# Feature request: switching between projects

**URL:** <https://discourse.nodered.org/t/feature-request-switching-between-projects/5973>\
**Category:** Feature Requests\
**Created:** [19 December 2018 23:06 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/feature-request-switching-between-projects/5973 "2018-12-19T23:06:15Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![drmibell](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/drmibell/32/8424_2.png) [@drmibell](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/drmibell)\
**Post date:** [19 December 2018 23:06 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/feature-request-switching-between-projects/5973/1 "2018-12-19T23:06:15Z")

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Would it be possible to have the Open item in the Projects sub-menu present a list of the available projects and allow switching to one of them? The appearance would be similar to the Import/Library item.

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**Author:** ![knolleary](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/knolleary/32/3_2.png) [@knolleary](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/knolleary)\
**Post date:** [19 December 2018 23:23 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/feature-request-switching-between-projects/5973/2 "2018-12-19T23:23:38Z")

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Hi @drmibell - it's possible... but would need a bit more thought than simply throwing up a list of projects.

We already know the Import/Library menu is fiddly to use, particularly once you have any more than one or two levels of hierarchy. It simply doesn't scale very well. So I'm cautious with any proposal that suggests adding more menus. (In fact, I'm sketching out some designs that will get rid of the submenus under both Import and Export and have them both open a single dialog that allows you to pick where you import/export from/to... but that's for another thread another day)

It can't be an endless list if presented as a menu. The advantage of the dialog is you can quickly search for a project to open it. That's perhaps less of a concern if you only have a small number of projects locally. I don't think we have enough feedback to know what a 'typical' user has.

It could be an 'Open Recent" type menu that lists the 5 most recently opened projects - in a similar fashion to Word/Powerpoint et al.

Any other thoughts out there?

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**Author:** ![drmibell](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/drmibell/32/8424_2.png) [@drmibell](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/drmibell)\
**Post date:** [21 December 2018 02:35 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/feature-request-switching-between-projects/5973/3 "2018-12-21T02:35:04Z")

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I should be happy I'm not managing dozens of projects at once. An 'Open Recent' menu would work well for me.

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**Author:** ![zenofmud](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/zenofmud/32/316_2.png) [@zenofmud](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/zenofmud)\
**Post date:** [21 December 2018 10:19 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/feature-request-switching-between-projects/5973/4 "2018-12-21T10:19:42Z")

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One thing you can do - for now - is use the `node-red` command to start Node-RED but add in the name of a json file. For example you could have `node-red gardenwatering.json` as one project and `node-red housemonitor.json` as another. This will create the json file and a credentials file for the project so in the .node-red folder you would see:  
gardenwatering.json  
gardenwatering\_cred.json  
housemonitor.json  
housemonitor\_cred.json  
And the you would have a seperate set of flows in the two projects.  
(Thanks to @dceejay for this hint)