@broberg - Thank you

@yawns - And thank you

Hello fellow MagicMirror makers!

It is with a huge sense of self-satisfaction that I present my build of MagicMirror. Looking at the builds that came before mine was extremely helpful and the people that have assisted me here should all be commended. Without your help I may not have completed my project. Thank you all, for your time, patience and effort on my behalf. I think you are nothing short of brilliant and I wish you all every success. And a special shout out to Michael Teeuw for making this all possible. Feel free to comment, Michael, so I can tell my son that the creator of MagicMirror actually contacted me about my build. (fingers crossed)

My reason for building: (Yes, I’m going to tell a short, boring story)

My son is a senior at Steven’s Institute of Technology. He majors in Computer Programming and Engineering. While he was home for Christmas break he suggested I take an old PC and install uBuntu on it as a project. (I like projects). It took me a few days, but when I was done I thought, “Well now what do I do with it?” He suggested a few online sites that teach you Python and Java but I have no practical use for learning that at my age. Then he suggested I check out this thing called a Raspberry Pi. He said people were doing all sorts of cool things with them. Then he went back to school.

First, I did some Google searching for what a Raspberry Pi actually was. Seriously, I had no idea. Another Google search for what people were doing with them. BLAM! There it was! A Magic Mirror, but I was unsure of my ability to do this. My solution? See if I could get it up and running on a PC. Once I was able to successfully install and actually get MagicMirror running I was totally into it, hard core. I ordered my Pi and the 2-way mirror. When my son comes home for his next break, I will present him with a Magic Mirror, and thank him for the best suggestion, ever.

(End of boring “short?” story).

In the future, it is my intention to add a USB webcam, a microphone and speakers so that I can have facial recognition, some sort of voice activation with response and sound. Might as well dream big.

!

@infamoustiggr

Yup, cowboydude is absolutely right. I went with the Automatic installer on my Raspberry Pi 3

Worked perfectly, and the directions are damn good

@broberg Thank you. That worked very nicely. Much appreciated

@cowboysdude My point exactly

@ArcherProject

Again, you sound just like I did. I took the time to help you because a few weeks ago I was in exactly the same place as you are now and someone here stepped in and answered my questions and was very explicit in their directions. It got my MM up and running, gave me some confidence and taught me something. I still ask questions but I’m not afraid to experiment beforehand.

Another piece of advice:

Make a copy of any files you are going to edit (e.g. your config file, your css files, etc…) and work on those. If you mess anything up, you go back to the original. In my config folder I have my working config.js file and I have backups named configV2.js, configV3.js, configV4.js (etc) for each time I edited the config.js file. More than a few times I messed up something but I had the backups as a safety net. I trash the one I messed up and renamed the last working backup to config.js and continued the process.

@ArcherProject

I was just like you a few weeks ago. I didn’t know a thing about this, or coding. A complete noob, as they say. My suggestion, because it helped me, is, don’t do your editing in the terminal. Do it in the graphical user interface (GUI). Navigate your desktop as you would on a PC with Windows or a Mac’s Finder.

Click on File Manager (the folder at the top left of your desktop, usually)
Double click the MagicMirror folder
Double click the config folder
Right click the config.js.sample file - select Copy
Right click again somewhere else in that same window - select Paste
Rename the file to config.js and click the Rename button
The new config.js file that you just pasted is now your working config file for MagicMirror
Double click it and it should open in a text editor.

This is one of the places where you will customize your MM. It’s actually good enough to run your MM, although it will only show some of the modules but you’ll be encouraged by the fact that it is at least working. Every module folder has a ReadMe file that instructs you on what to add to your config.js file to get that module up and running.

I think that’s good for now. If you want to run MM right now to see how your new config.js is working you will have to go back to the terminal. Do this:

Open a new terminal
type cd MagicMirror
then type npm start

Sit back and watch the magic happen. When you calm down after a minute or two of watching your MM actually working and you want to quit MM, press the Option key on your keyboard. Select QUIT from File menu that appears, top left of your screen

@PhilsterM9

I was just like you a few weeks ago. I didn’t know a thing about this, or coding. A complete noob, as they say. My suggestion, because it helped me, is, don’t do your editing in the terminal. Do it in the graphical user interface (GUI). Navigate your desktop as you would on a PC with Windows or a Mac’s Finder.

Click on File Manager (the folder at the top left of your desktop, usually)
Double click the MagicMirror folder
Double click the config folder
Right click the config.js.sample file - select Copy
Right click again somewhere else in that same window - select Paste
Rename the file to config.js and click the Rename button
The new config.js file that you just pasted is now your working config file for MagicMirror
Double click it and it should open in a text editor.

This is one of the places where you will customize your MM. It’s actually good enough to run your MM, although it will only show some of the modules but you’ll be encouraged by the fact that it is at least working. Every module folder has a ReadMe file that instructs you on what to add to your config.js file to get that module up and running.

I think that’s good for now. If you want to run MM right now to see how your new config.js is working you will have to go back to the terminal. Do this:

Open a new terminal
type cd MagicMirror
then type npm start

Sit back and watch the magic happen. When you calm down after a minute or two of watching your MM actually working and you want to quit MM, press the Option key on your keyboard. Select QUIT from File menu that appears, top left of your screen

I guess I should have looked at the SimpleLogo.js file before asking the above question. That’s where the path to the picture is. So I guess some modification here is needed to add another path to a second picture, although I wouldn’t know how to do that.

Is it even possible? If so, please advise.

Thanks