improving the flow library

[Mike Blackstock]

The number of nodes out there is growing (1198 last count on the site I think), which of course is positive, but we've found it increasingly hard to find the best quality, maintained nodes for use in our FRED platform and customer Node-RED solutions.

Some of the npm download numbers are small for some nodes in a given category, so it's hard to tell which is being used the most.  There is a lot of overlap of functionality between some nodes.  Some will fork a node, make a change, publish the node and then fail to maintain it.  Not to pick on any specific work, but try searching for nodes with 'aws' or 'opc' on the flows site.  It's hard to figure out which 'contrib' node I should try out sometimes.  Some nodes don't have a repository where you can report issues, and some have more restrictive open source licenses.

While the flow and node library site that Nick built is awesome (flows.nodered.org) for finding nodes, it's still hard to find the nodes that the community is behind.  To improve it, ideas kicked around include adding ratings, voting, more stats and other info (comments?) to indicate the quality and support for the node.  The Node-RED palette manager might be able to then use this info to filter out nodes with low ratings, etc..

We've discussed the idea of helping out with the flows site, but not sure we can take it on ourselves.  Is there anyone with the necessary skills out there interested in contributing?

Mike

[Julian Knight]

Don't think I have the skills necessarily and sadly certainly not the spare time - however, as always, I'm happy to help with testing and documentation as I can.

[Michael Hogan]

We might be interested, depending on the nature of the task.

[Mike Blackstock]

Thanks Michael, Julian.  I think a starting point would be to open up discussion around tasks and priorities.

I'll open up a slack channel around this.

[Nick O'Leary]

Also keep in mind there is an issue list specifically for the flow library: https://github.com/node-red/flow-library/issues

Nick

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[steve rickus]

Hi guys, I'm also interested in helping out with this task, especially the interactive (d3?) portion, if that is required...

I had cloned the repo early on, with the hopes of adding a subset of the flow visualization functionality (which I never did). But it looks like this last month of the year will be a good time to pick it up again. For my purposes, the addition I would most like to see would be a tabbed section where I can toggle between the sidebar node info, the formatted flow source (if attached), and a graphical view of the flow itself -- like a stripped down editor, but without the editing part. In the end, a way for potential users to "visualize" the node/flow without the owner having to embed image files.

Nick started to fill me in on the difficulties of building a graphical representation of a flow without having the editor available as a reusable component. Now that one of the long term goals is to separate it from the runtime, it may make sense to share some of the work between the two projects?

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Steve

[Julian Knight]

Thanks for the reminder Nick. I can see I'm going to need to install MongoDB again on my dev laptop.

[Julian Knight]

Perhaps an easier starting point would be to make it possible to upload images so that people could easily add screenshots in addition to the flow. This is a pain right now.

[Mike Blackstock]

Hi Steve,

Neat idea.  I think the task of visualizing flows without the runtime should be separated out since it can be worked on independently.  That way it could be used in other places like tutorial sites and other web sites.  Perhaps a front end library where you just provide flow JSON and it renders it in a div.  Once it's ready, it could then be integrated.  I'd imagine it would require becoming fairly intimate with the Node-RED front end code and finding the needed pieces.

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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