@sdetweil
I switched to your fork and while it’s better, it’s still sending a notification every several seconds.
Here’s my config:

		{
			module: "MMM-Pages",
                        classes: "fixed",
			config:	{
				modules:[	[ "page1" ],
							[ "page2" ],
						],
				fixed: [ "fixed" ],
				rotationTime:	10000,
				animationTime:	10000,
			}
		},

and

        {
            module: 'MMM-SendNotification',
            classes: "fixed",
            config: {
                interval: 3600000, // 1 minute interval
                notification: 'PAGE_CHANGED',
                payload: 1,
            },
        },

(I upped the interval to see if that would do anything. It didn’t.)

I’ve commented out all the other modules except the clock, MMM-BackgroundSlideshow, and MMM-ViewNotifications.

@sdetweil
I’ve no clue how to run it the way you did with the stop and all, but I did start commenting out modules and it seems that MMM-pages is the culprit.

Without it, SendNotification works fine but when it’s active, SendNotification sends multiple notifications per second:

It may be that MMM-pages is suspending and resuming MMM-SendNotification with each change, even though it’s set as “fixed”, and maybe that’s triggering it?

It may be that this is just something that won’t work for me.

I really appreciate your help!

@sdetweil
This is what I have:

{
  module: 'MMM-SendNotification',
  position: 'top_right',
  classes: "fixed",
  config: {
    interval: 60000, // 1 minute interval
    notification: 'PAGE_CHANGED',
    payload: 1,
  },
},

Thank you for your patience and assistance! You are amazing!

@sdetweil
Got the new version (typo in “notification”?) and it seems to work except that it ignores the interval and just constantly sends the notification.

Also, there’s an error showing in the console log:

Parameter mismatch in module.show: callback is not an optional parameter! 3 module.js:394:8

with different numbers. I’m not sure that’s a problem (MMM-BackgroundSlideshow has the same error and it works fine) but I thought I’d mention it.

@sdetweil said in Simple(?) module to send a notification every x minutes?:

https://github.com/sdetweil/MMM-SendNotification

Thank you so much! That got a lot farther than I ever did. When it gets to the point of actually sending the notification, however, I see an error in the browser console:

sendNotification: Notification should be a string.

As far as I can tell, the notification (this.config.notification) is a string. Is there something else that I can do to force it to be considered a string?

Note: the only change I made was to add a bunch of console.log messages so I could try to understand what was going on and then, when I saw that error, commented out the sendnotification line (which made the error disappear). When I uncommented it, the error came back.

Is there a module out there where you can say “every 60000ms, send a “PAGE_CHANGED” notification with a value of 1” and it will do that?

I tried having ChatGPT write a “MMM-NotificationTimer” module that I could start from but I can’t seem to get it to actually send the notification. JavaScript is just too foreign to me to be able to do this at this time.

I’m using MMM-pages to be able to switch between a traditional MM setup and just a picture. I use MMM-Keypress to switch between the two. I’d like it to automatically switch back to the picture after, say, 10 minutes, hence the need for timed notifications.

Is there such a module already out there somewhere?

@MMRIZE said in MMM-CalendarExt3 Formatting questions follow-up:

@UncleRoger
There would be a simpler solution, but your approach is not bad.

.CX3 .singleday.event {
  color: var(--calendarColor);
}

To use this approach; you should assign color to the calendars of the default calendar module.

Ooh, that’s perfect! Thanks! Much better, I think, to do as much setup in the config.js file as possible and, for this, to define everything about a calendar together (name, key, color, etc.).

One more question – I’ve noticed that multi-day events show a starting and ending time which is okay, but it’s also doing that for all-day events. That is, if it marked as “all-day”, it shows a start time of 00:00 and an end time of 23:59.

Is there any way to turn off the times for all-day multi-day events (or all multi-day events)?

Thanks!

@MMRIZE

Thanks! Now I just have to find 6 different colors that are readable, plus 3 more related to 3 of those that are also readable. 8^)

(Family calendar, me, the wife, 3 kids, and their 3 schools. sigh Sometimes I wish I was a mantis shrimp.)

@UncleRoger said in MMM-CalendarExt3 Formatting questions follow-up:

Re: MMM-CalendarExt3 Formatting questions
I added this code:

.CX3 .event .headline.useSymbol .symbol {
  display: none;
}

(from the above discussion) to custom.css in ~/MagicMirror/css and it had no effect – I still see the colored dot.

I had set useSymbol to false in config.js and that was preventing this css from being applied. When I removed that from the module config, the dot disappeared as it should.

And, as a follow-up, I think I saw something about coloring the text so I will do more research there but it would be nifty to have an option of something like “textColor: true” which would apply the color to the text. Not sure if I’m making sense though.

I found what I had seen previously and this is what worked:

.CX3 .calendar_<calendar>      {
  color: <color>;
}

where is the value assigned to the “name:” option of the calendar in the default calendar module. So, if you have this entry in config.js in :

{ // Family Calendar
        name:                   "Family",
        url:                    "https://calendar.google.com/calendar/ical/blahblahblah",
        broadcastPastEvents:    true,
        color:                  "#05C3DD",
},

in the calendars array of the default calendar module definition, then the CSS to change the text color in CX3 for that calendar would be:

.CX3 .calendar_Family      {
  color: #05C3DD;
}

Lastly, I’m trying to figure out how to get the time to be just “08:30” (for 8:30 am) or “22:15” (for 10:15pm) and am not having much luck.

I figured this one out with a little help from ChatGPT:

eventTimeOptions: {  hour: '2-digit', minute: '2-digit', hour12: false  },

Not sure if that’s the best way to do it, but it seems to work.

The final result looks like this:

That’s viewing it on a landscape monitor but it will eventually end up on one in portrait mode, hence the need to eliminate the dot and shorten the time.

(Just trying to document this in case someone else is looking for the same answers.)

So I don’t know what I was smoking, but I couldn’t find anything about changing event text colors. What I’d like to do is, instead of having a blue dot with white text saying “Piano Lesson”, I’d like no dot and “Piano Lesson” in blue text.

Re: MMM-CalendarExt3 Formatting questions

I added this code:

.CX3 .event .headline.useSymbol .symbol {
  display: none;
}

(from the above discussion) to custom.css in ~/MagicMirror/css and it had no effect – I still see the colored dot. I’m hoping to remove it and just apply the color to the text instead since I have limited horizontal width and don’t want to waste it on a dot. Is there something I’m missing?

And, as a follow-up, I think I saw something about coloring the text so I will do more research there but it would be nifty to have an option of something like “textColor: true” which would apply the color to the text. Not sure if I’m making sense though.

Lastly, I’m trying to figure out how to get the time to be just “08:30” (for 8:30 am) or “22:15” (for 10:15pm) and am not having much luck.

I picked up a Pi Zero 2 for $15 intending to use it for playing around with different modules and working on my mirror. At some point, in my Copious Spare Time™, I’ll replace the Pi 4B I’m using now with it so as to free up the 4 for something else (that I also don’t have time for 8^).

It’s an affordable option if you want something to play around with.

@sdetweil @MMRIZE
You guys are amazing! Thank you!

Scenes2 looks really interesting but I think it’s probably overkill for what I’m trying to do (MagicMirror swapping with Mr. Rogers’ Picture Picture). I could see that there are a lot of possibilities with it. I might play around with it for a future build.

The reason I have two calendar modules is that one is displayed for the dinner menu and one is there just to define the calendars for MMM-MonthlyCalendar. I’m planning on playing with CalendarExt3 to see if I like it better than MonthlyCalendar but the latter was quick and easy to get going.

Anyway, thanks again!

@mezcalbomb
Not necessarily… you can use the one RPi remotely. Before I got the second RPi, I was doing testing and setup on the main one downstairs. It worked fine. I have a browser tab open pointing to it so I can see what’s going on.

You didn’t specify what hardware you wanted to wait on – I assumed you meant you wanted to get the MM set up before you physically built the frame and such for it. If you have an old monitor, you can plug your RPi into it or you should be able to run it without a monitor and just see the MM in the browser on your main computer.

I managed to scrounge up a second RPi which means I can break stuff on it while the first one is still (relatively) functional downstairs, even though I haven’t gotten around to building a frame or mounting it on the wall. But you could still set things up with just one RPi as long as you’re not trying to put it into production before you finalize everything. (Or if you back up your settings frequently. Get Sam’s backup scripts.)

I apologize for what I’m sure is a bonehead question… I had a stock calendar module to show events from one calendar (and a second, hidden instance of calendar) but when I tried to implement pages (MMM-Pages), it was loading the hidden calendar along with the non-hidden one.

So I thought I’d try CalExt3Ag to replace the visible calendar. The problem is, I want it to look like the stock calendar:

but the best I could get is this:

Is it possible to get a much simplified listing (one line per event, relative dates) of events using CalExt3Ag?

And now, having actually looked at the file in question, I see it includes latitude and longitude for each entry. Very cool.

@jimb I will always defer to @sdetweil 's greater knowledge and intelligence but another option is (I hope, anyway, since it’s what I’m using) to use the latitude and longitude of your location. I have the weather module set up to show my wife’s school using the coordinates. (We are known for our microclimates here – her school 2 miles away may have completely different weather from what we have at home.)

To get the coordinates, I went to maps.google.com, clicked on a location, then copied the resulting URL. It should look like this:

https://www.google.com/maps/@37.7761918,-122.4222641,16.25z?entry=ttu

The first number after the @ sign is the latitude; the second is the longitude. So you could put in your config file:

lat: 37.7761918,
lon: -122.4222641,

and it will show the weather for your location (or the San Francisco War Memorial Opera House in that example). This might be handy if you’re not near a city listed in the file.

@mezcalbomb If you have a Raspberry Pi, I highly recommend @sdetweil 's installation script. You can set up the pi, install everything and use PuTTY and your browser of choice to do all your testing from your main desktop. Then, when you’ve got it all the way you like it, set up your monitor and frame and all and it will run locally.

I have an RPi downstairs in the hall attached to an old monitor that will (eventually) get put in a frame and mounted in the kitchen. It’s running the MM as I have it set up thus far.

Meanwhile, in my office upstairs, I have another RPi that I am using to test modules – I use PuTTY to run MM and view the console log, WinSCP to transfer files and the same editor I use for work to edit files. Then I just have a browser tab pointed at the RPi’s IP address. (Actually, I have two such tabs, one for the dev machine and one for the one downstairs.)

So the fix appears to be* to add the following line of code to the MMM-BackgroundSlideshow.js file at line ~175:

    //Quick and dirty fix to redirect the notification
    this.socketNotificationReceived(notification,payload);

Seems to be working now.

* https://github.com/darickc/MMM-BackgroundSlideshow/pull/135/commits/48ae1cb12408a119ec9dd07927ce953f9eaa2bf0#diff-58dd4b5e083de0ddd663e45190feabf1cabee2f0e3f6ca048c0f64a731888ff8R175-R176

(Just adding this in case someone comes here to search for an answer first before going to Github.)

Never mind… it appears to be a bug in the module as discussed here: https://github.com/darickc/MMM-BackgroundSlideshow/issues/127