News Feed

The newsfeed module is one of the default modules of the MagicMirror. This module displays news headlines based on an RSS feed. Scrolling through news headlines happens time-based (updateInterval), but can also be controlled by sending news feed specific notifications to the module.

Screenshot

NYT News Feed Screenshot

Using the module

Configuration

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

modules: [
  {
    module: "newsfeed",
    position: "bottom_bar", // This can be any of the regions. Best results in center regions.
    config: {
      // The config property is optional.
      // If no config is set, an example calendar is shown.
      // See 'Configuration options' for more information.

      feeds: [
        {
          title: "New York Times",
          url: "https://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/HomePage.xml",
        },
        {
          title: "BBC",
          url: "https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/video_and_audio/news_front_page/rss.xml?edition=uk",
        },
      ],
    },
  },
];

Notifications

Interacting with the module

MagicMirror's notification mechanism allows to send notifications to the newsfeed module. The following notifications are supported:

Notification Identifier	Description
`ARTICLE_NEXT`	Shows the next news title (hiding the summary or previously fully displayed article)
`ARTICLE_PREVIOUS`	Shows the previous news title (hiding the summary or previously fully displayed article)
`ARTICLE_MORE_DETAILS`	When received the first time, shows the corresponding description of the currently displayed news title. The module expects that the module's configuration option `showDescription` is set to `false` (default value). When received a second consecutive time, shows the full news article in an IFRAME. This requires that the news page can be embedded in an IFRAME, e.g. doesn't have the HTTP response header X-Frame-Options set to e.g. `DENY`. When received the next consecutive times, reloads the page and scrolls down by `scrollLength` pixels to paginate through the article.
`ARTICLE_LESS_DETAILS`	Hides the summary or full news article and only displays the news title of the currently viewed news item.
`ARTICLE_TOGGLE_FULL`	Toggles article in fullscreen.
`ARTICLE_INFO_REQUEST`	Causes `newsfeed` to respond with the notification `ARTICLE_INFO_RESPONSE`, the payload of which provides the `title`, `source`, `date`, `desc` and `url` of the current news title.

Notifications sent by the module

MagicMirror's notification mechanism can also be used to send notifications from the current module to all other modules. The following notifications are broadcasted from this module:

Notification Identifier	Description
`NEWS_FEED`	Broadcast the current list of news items.
`NEWS_FEED_UPDATE`	Broadcasts the list of updates news items.

Note the payload of the sent notification event is ignored.

Example

The following example shows how the next news article title can be displayed on the MagicMirror.

this.sendNotification("ARTICLE_NEXT");

`newsfeed` specific notification emitting modules

The third party MMM-Gestures module supports above notifications when moving your hand up, down, left or right in front of a gesture sensor attached to the MagicMirror. See module's readme for more details.

Configuration options

The following properties can be configured:

Option	Description
`feeds`	An array of feed urls that will be used as source. More info about this object can be found below. Default value: `[{ title: "New York Times", url: "https://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/HomePage.xml", encoding: "UTF-8" }]` You can add `reloadInterval` option to set particular reloadInterval to a feed.
`showAsList`	Display the news as a list. Possible values: `true` or `false` Default value: `false`
`showSourceTitle`	Display the title of the source. Possible values: `true` or `false` Default value: `true`
`showPublishDate`	Display the publish date of an headline. Possible values: `true` or `false` Default value: `true`
`broadcastNewsFeeds`	Gives the ability to broadcast news feeds to all modules, by using `sendNotification()` when set to `true`, rather than `sendSocketNotification()` when `false` Possible values: `true` or `false` Default value: `true`
`broadcastNewsUpdates`	Gives the ability to broadcast news feed updates to all modules Possible values: `true` or `false` Default value: `true`
`showDescription`	Display the description of an item. Possible values: `true` or `false` Default value: `false`
`showTitleAsUrl`	If set, the displayed title is a link to the article which is useful when running in a browser and you want to read this article. Possible values: `true` or `false` Default value: `false`
`wrapTitle`	Wrap the title of the item to multiple lines. Possible values: `true` or `false` Default value: `true`
`wrapDescription`	Wrap the description of the item to multiple lines. Possible values: `true` or `false` Default value: `true`
`truncDescription`	Truncate description? Possible values: `true` or `false` Default value: `true`
`lengthDescription`	How many characters to be displayed for a truncated description? Possible values: `1` - `500` Default value: `400`
`hideLoading`	Hide module instead of showing LOADING status. Possible values: `true` or `false` Default value: `false`
`reloadInterval`	How often does the content needs to be fetched? (Milliseconds) Possible values: `1000` - `86400000` Default value: `300000` (5 minutes)
`updateInterval`	How often do you want to display a new headline? (Milliseconds) Possible values:`1000` - `60000` Default value: `10000` (10 seconds)
`animationSpeed`	Speed of the update animation. (Milliseconds) Possible values:`0` - `5000` Default value: `2500` (2.5 seconds)
`maxNewsItems`	Total amount of news items to cycle through. (0 for unlimited) Possible values:`0` - `...` Default value: `0`
`ignoreOldItems`	Ignore news items that are outdated. Possible values:`true` or `false` Default value: `false`
`ignoreOlderThan`	How old should news items be before they are considered outdated? (Milliseconds) Possible values:`1` - `...` Default value: `86400000` (1 day)
`removeStartTags`	Some news feeds feature tags at the beginning of their titles or descriptions, such as [VIDEO]. This setting allows for the removal of specified tags from the beginning of an item's description and/or title. Possible values:`'title'`, `'description'`, `'both'`
`startTags`	List the tags you would like to have removed at the beginning of the feed item Possible values: `['TAG']` or `['TAG1','TAG2',...]`
`removeEndTags`	Remove specified tags from the end of an item's description and/or title. Possible values:`'title'`, `'description'`, `'both'`
`endTags`	List the tags you would like to have removed at the end of the feed item Possible values: `['TAG']` or `['TAG1','TAG2',...]`
`prohibitedWords`	Remove news feed item if one of these words is found anywhere in the title (case insensitive and greedy matching) Possible values: `['word']` or `['word1','word2',...]`
`scrollLength`	Scrolls the full news article page by a given number of pixels when a `ARTICLE_MORE_DETAILS` notification is received and the full news article is already displayed. Possible values: `1` or `10000` Default value: `500`
`logFeedWarnings`	Log warnings when there is an error parsing a news article. Possible values: `true` or `false` Default value: `false`

The feeds property contains an array with multiple objects. These objects have the following properties:

Option	Description
`title`	The name of the feed source to be displayed above the news items. This property is optional.
`url`	The url of the feed used for the headlines. Example: `'https://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/HomePage.xml'`
`encoding`	The encoding of the news feed. This property is optional. Possible values: `'UTF-8'`, `'ISO-8859-1'`, etc ... Default value: `'UTF-8'`
`useCorsProxy`	Uses the internal cors proxy to avoid cors errors. This property is optional. Possible values: `true` or `false` Default value: `true`
`ignoreOldItems`	Overrides the property defined for the module (see above) for the specific feed
`ignoreOlderThan`	Overrides the property defined for the module (see above) for the specific feed