If it's in the docs, I couldn't find it

General
1

Crazy question. My N-R project is 99% finished and will be implemented next week, time for a new project! So, how does one "shelve" their current project and start a new one? There's got to be a way to save a project for recall later without deleting everything on the workspace, right?

Russ

2

Is it as simple as just creating exporting your flow and creating a new one? Or do you have many flows and lots of nodes you’ve added?

3

Are you using the projects feature?

If so, then you can create a new project from the projects menu and then freely switch between them.

If not, the either run Node-RED configured to use a different flows file (option in your settings file), or take a copy of your flows file (and credentials file), delete the originals and restart NR.

4

One small tip, give your topic posts a title that better reflects the question you want to ask. That will help others find it in the future - particularly if it's a topic that isn't clear in the docs.

5

Seems there'd be an easier way but, that's certainly doable in my case.

"Projects feature"... Never heard of or seen it, where can I learn about that?

N-R is awesome, but obviously built and curated by super-smart people and thus totally obtuse for beginners to grasp. I'd have thought there'd be an intuitive, built-in way to "save" a project to a folder or file with minimal fuss...

A suggestion aside, please add a search box within the documentation page. I'm sure the things I need are in there, but unfindable w/o using an external search engine.

Russ

6

The other way is to just pass the flow in as a command line parameter when you start every time. eg
node-red myflow1.json and then node-red myflow2.json etc. This works fine if you don't mind command line and if you aren't running as a service on boot.

Projects - hmm - node-red projects first hit on google. They do a pretty good job of search - I guess we could include an input box that added site:nodered.org to whatever you type.

7

Just curious but what product, that can do more than one thing, can a beginner totally grasp? Even the latest flashlight We bought has multiple features. Press the button, the light comes on, press it lightly again and it dims, press it lightly again and it dims more, press it lightly again and it flashes, press it lightly again and it flashes SOS, one more light press and it is back to full strength light.

Just like everything, the more you use it, the more you will learn about it and easier it begins. People get fustrated when they decide to try something new and want to be an expert day one.

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Yup, comes up first on Duck-Duck too. But - you've got to know what key words to input before anything useful comes up and I'd never heard of "projects" before.

After 67 years of getting things done in a timely manner, frustration has become my most noticeable emotion. Especially after spending 4 hours investigating why basic function examples on the 'net seemingly work for the writers but not for me. Or why I could never get the examples here to work after modifying them to suit. Or spending a week trying to get my pi networked to my Win laptop. Or trying to grasp possible security issues involved in connecting my pi to the big-bad-world. Lots of frustration for an old man doing the simple things that others grasp in seconds...

Russ

9

your very first post said !

so you were close enough I think... :slight_smile:

and no - it's taken me many years worth of seconds to grasp the things I know today ... still learning and only a few years behind you !

10

Anyone who says that they grasp the security issues involved in connecting to the internet in seconds is delusional.

1 Like
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The word "project" was a figure of speech, I never gave a thought that it might be an actual part of N-R.

Coming from a Windows world, every program I have ever used that had the option to open, write, or edit a document (project?) also had a menu option to either "save" or "save as". It's obvious there are very few, if any, N-R developers that have ever seen or used a Windows computer. There are some rather handy time-saving things to be had from it. Learning N-R and thus learning an entirely new and (foreign to me) command-line based OS along with it, has been daunting to say the least.

As for grasping "in seconds", yet another figure of speech. Guess us yanks tend to overuse them. The sites that have this security info make it all sound like a job to be done in, well, short periods of time.

Russ

12

That is an entirely unnecessary and quite a disparaging remark. Just because it doesn't meet your expected model of the world does not mean to insult those of us who have put a lot of time and effort in creating this project you get to use for free.

Node-RED did not start out as a general purpose IDE where you frequently switch between different files. It only runs the flows you have deployed. So the most typical use is to create one set of flows and have them run. When you switch to another set of flow files then the previous ones are no longer running. That is just a different model to your desktop word processor where you edit multiple files and can freely switch between them.

The projects feature was introduced to provide a better user experience for people who do want a more natural way to switch between what is being worked on. But with limited contributions from the community, the feature has somewhat languished and not yet made it to being on by default. That's still my goal, but there's a lot of work to do it get to that point.

On the main index page of the user guide there are 10 links to sections under "Using Node-RED", with "projects" in that list. I'm not claiming our docs are perfect by any means, but we do try to highlight these things.

Anyway, I'm sorry it isn't meeting your expectations, but I kindly ask you don't resort to insults.

13

Wow, that was an insult... OK, well, I'm sorry you thought it was an insult, because in my mind it was an just observation. N-R is awesome and would surely "meet my expectations" if I had a clue what those expectations were. Right now, my experience level is prolly around 2% of the average user here, so for me, everything is an expectation. All I did was ask what I thought was a simple question. It's a sad world where one can't publicly remark an observation without derision. I now have several answers that I can investigate.

Thanks for your time,

Russ

14

You said it was obvious that most of the developers had never used Windows, and now say that was an observation. Since it is completely untrue then I am not sure how you observed it.

15

Let's draw a line on this topic. Nothing else too be gained.

Feedback received regarding the getting started experience - we could do more to explain Node-RED's working model and how it differs from other applications. It also inspires me to take a look at the projects feature backlog for what we need too do to make it more accessible.

1 Like
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