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Module: mmm-dropbox

The mmm-dropbox module is a MagicMirror addon.

This module takes images from a Dropbox folder, scales & formats them nicely, and then displays them in organized rows on your Magic Mirror.

This module has a very specific target audience - my wife. She wanted an easy way for her & our daughter to upload photos of our cat to Dropbox and then see them on her mirror. So ... if you're looking for a module with endless configurations, tons of design options and the ability to handle videos, well, this isn't it. Sorry.

What this module does allow you to do, however, is to:

  • pick a Dropbox folder to load images (.jpg, .jpeg, .gif and .png) from
  • control how many rows of images you'd like to see
  • control the base number of images you'd like to see per row
  • select whether the images are randomly sorted or displayed newest first
  • gaze in amazement at endless cat photos nicely lined up next to each other

image An example of this module using the default configuration.

Installing the module

  1. Run git clone https://github.com/michael5r/mmm-dropbox.git from inside your MagicMirror/modules folder.
  2. Run cd mmm-dropbox in the same terminal window, then npm install to install the required Node modules.

Getting the Dropbox Access Token

In order for you to access your Dropbox folder through your mirror, you need a Dropbox developer account and to set up a simple Dropbox app.

  • go to the site above and either login with your existing Dropbox user or create a new one
  • click the Create App button
  • choose the Dropbox API
  • choose the type of access you want (either will work)
  • name your app
  • click Create App

On the next page, look for the area where it says Generated access token and click Generate underneath it. Copy that token and add it to the configuration settings of this module.

Using the module

To use this module, simply add it to the modules array in the MagicMirror config/config.js file:

{
    module: 'mmm-dropbox',
    position: 'bottom_bar', // pick whichever position you want
    config: {
        token: '<DROPBOX_ACCESS_TOKEN>',
        folder: '<DROPBOX_FOLDER_NAME>',
        // ... and whatever else configuration options you want to use
    }
},

General Configuration Options

Option Type Default Description
token string - This value is required for this module to work.
folder string Which Dropbox folder to pull images from. Read more
imagesPerRow int 4 Base number of images per row. Read more
imagesMargin int 10 How much blank space you want around the images in pixels.
numberOfRows int 2 How many rows of images you wish to display.
rowType string wife One of: 'wife', 'newest', 'random'. Read more
dataUpdateInterval int 2.16e+7 How often to load new data from Dropbox, default is every 6 hours.
updateInterval int 300000 How often to refresh your photos on the mirror, default is every 5 minutes.
initialLoadDelay int 0 How long to delay the initial load (in ms)

Folder

If you set the folder option blank, your images will be pulled from the root of your Dropbox account. If you'd rather have a specific folder to pull images from, create a new Dropbox folder and add the name to the folder setting.

Images Per Row

Seeing that photos come in all shapes & sizes, the imagesPerRow setting doesn't guarantee that you'll get exactly that number of images shown per row (because it would be impossible to line things up nicely that way).

You should think of this setting as your baseline - meaning that if you set it to 4, you could potentially get 3, 4, or 5 images per row, depending on whether they're landscape or portrait photos, but, if possible, you will get 4.

Row Types

The rowType option is by default set to wife - which means that your first row of photos will be the newest photos you've uploaded and any other rows will be random images pulled from your total pool of photos. It is named this way because, well, that's what my wife wanted. Your other options are newest (all images are shown in chronological order) or random (all images are shown in random order).

FAQ

Why is the dataUpdateInterval set to 6 hours? That seems long ...

This module grabs up to 200 images from Dropbox every time it does a data pull, so it didn't seem necessary to get data that often. Feel free to change it if you have an urgent desire to get new images non-stop.

Don't confuse this setting with updateInterval, though - the updateInterval setting (which, by default, is set to 5 minutes) selects how often you want your mirror to show new images.

Even with the rowType set to newest, I'm still seeing old photos.

If possible, this module will try to read the metadata of your photo to determine when it was actually taken. However, whether your photo has this metadata or not depends entirely on the camera or phone you used to take the photo with (and the security settings of said device). As such, if the metadata cannot be found, the module will default to using the date & time the image was uploaded to Dropbox instead.