[Feedback Wanted] How do you use the Manage Palette

Core Development
1

Hi all,

The palette receives features to improve its use.

I would need your feedback for the following question.

How do you install or update several modules at once:

  • I click on each module button one after the other
  • I click on a module button, wait for the installation to finish and then click on the next one
  • Other?
0 voters

Thank you for your help :slightly_smiling_face:

EDIT: Don't forget to vote for this poll too :smiling_imp:

2

Click and wait. If it fails for whatever reason I donā€™t pile up multiple upgrades.

1 Like
3

For updating, I click on the button for each node offering updates.

Then I sit and wait wondering "Why isn't there a display (not "view the log") of which one it's currently working on?

And finally "Why isn't there a button to restart Node-red and save me having to ssh to the device and doing it by hand"?

1 Like
4

For multiple installations, I just do them all - I don't wait. The log shows any failures anyway.

For updates, I really would wish for an obvious "Update all" button to appear when there are updates available.

2 Likes
5

So you trigger several updates (at the same time) then you wait while looking at the log?

NR cannot reload its dependencies without a reboot. I don't remember the underlying reason.

This is the reason for the life of this subject :wink:

1 Like
6

If you capture the PID in settings.js, you can use that to kill the current running instance in a flow. If using systemd, it will restart itself.

Alternatively, you can change the sudo settings to allow Node-RED to issue a passwordless restart:

image
image1196Ɨ168 19.1 KB

Obviously either way has some risks though.

7

To complete the reason for this subject is that I had initially planned a checkbox in front of each module in order to select the modules to update. But Nick pointed out to me that it is equivalent to clicking on the "update" button of several modules at the same time.

Capture dā€™eĢcran 2024-10-29 aĢ€ 23.16.12
Capture dā€™eĢcran 2024-10-29 aĢ€ 23.16.121424Ɨ1146 85.7 KB

What is planned is an "Update all" button, I'm looking for a kind of progress bar.

PS: a filter selects only the modules to update. So the image is not quite correct :face_with_peeking_eye:

1 Like
8

Indeed one can make a flow to restart Node-red, which makes it harder to understand why Node-red can't [easily] do the same thing ...

Trouble with a progress bar is that some updates take a lonnnnng time so "Update 2 of 4" would be better than "25% complete".
A list of queued updates with a tick (or cross) as each is completed would be great.
cf The Linux install script showing a tick as each task completes (bash, not NR of course)

9

That's what I had in mind - to the right of the "Update all" button

Do you have an example of a sketch?

1 Like
10

I have some nodes that I not update due to legacy issues, these nodes function great on the machine they are on, but if updated no longer work.

It may be an idea to add a do not update checkbox/flag that removes them from the update all.

11

That's why I put the checkboxes in.

I'm afraid Nick's answer will be to either click "update all" or click every "update" button.

Instead of the checkbox, I also thought about clicking on the element (Control held down) to select it. The element will have a different background color to said selected.

12

I am talking about a permanent flag (do not update) that survives a browser reload etc, then the update all is useful, as the flagged nodes will not update. Otherwise update all becomes a useless button that I and maybe others would never use as it would cause issues.

13

I understood what you wanted.

Thinking about it a bit more, it would be more useful to apply this flag to the filter than the checkboxes that amount to clicking on each module.

So I'll keep your suggestion :slightly_smiling_face:

14

Would it be possible for an admin to pin the subject to get as much feedback as possible. Thanks :kissing_heart:

16

If this will be rolled out, the "Update all" button will be attractive enough that the one may freely not even think about that there is one limping node which you don't want to update. Specially if you have many instances with pretty same set of nodes but minor differences ...
That will hit for sure.
The "Are you sure" message with checkbox "don't show again" may do..

17

Usually I tend to only update 1 or 2 nodes via the UI. The main time I want to update multiple is when I am also updating the whole system - so doing OS updates, patches, nodejs updates and so on - so I usually do them all from the command line with a simple npm update instead - as I will need to restart the app - or reboot anyway.

18

Well, I think the main issue is that there are many ways to run Node-RED and so many ways to restart it. How would Node-RED know which to use? Is it worth trying to build that logic into Node-RED?

19

As a tester for the set of (now) 14 nodes my employer is developing, which gets updated regularly using our internal catalogue, I'd like an 'Update all' very much :slight_smile:

I currently get a dialog for each one that tells me Node-RED wil require a restart. I wouldn't need a confirmation list of nodes that require this, a single message would be enough, but maybe someone else needs could want that?

In general, a new dialog "you're going to update 14 nodes" would be nice even when no restart is needed. Getting two dialogs would be OK as well (one integrated dialog would be better), but might be confusing depending on the wording.

2 Likes
20

I have always updated all available updates in one go.

However it did catch me out on one occasion as one of the updates had not finished before I restarted, which then broke things :confused:

So what you are suggesting @GogoVega would be very welcome.