@sdetweil your explanations helped a lot. I debugged using a timer in the node_helper to fake detecting different types of button press and my module will send magic mirror notifications. (So, if I can detect the actual physical events I’m pretty sure my script will work.

I think it’s the node package I’m trying to use that is the problem.

I even got so far as to figure out that a dependency of the package I want to used wasn’t compiled for Node version 16. which i what I’ve got running on my Mirror pi. I figured out it is c++ and even figured out how to recompile it with node-gyp and make. so now I do not get any errors in the pm2 error log. but now instead of a black screen electron, I don’t get electron opening a window at all. I check the PM2 logs. There are no errors in the mm-error log. It is blank.
However, the pm2 mm-out log is being added to over and over, so electron and MagicMirror are running. and the error keeps being repeated in the mm-out log.

The error which i’ve googled and gotten no working result for is:

ERROR Error: Cannot find module 'bindings'. 

Yet there is a bindings folder in the node_helper folder.
Is there a way to find out what path is being used to try to find “bindings”.

Or maybe the package I’m trying to use just is too much of a mess to keep screwing with. It sure seems like it would be super useful. I wanted to add a few physcial intermittant buttons and be able to assign multiple uses to them. Funny thing is… it works great when I run the test script in the command line using node.

https://github.com/bnielsen1965/rpi-gpio-buttons

By the way, this learning nodejs and module development is not all that easy.

@DrFalken said in IR control of presentations?:

Hey everyone - i’m looking to run https://revealjs.com/demo/ on MM, in a web browser module. I have a basic MM setup but otherwise a newbie :)

The idea would be to able to able navigate through the slides with an IR remote (either mimicking keystrokes, or issuing api calls to the revealjs server.

Does this seem realistic to do? Any pointers on implementation would be very helpful!

As others have explained, MagicMirror won’t do what you want.

To solve your need,
There are presentation wireless “mice” which look like tv remotes which can do what you want, if you are using a computer to display your website on a screen.
OR
you could turn each slide of your presentation into a graphic image and load them on a usb stick. Most “smart” tv’s have the ability to display images from a usb stick and will allow you to adjust the settings so you can change pages by clicking on your tv’s remote control.

@sdetweil if start is for one time things, where would I do work that must be repeated endlessly like a sensor or button that needs to be constantly checked.

If I have to init a node package that my module uses, I do that in start? so setting up in module variables is done in start?

@BKeyport Your idea of the positioning system improvement is very interesting. I would at the least like to be able to insert subdivisions of middle_center and the others that are full width.
In my case, I would like to have middle_center_left, middle_center_middle, middle_center_right. Perhaps we can insert into the DOM to create them and then delay loading of any module that is assigned to the location. Perhaps there is a way to manually handle that already, but I’ve not bothered yet. perhaps adding flex to the css of of middle_center would be sufficient. I suppose that is a bridge I will cross when I arrive there.

I’m learning to write my own module and poking around on this forum. I am not sure about when to put code in the init, start, or loaded functions of the node helper. I’m basically starting with the SampleModule by Sam. I’ve got my script working from the operating system running it with “node myscript.js” and it even uses a node package (was really proud of myself over that). And now I want to make it into a module for MagicMirror.

I’m wondering what and when to put code in init, start or loaded sections of the node_helper example?

I’ve look at the modules repository for examples and it seem like its all over the place.

Kelly

P.S. I’m very new to node.js and this is my first from scratch attempt to do anything with it at all. I feel like I’m halfway there. But not I"m stuck.

@sdetweil I agree with Sam or the dev ends up rewriting so much that it really isn’t mergable at all. Perhaps renaming and just a comment mentioning the idea came from so-and-so is better solution.

@aunrea did you run?
first switch to the MagicMirror folder like this

cd /home/pi/MagicMirror/

then run this command

npm run config:check

@teegray1124 I’m only displaying Major league Baseball right now but I do see scores. This module relies on different apis and scrapes some websites and any one of those could change and wouldn’t be the fault of the module. I think I also remember there is a setting for how many days to show something… I could be wrong.

But you’ve got to give a lot more info If anyone using that module could try to help you.

What league are you actually trying to display? What is your config for it?

@史新瑞

Did you run /home/pi/Magicmirror/npm run check:config
to verify your config.js?

@doubleT

for the screen size, look in the magicmirror doc for the electron options, you’ll want the full screen option probably. but you can set width and height too. You make these changes in your magicmirror config.js

When messing with modules and stuff, I generally set my screen size width and height to about half of my monitor so I can edit config and things comfortable on the same screen.

tips:
Ctrl+m will minimize electron and thus magic mirror, if you need to get to the desktop and are running full screen.

click on teh electron instance then ctrl+r will reload magic mirror. That way you don’t have to completely stop and reload when you are messing with css or config. At least 90% of the time ctrl+r wll be enough.