JSON data to replace holiday names with actual date (next instance)

[RVCTinker]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
I am using the JSON output of the scheduler to tell my home automation system when to turn on/off the devices that power my show. When I used a holiday name instead of a specific date, that name comes through in the JSON and so I have to convert it back to a real date.

Describe the solution you'd like
Either a duplicate of some of the API calls that returns schedule data to use the actual date of the next instance of the holiday instead of the holiday name, or an option on the HTTP GET that will cause that to happen.

Describe alternatives you've considered

• Converting it myself
• Never using the holiday names in my schedule

Additional context
Add any other context or screenshots about the feature request here.

[ghormann]

@RVCTinker Why not use MQTT if you are using home automation software? FPP publishes its current status when it starts/stops a playlist. Couldn't you just use that to trigger events in your home automation software based on if a sequence is running?

Note: Currently this isn't a high priority for the FPP developers.

[RVCTinker]

Because the home automation software is what turns on 2 out of 3 controllers, and 7 power supplies for the show. A script parses the FPP schedule to see what is scheduled, and if it is a playlist that requires the full or partial show display, it in turn schedules the appropriate equipment to turn on 5 minutes before the show starts. It then calculates when the show will end and schedules the off event for 5 minutes after the end of the show. So the home automation system is not reacting to the show, it is enabling the show.

From a coding perspective, there should have always been a date field to go with friendly names like 'Christmas' anyway - if you have JSON communications, how even would MQTT be able to parse and handle 'Thanksgiving' which moves from year to year?

[cpinkham]

The schedule api call (/api/fppd/schedule) returns the list of upcoming scheduled items and contains the actual date. It also contains the schedule itself which can be used to lookup the holiday name if you want. This is the API call that the schedule preview uses and it displays both the actual start date and the holiday name.

[RVCTinker]

Oh that is interesting! I might have disqualified that from seeing the holiday names or something else but at second glance, I think that could do the trick. The confusion though is that under schedule it says enabled=1, but then it lists entries that are not enabled. I did not read it correctly initially perhaps but now I realize that is referring to the scheduler, and not the entries that follow. The API output always has to be interpreted by a human because the object definition is not in the docs, and I did it wrong when I looked at it before.

Yes, go ahead and close this out unless you want to keep it as a future feature request - I can use the schedule output.

[cpinkham]

The first enabled is for the scheduler itself so the scheduler can be enabled but individual schedule entries can be disabled.