Dashboard 2.0 Tutorials - Call for ideas

[joepavitt]

Hi All,

I'm going to put together a series of tutorial videos for Dashboard 2.0, and would like to link the planning task for this.

If there are topics you feel like I should absolutely be covering in these, please comment there (or here if you don't have a GH account, but ideally, in the issue please).

[hazymat]

Hi, I just wanted to comment here to provide general feedback and wishes rather than specific topics. (I will also give some ideas on the GH planning task.)

These are just my own personal wishes as a new user of Dashboard 2.0. I think I'm the target market, as I have until now used Dashboard 1 extensively (stretched it to its limit!)

1. Focus on Dashboard Template node. This is where the majority of the really interesting stuff happens, and it's the first thing I reach for when one of the builtin nodes doesn't give exactly what I need. I feel most "widget" nodes (like chart / slider etc.) are really obvious to most users, also they have their own help text in Node-RED. But learning how to achieve more advanced UI tasks with Template node is the key to unlocked Dashboard 2.0, for me at least.

2. Make videos that are quite "discursive" i.e. not too focussed on a single topic. I think it's far better to learn from discussions around what is possible, showing that there might be a few different ways to achieve the same thing, and comparing the pros and cons of each different way. Then maybe talk about the technologies (mainly Vue!) and give an idea of how things fit together conceptually.

3. Make long videos that show you making a project, encountering various challenges, instead of simple topic / simple tutorial videos that cover a narrow remit. Personally I learn from immersing myself in someone else's project, seeing them approach a problem and solving it, showing the detail, making mistakes, fixing them - coming across errors, etc. I would personally say don't worry about making this too "polished". I think it can be frustrating seeing someone's "perfect world" when the reality is that when I try to do something, it seems to crash! (e.g. many times I have experienced Dashboard 2.0 just crashing and not loading at all, until I remove certain code from a template node... maybe that's for a different discussion!) - but just saying I don't think you should hide this stuff.

These are just my ideas and I appreciate you may wish to take this in another direction!