Since aceisace/Inkycal has grown significantly and is far superior in many ways, I will no longer focus on mainting my own fork. The ical implementation might also not be super reliable in this project.
This is a software written in python3 that allows you to transform an E-Paper display (like the kindle) into an information display. It fetches live data from Openweathermap (a weather info provider), rss-feeds and your Online Calendar (Google/Yahoo Calendar/...) and displays them on a large, beautiful and ultra-low power E-Paper display. It's ideal for staying organised and keeping track of important details without having to check them up online. It can also be used as an image frame.
This software fully supports the 3-Colour and 2-Colour version of the 7.5" E-Paper display from waveshare/gooddisplay and works with Raspberry Pi 2, 3 and 0 (Zero, Zero W, Zero WH).
To get started, follow the instructions below.
- Version 1.7 released with two new designs, offline support and improved support for events (Mid April 2019)
- Specified README for this fork, added new design and many options (Mid March 2019)
- Version 1.5 released with a new layout, displayed events and many back-end improvements (Early February 2019)
- Added Support for the 2-Colour E-Paper Display as well! (Late September 2018)
- Added Support for Raspbian Stretch lite. (Late September 2018)
1.: Day-List Panel
2.: Month-Overview Panel
3.: Agenda-List Panel
4.: Day-View Panel
5.: Day-Focus-List Panel
6.: Image-Frame Panel
- Display a calendar with one of multiple designes
- Optionally get RSS-Feed fetched and shown
- Syncronise events from any online calendar (like google, yahoo, etc.)
- Get live weather data (including temperature, humidity, etc.) using openweathermap api
- Only show a slideshow of images
- 7.5" 3-Colour E-Paper Display (Black, White, Red/Yellow) with driver hat from waveshare or
- 7.5" 2-Colour E-Paper Display (Black, White) with driver hat from waveshare
- Raspberry Pi Zero WH (with headers) (no soldering iron required)
- Or: Raspberry Pi Zero W. In this case, you'll need to solder 2x20 pin GPIO headers yourself
- MicroSD card (min. 4GB)
- MicroUSB cable (for power)
- Something to be used as a case (e.g. a (RIBBA) picture frame or a 3D-printed case)
- After flashing Raspbian Stretch (Lite or Desktop), set up Wifi on the Raspberry Pi Zero W by copying the file wpa_supplicant.conf (from above) to the /boot directory and adding your Wifi details in that file.
- Create a simple text document named ssh in the boot directory to enable ssh.
- Expand the filesystem in the Terminal with
sudo raspi-config --expand-rootfs - Enable SPI by entering
sudo sed -i s/#dtparam=spi=on/dtparam=spi=on/ /boot/config.txtin the Terminal - Set the correct timezone with
sudo dpkg-reconfigure tzdata, selecting the correct continent and then the capital of your country. - Reboot to apply changes
- Optional: If you want to disable the on-board leds of the Raspberry, follow these instructions: Disable on-board-led
Execute the following command in the Terminal to install all required packages. This will work on both, Raspbian Stretch with Desktop and Raspbian Stretch lite.
bash -c "$(curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mgfcf/E-Paper-Calendar/master/Installer-with-debug.sh)"
If the Installer should fail for any reason, kindly open an issue and paste the error. Thanks.
This is how the installer will run:
Once the packages are installed, navigate to the home directory, open 'E-Paper-Master' and open the file 'settings.py' inside the Calendar folder. Adjust the values as needed. You can use the table below as a reference.
| Parameter | Description |
|---|---|
| ical_urls | Your iCalendar URL/s. To add more than one URL, seperate each with a comma. |
| highlighted_ical_urls | Your iCalendar URL/s that should be higlighted in comparison to the ical_urls. To add more than one URL, seperate each with a comma. |
| rss_feeds | All the sources for your rss-feed. To add more than one URL, seperate each with a comma. |
| api_key | Your personal openweathermap API-key which you can generate and find in your Account info. |
| owm_paid_subscription | If you have a paid owm subscription you can set it to True and in some panels receive forecast information. |
| location | Location refers to the closest weather station from your place. It isn't necessarily the place you live in. To find this location, type your city name in the search box on openweathermap. The output should be in the following format: City Name, Country ISO-Code. Not sure what your ISO code is? Check here: (find iso-code). |
| week_starts_on | When does the work start in your region? Possible options are "Monday" or "Sunday". |
| display_colours | This should normally be set by the installer when you choose the type of your display. Options include "bw" if you're using the black and white E-Paper or "bwr" when you're using the black-white-red or black-white-yellow E-Paper. |
| language | Sets the language and the related locale for datetime-information. Some texts depend on additional translations that can be added to the dictionary-file. |
| datetime_encoding | Sets the encoding that will be used in the datetime-texts (month, weekday, ...). Default is "UTF-8". Not to confuse with the full locale, this is only the encoding. |
| units | Selecting units allows switching units from km/h (kilometer per hour) and °C (degree Celcius) to mph (miles per hour) and °F (degree Fahrenheit). Possible options are "metric", "imperial" or "aviation" (Celsius, Degree/Knots). |
| hours | Which time format do you prefer? This will change the sunrise and sunset times from 24-hours format to 12-hours format. Possible options are "24" for 24-hours and "12" for 12-hours. |
| update_interval | The update delay between two updates in minutes. By default there is always an update on a full hour. |
| max_loop_count | From 0 to 86400 representing the maximum number of times the loop is going to be executed, with 0 being unlimited. |
| run_on_hour | If True, updates calendar every full hour, ignoring differing update_interval. |
| Parameter | Description |
|---|---|
| font_size | Varies the size of the font. Can be any number >0. In some cases the size of the font is fixed by the design. Default value is 14. |
| font_boldness | Varies the boldness of the font. Can be one of extralight, light, regular, semibold, bold or extrabold. In some cases the boldness of the font is fixed by the design. Default value is regular. |
| choosen_design | Sets the desired panel design. |
| line_thickness | Varies the boldness of separation lines in the chosen design. |
| general_settings | A dictionary containing options that some designs use to optimize there design. Possible options are as follows: |
"info-area" |
Defines the content type of an additionaly info area on the design. Can be one of "rss", "events" or empty, to remove this area or keep it clean. |
"highlight-event-days" |
If set to True, days with events are highlighted in contrast to days without events. |
"weather-info" |
If set to False, weather info areas disappear and make room for events/rss/etc. (depends on the design). |
"image-folder" |
Set a relative or absolute path to a folder containing images that you want to see fullscreen with the "image-frame" design activated. |
"overlay-image" |
Set a relative or absolute path to an image with the same size as the screen (default: 384x640px) to show some static information over every image shown in the "image-frame" design. If the overlay image is contained within the "image-folder", it will not be included into the slideshow. |
"extra-excluded-urls" |
A list of calendar urls that may be excluded in some panels in certain areas. |
| Parameter | Description |
|---|---|
| render_to_display | Set to True it adds the e-paper display to the outputs. |
| render_to_file | Set to True it adds a image-file export to the outputs. The exported image can be found in "/Calendar/design_exported.png". |
| calibrate_hours | A list containing all the hours in which the outputs get calibrated. That should prevent ghosting on e-paper displays. Takes a little while to execute. |
| print_technical_data | Set to True it writes start and stop time of the current update cyle and the duration on top of the panel. |
If you want to update to the latest version, run the Installer from above again and select the 'update' option.
Before updating, the Installer checks if the settings file (/home/pi/E-Paper-Master/Calendar/settings.py) exists. This is done to test if a previous version was installed correctly. If the settings file exists, it is copied to the home directory and renamed as 'settings.py.old'. The old software folder 'E-Paper-Master' is renamed to 'E-Paper-Master-old'. Lastly, the latest version of the software is copied to the Raspberry as 'E-Paper-Master'.
After updating, copy the contents from your old settings file to the new one. There are usally more options in the new settings.py file so a 'template' is prepared with each update. This template can be found in /home/pi/E-Paper-Master/Calendar/settings.py.sample.