MMM-GoogleDocs-Notes

This a module for MagicMirror
https://magicmirror.builders/
https://github.com/MichMich/MagicMirror

This module displays a Google Doc as note from your Google account.

Installation

1. Navigate to your MagicMirror modules directory and execute
   git clone https://github.com/No3x/MMM-GoogleDocs-Notes.git

2. Enter the new MMM-GoogleDocs-Notes directory and execute npm install.

3. Obtain token (see Authentication & Authorization)

4. Add the module to your config (see Sample Configuration).

Google Keep

Unfortunately Google does not provide an API for Keep to query the content for a note from there. Therefore, we use a Google Doc that can be edited by multiple users.

Changes

3.0.0

Before version 3 the module used the OAuth 2.0 out-of-band (OOB) authentication flow. It was basically the manual copy/paste option, as a legacy flow developed to support native clients which do not have a redirect URI to accept the credentials after a user approves an OAuth consent request. This authentication mechanism used before was deprecated by Google.

With version 3 the authentication changed to OAuth 2.0 for TV and Limited-Input Device Applications. The scope https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive.file is used which means the module can access files created by the module only and has no access to the rest of your drive.

sequenceDiagram
    autonumber
    actor You
    participant Any Device as Any Device (PC/Tablet/Phone)
    participant Module as MM Module
    participant Google
    Module->>+Google: Request Authorization
    Google-->>-Module: URL & 🔑
    Module->>+Module: Display URL & 🔑
    You->>+Any Device: Open URL & enter 🔑
    Any Device->>+Google: Send URL & 🔑
    Google-->>-Any Device: Done
    Any Device-->>-You: Done
    Module->>+Google: Check if authorized
    Google-->>-Module: Access Token 🔐
    Module->>+Google: Use Google Drive API 🔐

Loading

1. MM Module sends a request to Google's authorization server and asks for scope drive.file.
2. The Google server responds with several pieces of information used in subsequent steps, such as a device code and a user code.
3. The prompt will show you the information that you can enter on a separate device to authorize the module to access your Google Drive.
4. You switch to a device with richer input capabilities, launch a web browser, navigate to the URL displayed in step 3 and enter a code that is also displayed in step 3. You can then grant (or deny) access to your Google Drive.
5. Transfer
6. Done
7. Done
8. MM Module checks Google's authorization server to determine whether your have authorized the module.
9. If granted the next response contains the tokens the module needs to authorize requests on your behalf.
10. The token is used for Google Drive API access

This changes imply

1. Previously it was possible to scan your Google Docs by searching for the notesPrefix. Now it is possible to access files created by the module only. Therefore, the module will create a new Google Doc if not present (by using notesPrefix). This implies there is support for only one note at a time currently.

Authentication & Authorization

It is very important that you follow these steps. Before this module will work, you need to grant authorization for this module to access your Google Drive account.

The process is described in the INSTALL.md file.

1. Go to https://console.developers.google.com/flows/enableapi?apiid=drive&pli=1 and create a new project. If you use an existing one, it might conflict with your existing project.
2. Once you've created your project, click Continue, then Go to credentials.
3. On the Add credentials to your project page, click the Cancel button.
4. At the top of the page, select the OAuth consent screen tab.
5. Enter the Product name e.g. Magic Mirror Notes.
6. Select your GMail address. This is just the account with which you are associating your developer account.
7. Click the Save button.
8. Select the Credentials tab, click the Create credentials button and select OAuth client ID.
9. Select the application type TV and limited Input Devices
10. Enter a name e.g. Magic Mirror Notes.
11. Click the Create button.
12. Click OK to dismiss the resulting dialog.
13. Click the file download icon button to the right of the client ID.
14. Rename this file client_secret.json and copy it to your MMM-GoogleDocs-Notes directory.
15. In the MMM-GoogleDocs-Notes directory execute
    1. node authorize.mjs
    2. or if you run MM on a raspberry pi sudo -u pi -- node authorize.mjs (Change pi to the user that runs the Magic Mirror application).
16. Follow the instructions to authorize the Google account for which you want to display notes on your mirror.
    1. You will see a URL and a code
    2. Open the URL on a PC, Tablet, Phone or any device and enter the code
    3. Login to you google account
    4. Grant access to your Google Drive

If everything went well, you should see MMM-GoogleDocs-Notes is authorized in your console.

Note: This application uses the following scopes:

https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive.file

Configuration

Option	Description
maxNotes	The maximum number of your most recent documents to display Type Number Defaults to 2
pollFrequency	How frequently to poll Drive for documents. Type Number Defaults to 300000 (5 minutes)
showDatePosted	Whether to show the date when the note was created Type Boolean Defaults to true (5 minutes)
dateFormatExact	the date format to use for the exact posted date (not today and not yesterday). Uses Moment.js supported date formats (https://momentjs.com/docs/#/displaying/) Type String Defaults to YYYY-MM-DD HH:mm
dateFormatShort	the short date format to use for the posted date (today and yesterday). Uses Moment.js supported date formats (https://momentjs.com/docs/#/displaying/) Type String Defaults to HH:mm
notesPrefix	the prefix of your documents titles you store your note in. Type String Defaults to MMM

Sample Config

The current procedure: it queries for all documents, filters by titles that start with notesPrefix, orders by the last edited document and displays at most maxNotes number of noes.

{
  module: 'MMM-GoogleDocs-Notes',
  header: "Notes",
  position: 'top_right',
  classes: 'default everyone',
  config: {
    maxNotes: 2,
    pollFrequency: 5 * 60 * 1000, //5 minutes;
    showDatePosted: true,
    dateFormatExact: 'YYYY-MM-DD HH:mm',
    dateFormatShort: 'HH:mm',
    notesPrefix: 'MMM'
  }
},

Troubleshooting

OAuth

Since the OAuth-Authorization-Token is stored in the users home directory make sure to execute node authorize.mjs as the same user that runs the MagicMirror instance (user pi in my case). To ensure it execute the command explicitly as user pi: sudo -u pi -- node authorize.mjs

Outputs

While setup watch the logs: tail -f /home/pi/.pm2/logs/mm-out.log. Log messages are prefixed with [MMM-GoogleDocs-Notes]. Watch out for scope errors and urls to open your browser in case the scope is not sufficient (like The drive API returned an error: Error: Insufficient Permission: Request had insufficient authentication scopes.).

Tips

1. Change the background color of your Google Doc to match your MagicMirror background. This way you can design your contents to look good on the mirror. File > Page setup > Page color
2. Widths and heights of elements are removed for all elements to support responsive images (e.g. see the table column widths)
3. Use all Google Docs features like embedding charts from a Google Sheet. The embedded chart has a recolor image effect Negative that is unfortunately not properly exported. But you can change the colors of the diagram in the source document - with this the export works fine.

Credits

This module uses the scaffolding of https://github.com/jclarke0000/MMM-MyNotes.git which served as starting point. Most functionality was taken from it but the interaction with the Drive API was added and some modifications were made.