I just started setting up my MagicMirror and am a total newbie. I am not a coder / programmer – I’ve basically just mimicked the examples from the various modules in GitHub to do my configuration. So this is a pretty basic question, but one that other newbies may be wondering as well.

When entering a value for a config line, when do you need quotes?

At first, I just assumed you quoted everything. But I was changing something in my config file and noticed some unquoted values. After a little more investigation, I realized that there are a few values that only work if they are not quoted (e.g. plain numbers and boolean T/F).

Can someone confirm the specifics of this for us newbies?

In case I’m not being clear, it seems like you would do

port: 8080

without quotes but

units: "metric"

with quotes.

And a bonus question, should it be double quotes, single quotes, or can you use either one?

TL;DR Anyone know of a way for MM to display data from an ESPHome device?

For a while now I’ve been using esp32and esp8266 microcontrollers to send household sensor data to my MM (for example https://github.com/balassy/MMM-RemoteTemperature), programing them with Arduino.

I also have a Home Assistant server, and so little by little I’ve been programing more of my household sensors with ESPHome, as it’s a lot quicker and easier, and the sensor data can also be used to trigger automations.

But still find my MM useful for at-a-glance info and would like to display some of the same sensor data there as well.

Does anyone know of a module for MM that could display data sent from ESPHome? For most things, the data point would include an icon, label, value, and symbol.

Thanks, @sdetweil That was the ticket.

From both the name of the option and the fact that the description and example don’t say anything about including a time format, I assumed this was not the place to set that.

I think I had even tried doing it at one point and it didn’t work – but I probably hadn’t tried it with urgency:0 and getRelative:0 set.

I’m going to put in a pull request to try to make this a little less confusing for others in the future. Can you tell me if this sounds okay?

CURRENT ENTRY

Format to use for the date of events when using absolute dates. (version <= 2.16.0) From version 2.16.0, this option will be used to format absolute and relative dates. (e.g. DD/MM/YY to change from the default MM/DD/YYYY)

Possible values: See Moment.js formats
Default value: MMM Do (e.g. Jan 18th)

PROPOSED CHANGE

Format to use for the date of events when using absolute dates. (version <= 2.16.0) From version 2.16.0, this option will be used to format absolute and relative dates. (e.g. DD/MM/YY to change from the default MM/DD/YYYY)

To show the event time along with the date, use a format like MMM Do HH:mm. Depending on configuration, may also require the options timeFormat:“absolute”, urgency:0, getRelative:0,

Possible values: See Moment.js formats
Default value: MMM Do (e.g. Jan 18th)

I agree. The number of settings and their interrelatedness is a little overwhelming.

My config already has the other three settings

  {
    module: "calendar",
    position: "right",
    config: {
      maximumNumberOfDays: 2,
      displaySymbol: true,
      fetchInterval: 15 * 60 * 1000,
      fade: false,
      urgency: 0,
      timeFormat: "absolute",
      dateFormat: "ddd",
      fullDayEventDateFormat: "ddd",
      showEnd: true,
      getRelative: 0,
      showTimeToday: true,
      colored: false,
      calendars: [
      {
         url: "https://calendar.google.com/calendar/ical/   ...   /basic.ics",
         symbol: "c",
       },
       {
         url: "https://calendar.google.com/calendar/ical/   ...   /basic.ics",
         symbol: "j",
       },
       {
         url: "https://calendar.google.com/calendar/ical/   ...   /basic.ics",
         symbol: "t",
       },
     ],
   }
  },

** I deleted and reposted my entry from yesterday becuse I realized in my various testing I had left off one of the options. This is my actual config. **

Both of the things you mention make logical sense, but neither seem to work that way in real life.

when showEnd is set to false (or left blank, as false is defualt), the event only shows the day and not any time
when showEnd is set to true, the event shows the day and the start time
neither option seems to show the end time (or end day) of an event

and showEnd works when I set it in the global section, but does nothing when I add it to an individual calendar entry

Is your MM behaving differently then mine?

I’m wondering if there is some mistake in the Calendar config documentation. The documentation seems to refer to two options named showEnd, which I don’t believe is possible.

Also, it’s not really clear what this option does. In my thinking, “end time of events” would mean I would have “Jan 18th 16:30 - 17:30” instead of just “Jan 18th 16:30” and “end of a date” would mean “Jan 18th - 21st”

But this doesn’t seem to do either of those. It seems like it adds the time (with formatting determined by dateEndFormat) so that “Jan 18th” becomes “Jan 18th 16:30”.

Am I understanding this correctly? If so, I can put in a pull request to change the documentation.

Thanks, but my objective in suggesting this is not simply to get different configs at different ports. That’s necessary, of course, but as you mention it can already be accomplished with multiple instances. (And for reference, this is what I’m currently doing.)

I’ve found the multiple instance method to have a few downsides that compound as the number of instances grows. I’m currently running two instances – where the difficulties are a pain but manageable. But I was thinking of adding some extra displays that would take me four instances – where the difficulties would become somewhat untenable.

1. multiple instances means multiple API calls and/or HTTP POST requests from my sensors. In the case of the HTTP POST requests, I have to use CNAMEs on my router to make my MM machine look like multiple machines and then program the sensor to run the same HTTP POST routine multiple times for each “machine”. Thankfully my router and sensor firmwares (OpenWRT and Arduino) allow for this, but others would not.

2. multiple instances means that I have to maintain multiple config and CSS files. In my case 90% of the config and CSS files are the same (formatting settings, API credentials, sensor data display parameters, etc.) so if I make changes in that 90%, I have to make notes (or use a file compare utility) to make sure the same changes are copied over to all the instances.

I guess my thought here is that many people have a pile of old phones and tablets sitting around collecting dust and adding functionality like this would make it very easy to repurpose those as useful extensions of their MagicMirror.

@sdetweil Thanks for the updated alternative.

Unfortunately, it seems like this feature is only available on the desktop. In my case I’m using Android phones and/or tablets for my remote displays. I’ll be interested to see what the guy using the FireTVs and/or AndroidTVs is able to do.

Anyway, I wrote up a feature suggestion that would allow for what I want and posted it in that category.

https://forum.magicmirror.builders/topic/17226/seperate-config-for-web-access

I’d like to propose some functionality for people like me who want to display their MM info on two (or more) displays with slightly different configurations on each.

I’m not a programmer, but I’ve tried to devise a solution that will allow for the functionality at a basic level, but at the same time should be comparatively simple to program and backward compatible. I’ll give more of my rationale after the suggestion, so here goes:

• Add an integer option named displays as the first option in the config file. The default value for this would be “1” in which case the config file would work as it does now. If the value is “2” or greater, two additional options would become available.

• Under port, port would become an alias for port-display1 (or vise-versa) and additional options named port-display2, port-display3, etc. would be required, matching the number of displays. This will allow the alternate configurations to be accessed using the built-in webserver with an alternate port number.

• The same would occur under within each module under position, i.e. position becomes an alias for position-display1 and then add position-display2, position-display3, etc.

• Add a value of hidden to the list of possible values for position. If the value is hidden, the module is not shown on that display.

• Add a CSS class to each “display” so that the content can be styled individually. e.g.

.display2 .clock .time {
     font-size: 72px;
}

Here is my rationale in the above proposal:

• Making the current option name an alias for “…display1” allows for backward compatibility, so no one’s install gets broken.

• If people are wanting multiple configs, they are likely using the built-in webserver to display these on other machines. The display on the local machine would always use the first config (i.e. …display1”).

• For most modules the same configuration would be acceptable for all displays. The main I’m guessing people would want to change is where and/or whether the module appears. Styling changes could then be accomplished through the additional CSS class.

• I know this way of doing it somewhat limits what can be done, but my guess is that most people who could benefit from this function would be willing to trade reduced customizability for getting the functionality actually added.

@sdetweil Thanks for the suggestion. I was hopeful as the style inspector showed that I could pretty much do what I wanted with

.MMM-BackgroundSlideshow {
    display: none;
}

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get it working based on the info in the link you sent. I did a little more digging and it looks like both Chrome and Firefox removed support for user stylesheets a few years back. My guess is that even if I could re-enable it (or find some extension that mimiced it) on the desktop, doing so on the mobile browser would probably be much difficult and/or impossible.

Do you know if the ability to have multiple configurations has been suggested before as a feature request? I’ve been mulling it over and I think I might have a way to implement this (in a limited sense) in a simpler way that wouldn’t require multiple config.js files.

TL;DR Is there a way to have a different config when the MM is accessed remotely via web vs what shows on the local display?

My magic mirror is set up to show clock data, weather data, info from a few temp sensors I have around the house. But I also use https://github.com/darickc/MMM-BackgroundSlideshow so it does double duty as a photo frame.

I also display the same info, minus the BackgroundSlideshow, on smaller screens that I have around the house (typically old tablets) using the web access. In order to not run the BackgroundSlideshow module on these secondary screens, I have to run a second instance – similar to what is described here: https://forum.magicmirror.builders/topic/15123/multiple-instances – which means my temp sensors have to send their data twice, my weather app has to make API calls twice, etc.

It would be great if there was a way to have only one MM instance, but display it’s info in two different configurations – one for local and one for remote.