Make a duplicate flow

Core Development Feature Requests
1

I would like to duplicate flows as fast as I can delete them.
And when I mess up I can just disable them again.

2

click on workspace - ctrl-(or cmd)-a to select all, ctrl-c to copy - hit plus on tab bar to add new tab - ctrl-v to paste... click to fix position. Done

1 Like
3

Thank you for your quickly.

Mostly the damage is all ready done realizing I was working on the orginal.

So If I do a copy of my current mistake to a new flow then trying to work my way back into the corrupt flow with ctrl-z it deletes or undo the copy I made to the new flow :disappointed_relieved:

4

If you have only deployed once... then there is a backup hidden in your user directory.

If your flow was called flows_fred.json the previous version would be .flows_fred.json.backup

5

Well actually my node-red emails me the complete backup flows_...json on every deploy.
I then copy the whole contains onto clipboard and import it back deleting every flow I don't need :smiley:
For now its a cat and mouse game what I should do is read back its contains determining flow or section from within the backup then importing only the selected back in.

6

Have you considered using "projects" mode? It has git history of changes!

2 Likes
7

omgosh that looks good I am going to look into that, Thanks!

8

I've added a menu option for this, not realising that cmd-a, cmd-c, plus icon, cmd-v was a thing:

Screenshot 2025-10-07 at 11.22.58
Screenshot 2025-10-07 at 11.22.58650Ă—1046 24.2 KB

It basically follows the path as how lock-flow and disable-flow are implemented, i.e., defining an action that is called when the menu item is selected.

For the actual "work", I defined the duplicateWorkspace function:

    function duplicateWorkspace(id) {
        function getFlowDataFromCurrentWorkspace(id) {
          var activeWorkspace = id || RED.workspaces.active();
          var nodes = RED.nodes.groups(activeWorkspace);

          nodes = nodes.concat(RED.nodes.junctions(activeWorkspace));
          nodes = nodes.concat(RED.nodes.filterNodes({ z: activeWorkspace }));

          RED.nodes.eachConfig(function (n) {
            if (n.z === RED.workspaces.active() && n._def.hasUsers === false) {
              // Grab any config nodes scoped to this flow that don't
              // require any flow-nodes to use them
              nodes.push(n);
            }
          });

          var parentNode = RED.nodes.workspace(
            activeWorkspace
          ) || RED.nodes.subflow(activeWorkspace);

          nodes.unshift(parentNode);

          return RED.nodes.createExportableNodeSet(nodes);
        }

        if (!id) { return; }
        RED.view.importNodes(getFlowDataFromCurrentWorkspace(id),
            {generateIds: true, addFlow: true, touchImport: true});
    }

that's a hack-together function that best solved the problem of copy and replacing ids for an existing flow.

Just an idea for those that might like this.

Why? Because I spend a lot of time creating small flows that I copy and then extend ...

1 Like
9

This is well done, but why enable touchImport?

10

what does that even do? I don't know :slight_smile:

I admit it, I added the feature, it worked, nothing broke and I moved on! The touchImport just looks nice there at the end ....

:slight_smile: