Can I "host" stand-alone nodejs apps inside UIBuilder nodes? If so, should I?

[TotallyInformation]

@shrickus

1 to server the ui pages, and 1 for all the /api/xxxxx backend ajax calls.

Urm, you mean that you have reinvented Node-RED!

@shrickus

but i'm having trouble finding a way to enable all the api.js logic (the express.use('/api/xxxxx') endpoints)

Well the simple answer would be to use a standard Node-RED http-in/-out pair to define an /api/:id endpoint set.

@shrickus

trying to reuse the node-red express server and add my own endpoint urls behind the root url that uibuilder has enabled.

Yes, kind of struggling to see why this would be better/easier than using Node-RED itself?

@shrickus

then the ui page /myapp/index.html could make its normal ajax calls to /myapp/api/xxxxx and run without many modifications

uibuilder is generally geared up to do data over websockets (socket.io strictly speaking) rather than REST API's. Node-RED already does REST API's really well. You could easily set your http-in node to have a URL pattern of /myapp/api/:id, uibuilder wouldn't object or get in the way at all as long as you don't create a uibuilder web page with the matching URL. At least I think it wouldn't, I've not tested that scenario.

@shrickus

Perhaps this is a chance for me to contribute a new feature back to the UIBuilder code... would anybody else find this useful?

I think that we would firstly need to look at why this might be better than the http-in/-out nodes if I'm being honest. If there is a good reason, happy to consider it.