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aceinnolab / Inkycal

Create awesome e-paper dashboards within minutes! Modularity? Check! Python3? Check? Works on Raspberry Pi Zero W? Check! Support for own modules? Check!
https://aceinnolab.github.io/Inkycal/
GNU General Public License v3.0
1.16k stars 125 forks source link

General Discussion, Support and Improvement ideas for releases < v1.5 #1

Closed aceisace closed 5 years ago

aceisace commented 6 years ago

Here you have an option to chat about improvement ideas regarding the E-Paper Calendar.

As usual, nothing and nobody is perfect, but we can strive to get closer towards that. Please post your comments in a friendly way and remember to be nice. Thanks for your understanding.

All improvement ideas are welcome.

zAm1987 commented 5 years ago

Tested it again.

  1. Waited a day and tried again. Also checked all upcoming events for event-specific email reminders. There are none. Maybe only last month and before. It still does not work.

  2. Exported and imported into new calendar. Works fine, but I do not know why :D . If there are old events in the original calendar, which cause the error then they are there in the new one as well now...

aceisace commented 5 years ago

@zAm1987 I'm not exactly sure as to why the second method fixed the issue, but as long as it works, it's alright :) I'll add the fix in the F.A.Q page of the wiki when I find out more about the issue. Thanks for your help in testing.

aceisace commented 5 years ago

@surak @zAm1987 @StevenSeifried I've implemented the feature of displaying events from the current day (currently in beta). By making the month icon smaller, the free space created is used to display the event name and time. For multiple events, the Calendar shows '+ x events' where x is the number of more events on the same day. Could I have some feedback on this feature? Thanks in advance.

zAm1987 commented 5 years ago

I like it and would even display more than one event. My plan was - once I get the hang of python and your code - to display some events anyway.

While I think of it, maybe it is more useful to fetch the events from the next 24 hours (starting at the time of refresh) instead of today. Because when looking at the calendar at 23:00 for example, I am more interested in what ist coming next / after sleep instead of only the events that can happen in the last hour of the day only.

aceisace commented 5 years ago

@zAm1987 Thank you for your opinion. If you have any more improvement ideas, feel free to write them here as well.

I also think that displaying the events from the next 24 hours are more useful than the events from today. Since it's simpler to fetch events from a specific day (like today and tomorrow) compared to the next 24 hours, I'll use that option for now. I'll add another 'event' line with text for the next day's event, so it'll look like this on the E-Paper:

Today: Conference at 14:00   + 1 Event
Tomorrow: Electrician at 9:30   + 2 Events

Is this somewhat better?

zAm1987 commented 5 years ago

Sounds like a good compromise ;)

aceisace commented 5 years ago

@zAm1987 Thanks for your feedback. I've implemented the feature for the events from today and tomorrow. Once I test it thoroughly, I'll merge the changes in the public version. Preview of the new feature:

surak commented 5 years ago

I am very happy with the development of this software. I've been through some rush here, so I'm unable to help lately. I will come back to you, and hopefully I can help with threading the code.

aceisace commented 5 years ago

@surak Thank you for the compliment :). The development would not have been possible without the help from everyone, so thank you all as well. You don‘t need to worry about helping out. You can help whenever you have the time to do so.

smartroad commented 5 years ago

I am loving the idea of this! Are there any plans for having it more like an adgenda? Rather than just display the calendar, actually list the upcoming events? Would help me out for my work schedule lol

aceisace commented 5 years ago

@smartroad Hi, thanks for your interest in this project. I am testing a beta version of the software which displays events, when they start and how many events you have left today and tomorrow. This is a preview of the beta version: https://github.com/aceisace/E-Paper-Calendar-with-iCal-sync-and-live-weather/issues/1#issuecomment-453857058. So yes, it's work in progress and it will be implemented in the next release, but I can't exactly say when.

Ahbrown41 commented 5 years ago

Have you guys thought about using the Google calendar API as well? Excited to test the version that displays the events, I would personally prefer a smaller calendar and a view of events and tasks :-). Perhaps I can help but Python is not my first language..

aceisace commented 5 years ago

@Ahbrown41 Hi, thanks for your interest in this project and for providing a new feature suggestion :).

I have not (yet) given any thought about using Google calendar API. I'm not familiar with the Google Calendar API myself, but from a small search, it's basically something like a shared calendar which others can view (and edit). Are there any advantages of Google Calendar API compared to a 'normal' iCalendar?

For example, even without the API, my (i)phone can view and edit the shared calendar from someone else, by simply using an export link with set permissions. But sure, if you'd like to help with this feature, you're welcome to do so by forking and PRs.

Displaying text on the E-Paper Calendar is a bit tricky, especially for text, which doesn't have fixed length (for example tasks). The first problem is the space. Even if I do manage to squeeze the calendar template, there still isn't enough space to display events unless you're using very small font sizes (as shown here). But using smaller font sizes makes it difficult to read anything from a short distance.

The next version (which can display event names and times) is currently in testing. It'll still take a few more weeks to implement and test all of the planned features. When it is ready, I'll announce it here.

aceisace commented 5 years ago

@surak @zAm1987 @smartroad As the available free space on the E-Paper is reaching a critical stage, I'm trying to re-arrange the layout of the generated image. The main improvement is the space at the bottom, which can be used for a variety of purposes, especially text. With this, it should be possible to display a list of events or tasks. What are your opinions on this matter? Preview:

zAm1987 commented 5 years ago

I think more usable space is always a good thing on such a small display.

As i had always planned for myself to customize the layout in order to display more text items, I generally like the direction the new version ist heading to.

I am just a bit unsure whether another separator / title between the calendar-part and event-part or more space for the text-list is the better variant for the actual unused (?) whitespace between the two parts....

aceisace commented 5 years ago

@zAm1987 Thanks for your feedback. I'm glad to hear you like the new layout. Although it is possible to utilise the space between the calendar days and the event names, there is a problem associated with it. There are actually 6 rows (among them one which is currently empty) in a calendar. The 6th row is used by months which start late in the week (for example Sunday). That way, the last row will be filled with the last few days of the month (e.g. 29, 30, 31). It's possible to utilise the space of the 6th row when it's empty (some months) but it won't look consistent. For example, one month, you'll be able to see 7 events, on other months only 4.

zAm1987 commented 5 years ago

Okay, that sounds reasonable. A consistent look is worth a few lines of text :)

aceisace commented 5 years ago

Update

The E-Paper Calendar software has been updated from v1.4 to v1.5 just recently (Early February).

It contains some new features (metric/imperial, 12/24hour support, events being displayed as text) and new layout with slightly smaller icons. There have also been quite a few back-end changes, which can be found along with more details on this release in the Changelog.

P.S.: If you notice any bugs, please let me know by opening an issue. Thanks in advance.

aceisace commented 5 years ago

@surak @zAm1987 @smartroad Hi, the new release (v1.5) has been published just now. Could I ask you to test the new release? That would help confirm if everything is running stable. Many thanks.

P.S.: To update, simply (re-)run the Installer and choose 'installing/updating'. If you're 'settings.py' file does exist in the /Calendar directory, the installer will back it up in the home directory.

aceisace commented 5 years ago

Quick update: As the installer has (slightly) changed since the release of v1.5, not everything could be tested in detail. I spotted a bug with some indents while using 'EOF' in the installer.

In short, if you recently updated to v1.5, please re-run the installer. It contains a fix where the script would not autostart at boot.

surak commented 5 years ago

Do I have to "install" again or a git pull will suffice?

aceisace commented 5 years ago

You can just select the 'update' option when running the installer. It updates the libraries, rename your current 'E-Paper-Master' folder to 'E-Paper-Master-old' and cloning the latest version of the software. What's more, it (re-)sets up supervisor so almost all version related issues can be fixed that way.

The main problem is the software config file for supervisor, which handles the auto-start of the main script. With git pull, the problem will still remain.

surak commented 5 years ago

It didn't work. I guess it had to do with my settings file, so I just moved it out of the way and made a clean clone.

aceisace commented 5 years ago

I fixed the bug with line 84, must have been a typo. As with the first point, I could just now use the installer as intended. As with the forced pip install, it'll be fixed when I have time to elaborate the installer.

As with point4, please try the following:

I'll be testing the installer thoroughly tomorrow and will get back to this,

surak commented 5 years ago

This happens to my black and white display:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "E-Paper.py", line 282, in <module>
    main()
  File "E-Paper.py", line 57, in main
    calibration()
  File "/home/pi/E-Paper-Master/Calendar/calibration.py", line 27, in calibration   
    epd.display_frame(epd.get_frame_buffer(red))
UnboundLocalError: local variable 'red' referenced before assignment
aceisace commented 5 years ago

As this issue already is quite long and contains some outdated information, I'm going to open another issue specific for the current version (v-1.5) and close this one.

For all participants. thank you very much for all of your improvement ideas, bug reports and opinions.

aceisace commented 5 years ago

@surak I don't see this error on my side and I've tried using both versions in the settings.py file. As I can't re-create this error, I cannot help you with that specifically. My best guess would be to update again.

I've updated the Installer so that these points are fixed:

  • The installer file is not set as executable. I'm not sure if git respects permissions.
  • ./Installer-with-debug: line 84: fin: command not found
  • There's some forced pip install. I had all running, and there's no need to force install them again

Could you please try using the installer now? Thanks in advance

aceisace commented 5 years ago

@surak I've found the cause of the error: UnboundLocalError: local variable 'red' referenced before assignment There was slight error with the indented regions in the calibration file. It has been fixed now so you can try 'updating' to fix the error/s. A few more issues have also been fixed (related to iCalendar and sorting of events) so it's definetely worth updating.

surak commented 5 years ago

@surak I've found the cause of the error: UnboundLocalError: local variable 'red' referenced before assignment There was slight error with the indented regions in the calibration file. It has been fixed now so you can try 'updating' to fix the error/s. A few more issues have also been fixed (related to iCalendar and sorting of events) so it's definetely worth updating.

Cool! When the update failed, I came back to my fork (with the big clock), but I would like to keep it up on par with yours. Thank you.

aceisace commented 5 years ago

You're welcome :)