Alternatively, rather than working ON the Raspberry Pi itself, consider using a different computer (like the one you’re sitting at now, to post questions on the forum) to remotely SSH into the Raspberry Pi. Then you don’t have to worry about needing to get back to the desktop on the rPi to do anything. You can trigger everything remotely.

My rPi is setup so that MagicMirror will come up automatically when it reboots (please read the installation instructions on how to do this.) It does not have neither a keyboard nor mouse that are active on it (with that I mean, the wireless dongle is plugged in, but the keyboard and mouse are turned off, I don’t need them.) If I need to restart the process, or update files, from my windows machine, I use a program called SecureCRT to remotely log into the rPi with SSH. You can use something else, like PuTTY. Note that this is text-only, not a graphical interface. Once logged in, I can do anything/everything from the command line that I would do if I was logged onto the rPi itself with its keyboard and mouse.

If you really want a desktop environment (I really don’t know why), you can setup VNC on the rPi, and use that to connect. On the Windows side, you can use a free version of RealVNC client to connect to the rPi and you have a desktop.

Side note: having the rPi on the same network means that together with the display that’s connected on the rPi, I can also launch another instance of MagicMirror on my Windows machine simply by going to 'http://myrpi_address:MM_port', for example, 'http://10.0.0.1:8080' (assuming the rPi is at that address.) This allows me to write code and hit refresh on my browser which instantly refreshes, as opposed to constantly restarting the actual process on the rPi. It also allows me to compare. The instance running on the rPi is completely unaffected by the refreshes done on the local browser. So I can make a change, refresh locally, and compare the two, one local, and the other on the rPi’s display. Works great.

I haven’t forgotten, it’s just been two rather busy weeks. And I’m recovering from a failed server HD today/this weekend. Yay for backups … not so much fun when it’s terabytes of data. Anyway, I’ll get back this as soon as this mayhem stops, or at least subsides a bit.

LOL!! Oh this ought to be good. :)

Seriously though, this is coming from decades of being in the field of computers, coding, working with electronics, designing my own stuff … you tend to pick up a thing or two over the years. Then you start to forget them as you start losing your hair … It’s a harsh reality.

As @sullit mentioned, Github is a code repository, any code, or to be more precise, any text. It’s a way for a coder to keep revisions on their code, and able to publish it to the general public. The code lives on whatever development machine you are using, and you sync, or mirror it to Github. This allows a coder to work on their code locally, break it, fix it, change it, do whatever, and when they’re done, push it up to Github to store and eventually release to the public. This also allows a coder to roll back their code. If while working locally they broke something and can’t figure out what happened, they can pull code back out from the repository and either merge it back in, or just compare and see where things went haywire. It’s a beautiful thing.

And while it may have a bit of a steep learning curve, trust me when I say this, it will save your sanity.

There are a lot of different guides, both on Github as well as out in the wild about how to use it.
Overall: https://guides.github.com/
Short and sweet beginner’s guide: https://guides.github.com/activities/hello-world/

HEY! You delayed a bunch of stuff in favor of a vacation! Some people’s kids! :)

The fading doesn’t make it less obvious. It happens because of the different sizes per module. Fade or not, you will see the other modules in the same region jump to adjust to the new sizing. Some days my calendar will have long entries, and it makes the clock above it move. So when I hide/show the calendar, the clock will jump back and forth. The regions being flexible is what allows for longer entries on the calendar to be seen, for example. Same with the news ticker as you’ve discovered. Having fixed regions can cause other problems as well.

But, this should be a start for you. As I mentioned, it’s crude, and hard coded. I much rather have a function you can pass details to but I will leave that as an exercise for you. :)

@EoF, awesome. Thanks for that. Someone should start collecting all the various keyboard shortcuts and compile them in one post, possibly even on the wiki page. I’ve seen CTRL-W posted, this ALT-F2. One can also completely switch to a virtual console and back to the GUI by hitting CTRL-ALT-F[1-7] …

By the way, this works best if the two modules you are trying to swap are right below each other in the 'config.js' file. For example, if you’re trying to swap ModA and ModB, your 'config.js' should list them together

modules: [
		{
			module: 'ModA',
		},
		{
			module: 'ModB',
		},
],

if you have a ModC in between them, it won’t ‘swap’ properly, it’ll just turn them off in alternate fashion while keeping them in their respective location. So you’ll end up with:

startup
ModA
ModC
ModB

then
ModC
ModB

then
ModA
ModC

alternating ...

Not particularly ideal …

Each module should have installation instructions. If you can’t find them, contact the author of the module for them. They should be posted.

As for the clock, that is dependent on your Raspberry Pi, not MM. So if the clock is off, that means you haven’t configured the Raspberry Pi for the correct timezone and city. Please read the documentation on the 'raspi-config' command on how to configure your Raspberry Pi properly.

@pugsly, I forgot to mention this: new code has been added to the 'develop' branch that allows you to turn off the date display when using the module in analog mode only. Options are 'top' (default) to have it displayed at the top of the clock, 'bottom' to show it on the bottom, or 'false' to completely turn it off.