Subflows vNext - feedback wanted

[Nicholas O'Leary]

We knew when we added Subflows in v0.10 that there was more to be done with them. Since then, we've received invaluable feedback from the community as well as developed our own thoughts about them.

I've sketched out what we're going to do with them in the future, and want to get your feedback.

You'll find the design document here: https://github.com/node-red/node-red/wiki/Design:-subflows-vNext

I think this addresses most of the feedback we've had. If you think something is missing, or is unclear, please ask.

Nick

[Adrian Brown]

Quite comprehensive Nicholas.

The work you guys have done on node-red is brilliant :-)

Personally I thing node-red is maturing to the point that its almost out of the box usable in Enterprise Environments, Its main draw back at present (not a massive problem, as node-red is very extendible) is end point authentication and authorization. e,g SSL/TLS and Certificate support for MQTT, STOMP, etc essentially need an out of the box offering. I know the new MQTT client is going to address some of these issues.

Cheers

Adrian 

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Adrian Brown
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[Nathanaël Lécaudé]

That looks great ! I really like the idea of configuring properties by instance, will be very useful !

[Lawrence Griffiths]

Totally agree with Nathanaël's comments.

Nick NR just keeps getting better & better.

[Mike Blackstock]

This looks great.  We were wondering if it will it be possible to nest subflows, that is, use (for example) an instance subflow inside another instance subflow?

Mike

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Mike Blackstock
Chief Technical Officer
Sense Tecnic Systems, Inc.

308 East 5th Avenue, Vancouver, BC, V5T1H4
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[Nicholas O'Leary]

Hi Mike,

Yes you can nest them, as you can today with the existing subflow functionality.

The only constraint is that you cannot have an instance within itself... directly or indirectly.

Nick

[Mark Setrem]

Looks great, small point, if I look at the Documentation on
nodered.org it doesn't mention the existing subflow capability.

[Greg EVA]

This is really good stuff Nick.

Just a thought about the Loop subflow after having read your document.... it is often practical to loop through a hash (named object array?)  It would be cool if you could pass a JSON or JS or other type of structure to the loop and have it go through the key/value pairs in a FOR LOOP type manner.  This is perhaps what you're thinking of.

Cheers,

Greg

[mfeb]

Excellent work interpreting all of the comments you've received.

I like all that I've read and look forward to seeing vNext.

I don't fully understand the relationship between instance and the definition. I assume that it's a proper instance relationship, in that changes made to the definition are propagated to all instances (within a flow). If that includes selection of a configuration, then I'll be happy with that. And I also like having the ability to break off an instance. Does that leave the subflow intact in other uses?

I like the idea of propagating the indicators - that was an oft-requested capability.

i think I understand the comment on the config nodes. It will be interesting to see how a node that has nodes requiring a config make the trip across export/import.

Because you're doing so much, and because it looks both so promising and so ambitious, I'll stand down regarding my blue-sky wish: the ability to generate from an arbitrary (sub)flow a proper first-class node-RED node. That would be the next big thing for subflows, so that changes to properly reusable flows could propagate across uses, without having to export/import to all applications.

Thanks, all, for this proposal!

Mark

[Julian Knight]

Agree with the other comments, this looks really good. 

One minor point I think echo's some of Mark's comment. The documentation is rather "technical" shall we say. I know from personal experience this is hard to avoid but if NR is really to appeal to people with limited programming skills, the documentation will need to reflect that aim.

But the proposal looks good and I can't think of anything it misses.

Oh, except one minor point. The issue of reusability between different instances of NR has been raised before. Whilst the import/export feature is good, will there be a simple way of importing/exporting sub-flows? Maybe one that doesn't rely on the UI (copy/paste) so that subflow updates could be automatically propagated between systems?

[Greg EVA]

I would tend to agree that the documentation is quite technical.  I read it a couple times and must say that I was not able to grasp the concepts being explained.  I figured that I'll just play with it and figure it out.  That being said; for a less technical audience, being able to document and position appropriate use is paramount.

[Nicholas O'Leary]

To be clear, what I linked to here was the technical design of the feature - not at all intended as end user docs.

I recognise the need for better user guide type documentation in general.

Nick

On Tue, 4 Aug 2015 15:35 Greg EVA <ge...@ge-volution.eu> wrote:

I would tend to agree that the documentation is quite technical.  I read it a couple times and must say that I was not able to grasp the concepts being explained.  I figured that I'll just play with it and figure it out.  That being said; for a less technical audience, being able to document and position appropriate use is paramount.

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[Greg EVA]

Good point Nick.  Thanks for quite pertinent reminder!

[Marcio Braga]

Looking forward for the Loop-node.

By the way Node-RED is VERY GOOD.

Is there a date for these new capabilities ?

Currently I'm making this kind of loop with the construction below and that needs a node that basically do-nothing ( just return the msg )

[Nicholas O'Leary]

Hi Marcio,

no, there isn't a firm schedule for them at this point. They do sit in our 'next' column on trello - https://trello.com/b/R0O3CSrI/node-red-whiteboard - ie the release after the current release we're working on, 0.12, - but that is open to constant review as priorities and requirements change.

Nick