Software Installation

When the Pi is all ready to go, just to make sure you have all the latest updates, open a terminal window and execute the following commands:

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

The first command updates the local software repositories and the second command updates the Pi's Raspbian OS and associated files.

Next, install the Google Calendar API Python files along with some date handling libraries using the following command:

pip install --upgrade google-api-python-client google-auth-httplib2 google-auth-oauthlib python-dateutil pytz

Install the Unicorn HAT libraries following the instructions on the Pimoroni web site. This essentially means opening a terminal window (you should already have one open) and executing the following command:

curl https://get.pimoroni.com/unicornhathd | bash

Note: You'll see a warning about some libraries not installed on the system's path, as far as I can tell, you can ignore them - they don't seem to have an impact on project operation.

The pi-remind-hd version of this project used one of the open source fonts included on the Pi to display text, but in the latest iteration of Raspbian this didn't work correctly for me. When the text scrolled across the Unicorn HAT, it didn't look right (the e's were filled in), so I decided to look for another approach. I fixed this by using one the free Google Fonts. In the terminal window, execute the following command:

sudo apt install fonts-roboto

This installs the open source Roboto font from Google Fonts.

You must perform the next step in the Pi user's home folder. In the terminal window, execute the following command:

pwd

The terminal should return /home/pi, if it doesn't, in the terminal window execute the following command:

cd ~

then try the pwd command again. You should be in the pi home folder. If that doesn't work, close the terminal window, then reopen it - it should default to the user (pi) home folder.

Next, lets download the project's code; in the terminal window pointing to the pip user's home folder, execute the following commands:

git clone https://github.com/johnwargo/pi-remind-hd-notify
cd pi-remind-hd-notify
ls

If all goes well, you should see the following files in the folder:

• changelog.md
• config.rename
• google_calendar.py
• LICENSE
• particle.py
• readme.md
• remind.py
• start-remind.sh
• status.py
• uniciorn_hat.py

If you see those files, then you have everything you need to run the application. Next you must configure the project.