Hackadoodle

For the GeekMagic Ultra - a Windows desktop app that pulls structured data from sources, maps it into visual templates, renders 240×240 images, and uploads them to a GeekMagic Ultra device.

Core pipeline Data Source → Normalized Data → Template Mapping → Renderer → PNG → Device Upload

Everything in the app exists to support one of those stages.

Tech Stack

1. Python 3.x
2. PySide6 (Qt Widgets UI)
3. Pillow (image rendering)
4. requests (HTTP)
5. icalendar (ICS parsing)
6. feedparser (RSS later)
7. PyInstaller (EXE build)

Project Structure

geekmagic_app/
  gui/
  sources/
  templates/
  renderer/
  device/
  models/
  main.py

Data model

{
  "title": str,
  "subtitle": str,
  "value": str|float,
  "date": datetime|str,
  "image": str|None,
  "location": str|None,
  "meta": dict
}

Data source system

Each source # plugin class.

Interface:

class DataSource:
    def fetch(self): ...
    def parse(self, raw): ...
    def get_items(self) -> list[dict]

Initial sources:

• JSON URL
• ICS calendar URL/file

Future:

• RSS
• IMAP email?
• REST auth APIs
• Scraper

Template system

Templates are JSON files describing layout zones.

Example:

{
  "name": "calendar_basic",
  "background": "#000000",
  "zones": [
    {"field": "title", "x": 10, "y": 10, "font": "bold18", "color": "#ffffff"},
    {"field": "date", "x": 10, "y": 40, "font": "regular14"}
  ]
}

Template Rules:

absolute positioning (240×240) zones bind to fields renderer interprets templates are user-editable files

Renderer

Input:

• template
• data item

Output:

• 240×240 PNG

Responsibilities:

• draw background
• draw text
• draw images (scaled)
• clipping
• truncation
• formatting filters

Filters v1:

• date_short
• currency
• upper
• lower
• truncate(n)

Device module

Responsibilities:

• auto-find device on network?
• upload image
• clear images
• list images (optional)
• connection test

Config:

• device_ip
• slot
• timeout

GUI structure (Qt)

Main window sections:

• Left: Sources
• Center: Template preview
• Right: Field mapping / data view
• Bottom: Device + actions

Coding order (important)

• renderer
• template loader
• JSON source
• preview CLI test
• device upload
• Qt UI shell
• source UI
• mapping UI