FR: Debug directly on node output

Core Development Feature Requests
1

When developing flows, I find myself with many debug nodes taking up a lot of space on the tab.

I wonder if the functionality of the Debug node could be delivered as an attribute of every node output.

It might look similar to the breakpoint used by the Node-RED flow debugger, but green of course!

image

I imagine that you might add/remove the debug feature by double-clicking the node output. And by double-clicking the green area, you would open the properties dialog just like the Debug node has.

2

Morning @quarfie,
Personally I like this idea a lot. Two remarks:

Is there any reason why you want to apply it only to outputs. Because if you have a N-to-1 node relation (with a large N) then it would be usefull to have it also on inputs imho..

Yes if you would have such a property dialog, you would be able to add - in the future - other features. For example a checkbox "Add routing info to msg". To support something like discussed here? Just to mention why I like your proposal...

3

Hi @quarfie

Thanks for the suggestion.

Being able to more easily 'inspect' a flow is certainly something we're interested in.

Being able to debug ports directly, with out having to wire in nodes, has come up previously.

4

This sounds like an enhancement to the debugger plugin to me

5

And I do like Bart's idea for being able to debug inputs as well as outputs.

6

Precisely because I'm not a power user I like this idea and Bart's profiler.