part I don’t quite get it.

I want 1 monitor to just display Google photo and the other monitor showing all the informative stuff like calendar news stock etc. would this be more viable running 2 instances of mm? Or 1 instance of mm portraying Google photo on 1 screen and info on another side?

It feels like the first option is easier?

I’m happy to go either direction.

Of course the easiest solution is to buy 2 pi and call it a day. But where’s the fun in that 😅

sdetweil

@1a2a3a MM only displays on one screen… you can run two instances, and have them display on different monitors… from the same mm folder. just two different config files.

see the MM_CONFIG_FILE env variable

to get an instance on the other monitor you need to add

electronOptions:{x:????,width:yyyy},

to the config.js before the modules:{} list

??? is the width of the 1st display in pixels
yyyy is the width of the second monitor

note that you can also do the MMM-Pages approach, and only display some on a logical page 1 and some on logical page 2 in rotation…

see my fork for a better way to define that
https://github.com/sdetweil/MMM-pages

1a2a3a

@sdetweil oh my just that simple 1 config file and I’m done? And when I run pm2 it will flash to 2 as well?

sdetweil

@1a2a3a have to run two scripts, one w the second config file

sdetweil

@sdetweil see the pm2_MagicMirror.json in ~/MagicMirror/installers

copy, change the name and script name, make a new script mm2.sh
and the env variable

pm2 start pm2_MagicMirror.json(new name)
pm2 save

that give the app pm2 manages a pretty name

you can test w another terminal window
set the env variable, using export variable=
then create the new config.js, w only the modules u want enabled.
then npm start

BKeyport

@sdetweil heck, I’m a little lost there. Can you explain it out a bit better for us? I’m currently running two Magicmirrors back to back with two MM Directories and custom mm.sh files, if I could simplify that, I want to.

BKeyport

@BKeyport What I did was two directories, with seperate configs, then mm.sh does:

cd /home/bkey1970/MagicMirror
DISPLAY=:0 npm start

and mm2.sh does:

cd /home/bkey1970/MagicMirror2
DISPLAY=:0 npm start

To get the 2nd on the 2nd monitor, I added:

        electronOptions: {
    x: 1920
},

to the 2nd config.js, right below the address line, and changed the port to 8081.

sdetweil

@BKeyport @1a2a3a

copy the second config.js to the first mm config directory as config2.js

edit the mm2.sh

cd to the first mm directory(instead of the second)
and add a line

export MM_CONFIG_FILE=${cwd}/config/config2.js
npm start

now. make sure all the modules needed by both instances are installed in the modules folder of the 1st instance.

if they aren’t used by a particular instance, no big deal, same as setting disabled:true on a module config