School Lunch LINQ Connect integration

[stevekenealy]

I'd like to see if an integration with LINQ Connect is on the radar? My kids school district used to partner with Nutrislice but no longer are so having another offering to show my kids lunch schedule on my board would be huge. LINQ doesn't allow the use of their HTTPS in order to display it as a webpage unfortunately so hoping that there are other options to explore.

[steve-schwarzrock]

Also would love to see integration with Linq Connect.

Example menu from a school in my daughters' district (not their school though)
https://linqconnect.com/public/menu/DCN3CB?buildingId=400120bf-c0be-ed11-82b1-880d996bcdd8

[steve-schwarzrock]

Looks like there's a Magic Mirror module that already does it via an API
https://github.com/evanhsu/MMM-TitanSchoolMealMenu

[stevekenealy]

I totally missed this reply. I'm not uber technical but my guess is that since this is for MagicMirror that it's not something that I can try and reuse with my DAKboard but would rather need the DAK "team" to implement this as a valid option within their configuration is that right?

[steve-schwarzrock]

Pretty much, but showing them how magic mirror does it via an API can give them a massive leg up in implementation, should Dakboard ever decide to implement.

[skyware]

Workaround

Using AWS Free Tier

• Create lambda to hit the API
• Create API Gateway to connect to lambda
• Add a 'site' block on dakboard which pulls from API Gateway URL

[steve-schwarzrock]

Sweet. Are you able to share the code that you did in Lambda and the API gateway flow? I'm not that familiar with that.

[skyware]

Initialize the directory for the Lambda function

To begin, create and initialize the directory for your Lambda function:

mkdir titan-schools-lambda
cd titan-schools-lambda
npm init -y
npm install axios

Code for index.js

This is the main code for your index.js file:

The MMM used Axios, so i went with that, there may be an easier way.

Copy code
const axios = require('axios');

exports.handler = async (event) => {
    const buildingId = '<your buildingID>';
    const districtId = '<your districtID>';
    
    const formatDate = (dateObject) => {
        return `${dateObject.getMonth() + 1}-${dateObject.getDate()}-${dateObject.getFullYear()}`;
    };
    
    const today = new Date();
    const startDate = formatDate(today);
    
    const params = {
        buildingId,
        districtId,
        startDate,
    };

    try {
        const response = await axios.get('https://api.linqconnect.com/api/FamilyMenu', { params });
        const menus = extractMenusByDate(response.data);
        const htmlResponse = generateHTMLResponse(menus);

        return {
            statusCode: 200,
            headers: { 'Content-Type': 'text/html' },
            body: htmlResponse,
        };
    } catch (error) {
        console.error(error);
        return {
            statusCode: 500,
            body: 'Error fetching the menu data',
        };
    }
};

const extractMenusByDate = (apiResponse) => {
    if (!apiResponse.FamilyMenuSessions) {
        return '<p>No menu data available.</p>';
    }

    const menus = apiResponse.FamilyMenuSessions
        .filter(session => session.ServingSession === "Lunch")  // Filter for Lunch
        .map(session => {
            return session.MenuPlans[0].Days.map(day => {
                const date = day.Date;
                const dayOfWeek = new Date(date).toLocaleString('en-US', { weekday: 'long' });

                // Filter for meals with CategoryName "Main Event"
                const meals = day.MenuMeals.map(meal => {
                    return meal.RecipeCategories
                        .filter(category => category.CategoryName === "Main Event")  // Filter for "Main Event"
                        .map(category => {
                            return category.Recipes.map(recipe => `- ${recipe.RecipeName}`).join('<br>');
                        }).join('<br>');
                }).join('<br>');

                return `<h3>${date} (${dayOfWeek})</h3><p>${meals}</p>`;
            }).join('');
        }).join('');

    return menus;
};

const generateHTMLResponse = (menus) => {
    return `
  <!DOCTYPE html>
        <html>
        <head>
            <title>TitanSchools Menu</title>
            <style>
                body {
                    font-size: 18px;
                    color: white;
                }
                h3 {
                    font-size: 24px;
                    color: white;
                }
                p {
                    font-size: 18px;
                    color: white;
                }
                ul {
                    font-size: 18px;
                    color: white;
                }
            </style>
            <title>TitanSchools Menu</title>
        </head>
        <body>
            <h1>Today's Menu</h1>
            ${menus}
        </body>
        </html>
    `;
};

On windows, it didnt seem to like when i compressed the folder, so i had to do this in powershell then upload that as the lambda:

Compress-Archive -Path .\* -DestinationPath titan-schools-lambda.zip

API Gateway

https://console.aws.amazon.com/apigateway/
Walk through the steps for http and it lets you attach to a lambda.
you may need to enable CORS

[steve-schwarzrock]

Thank you! Got the work around working!

[mlee3580]

Are you able to explain how to do this to someone very new to coding? I went to sign up for AWS free service but it still wanted me to input my cc info.

[skyware]

Which part would you like more explanation on?

AWS does require a credit card to create an account, even for the free tier.

You can’t fully block AWS from using paid services, but you can set a billing alert to notify you immediately if any cost appears.
Also, never expose your API keys or credentials, as that’s the fastest way to get unexpected charges. Make sure you enable 2FA on the account as well.