@sdetweil It’s alive.

@wfsaxton Pretty sure MM will do what you describe. What limitations are do you see with MM? Calendars not my cup of tea but I’ve seen some pretty awesome calendar setups using MM.
There are several Calendar modules in the 3rd Party module section and some are better than others.
It can be a challenge picking the right 3rd Party module, whether calendar or not because they are made by different individuals and in that group of module builders some do better at maintaining their modules than others.

Several years ago a stumbled across this commercial product, DAKBOARD, which is a paid subscription based service similar to MM. I rapidly got frustrated with DAKBoard because for a paid service their customer service STANK.

Magic Mirror doesn’t have customer service per se but they have a ton of folks who can usually answer questions or suggest alternatives.

I took a crack at MM and have not regretted that decision in the slightest.

Just my opinion but looking at DAK Board and MM I doubt you will find many/any takers because when you look at the number of available modules and the hours put in to create a module, that is a vast amount coding hours

@sdetweil This is in regards to auto-starting MM.
When installing NPM per the documentation, do you install at ~$ or at/MagicMirror $
It isn’t real clear because half way through that sequence it has cd ~ which you could take to mean you are installing npm at the MagicMirror level then you back up to put the auto start script at root?

I kinda-sorta think I understand what is going on with this ALT problem but I’m out of gas and will confirm in the morning.

@sdetweil Hitting ALT always worked in the past and continues to work on the older MM. I don’t pull these things out of thin air. I get your point about documentation though.
You mentioned early in this conversation about that being something that is done in Electron. Electron is way beyond my knowledge level. But searching Google it seems that somewhere in Electron there is titleBarStyle and it is currently set to hidden . I haven’t a clue as to how to run that to ground but almost like someone was messing with the code trying to make a kiosk but didn’t do that locally.

@sdetweil This is why ALT

In any case neither ALT, ALT+Spacebar or CTL+m allow me to easily move back and forth between configuring and checking the Magic Mirror.

This is all being done on Pi4B’s BTW.
I have formatted the sd card on the original Pi4B now 4 times and installed MM 4 times right behing the Pi OS fresh install. 64 bit

After you made mention of 32 bit I took a second Pi 4B, installed 32 bit Pi OS and then right behind I installed MM

The existing, functioning MM is fine. I hit ALT and it does just what the attached picture says it should do.

So I have two Pi 4B’s, one of which is running 32 bit Pi OS and one running 64 bit Pi OS.
Neither will let me get access to the toolbar in any combination of keystrokes.

@sdetweil is the aarch64 what is telling you 64 bit?

I am about 95% sure that the other MM I referenced having built a couple of years ago is 64 bit also.
ALT on that MM brings up the toolbar as expected.
BUT…when I do ALT+Spacebar it does not give the same result.
The way I’m reading your comments ALT and ALT+Spacebar should give the same result, or did in the past.

Not being a programmer many of these commands I am unaware of.

@sdetweil
~ $ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Debian
Description: Debian GNU/Linux 11 (bullseye)
Release: 11
Codename: bullseye

~ $ uname -a
Linux PiPics 6.1.21-v8+ #1642 SMP PREEMPT Mon Apr 3 17:24:16 BST 2023 aarch64 GNU/Linux

My installation process amounts to formating micro-sd card, firing up Raspberry Pi’s installer, install their posted software.
Immediately do apt update, apt full-upgrade then head to the MM link to your Github based installer. Copy your script, hit enter.
When asked about screensaver & pm2 I answer yes to both.

Regarding yesterdays change of subject question, my concern was if somehow a virus was loading itself on my Pi.

I kind of think I know what the problem is but it seems like an install problem because 1) it is repeatable and 2) it is like this straight from the install.

I don’t know the official name for the “bar” but it is missing.
This is from am MM I built a couple of years ago.

Non-existent in this most recent install. I saw it missing yesterday. That missing bar was what prompted my question.
I’ve installed via @sdetweil script

@sdetweil Quick change of subject. How do I find a list of installed packages on Pi WITH timestamp
Something unannounced just installed itself on this Pi
Not a fan of surprise unannounced installations out of the blue on my computers

@sdetweil Bad news…FWIW ALT-spacebar does nothing and CTL + M kills it.

@swvalenti @sdetweil Thanks. “Hey there sexy!” was getting old.

Been a while since I’ve built an MM so maybe something has changed but when I hit the ALT key to get at Terminal, take MM out of full-screen nothing happens.
Loaded 64 bit Pi OS on new micro SD Card then ran @sdetweil install script and MM installed just fine and looks like the typical newly installed MM but nothing happens when I tap ALT.
I’ve formatted and installed Pi OS then used @sdetweil installation script twice and it happens each time.
Is there some new issue or some script to resolve this behavior? I’ve built a few of these over the last few years but this is new.

After staring at message about update for both MM and one of modules I’m using for about a month, set about to update everything. Update seemed to go alright for MM with exception of getting a high severity warning and 3 moderate severity warnings that semm to just toggle back and forth. I get message to run
npm audit fix --force
but no joy on that fixing anything.

Any way you can Pi-Hole or Pi-Hole white list and black list.
That project has been around forever and I imagine that they have a large database of bad actors.

@N6NG You might also want to try pololu.com if you are looking to connect to the header on your existing Pi. This is link to their connector page
Pololu Connectors

@ankonaskiff17 @kayakbabe @sdetweil @drphil02
One final note regarding DAK Board and is ultimately what made me kick them to the curb in the end.
There is an old cliche’ about “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”
When you suscribe to one of Dakboards plans, you are buying THEIR idea of what is a “pretty” display. Not the subscribers version.
A glitzy background isn’t what I care about. I want all my appointments, current weather, forecast, and national radar at a glance as I start my day.

The times I asked Dakboard support, can you change this color or increase the font size generally I didn’t get a reply, much less one that said LOL you bought our product so no, we won’t change it.

If a color blind person saw Dakboard and said that’s nice but I need to do some serious CSS mods, Dakboard isn’t going to do that.
MM a dozen people are gonna pile in and help that color blind person.

The fundamental difference between Dakboard and MM is Dakboard is like an artwork that says “Look at my technically savvy artwork.”

MM is a tool that can look like Dakboard if you want, or it present a whole host of other information that is out of the buyers reach with a dakboard subscription

@sdetweil Sounds a lot like same problem I had with Google calendar that was some odd date and time format that Google was using. Did that exact thing.
No upcoming events.
I punted on Google in end and am sending Outlook calendar to MM

@drphil02 As someone who started with Dakboard and switched to MM, I think Dakboard is garbage. The number of modules is miniscule compared to MM
I rently looked at Dakboard site again and still garbage. Very little you can do with Dakboard because you can’t look under the hood so to speak. MM you can.
Oh, did I mention their customer serive is non-existent?
MM has tons of modules and an outstanding group of folks to help you through the rough patches.

Set Up a Dakboard and an MM and run them side by side for a while. Set up Dakboard with the tiny amount of modules they have, then set up a MM with a variety of modules it has available.
Dakboard is just a way to liberate some money from your wallet I can get in a Ford Focus and have it all figured out in a day.
I get in a Porsche and it takes a week to get my arms around the controls but in the end Dakboard is a Ford Focus. MM a Porsche.!

I have an external web page in MMM-SmartWebDisplay and the URL is a set of cryptic letters, numbers as partially shown here https://radar.weather.gov/?settings=v1_eyJhZ2VuZGEiOnsiaWQi although there are way more letters and numbers.

Page works fine and gives a good national radar image zoomed to show my home state plus area to west as that is where our weather typically comes from.

There is a banner at top thats says National Weather Service Radar and device at bottom that lets you play back radar.

I’ve hidden playback by running it out the bottom if the screen and given MMM-Jast a black background instead of the default transparent background.

Just wondering if the cryptic URL is remotely amenable to CSS

@sdetweil Can I do that retroactively or delete module then reinstall with npm install --omit=dev and that will get rid of unused directories/files?

I should be able to just delete module & no need to mess with config.js or custom.css if that is route to take?