The first beta release of Node-RED 3.0 is now available.
Node-RED 3.x requires at least Node 14.x or later. We recommend the current Active LTS release, Node 16.x.
Here are the highlights for this release.
The Change Log has the full list of changes.
Note: if any issues are reported against the beta, we'll update this post to list them here. If you hit a problem, please do check back here before adding a comment.
Known Issues
- None
Wire Junctions
A new core node type has been added called junction that makes it easier to route the wires in a flow.
There are two ways of adding a Junction to a flow.
- Shift-RightClick-Drag across the wire(s).
- Using the Quick-Add dialog (Ctrl-click in the workspace to open)
- You can move junctions by dragging them around.
- To add a new wire from a Junction, Ctrl (Cmd) Click on it to start wiring - this will add a wire where the Junction is the source node.
Debug Path Tooltip
When hovering over a node name in the Debug sidebar, a new tooltip shows the full location of the node. This is useful when working with subflows, making it much easier to identify exactly which node generated the message.
Clicking on any item in the list will reveal it in the workspace.
Continuous Search
When searching for things in the editor, a new toolbar in the workspace provides options to quickly jump between the search results.
We've added a pair of new actions to help navigate the results:
-
core:search-previous- shortcut:shift-f -
core:search-next- shortcut:f
Splitting wires
A new action has been added that will split a wire into a pair of Link nodes:
core:split-wire-with-link-nodes
Default node names
The Debug, Function and Link nodes are now given unique default names when they are added to the workspace.
This capability could be added to any node, including contrib nodes, via their onadd function. We chose just this initial set as they were the ones that would most benefit from having a name applied.
A new action has also been added that will apply an appropriate default name to any selected nodes that don't currently have a name:
core:generate-node-names
Monaco Text Editor
We added the monaco editor component as an alternative to the default ace editor a year ago in the 2.x release. It has proven to be very stable and provides a much richer user experience.
With 3.0, we have switched over to monaco as the default editor. New installs of Node-RED will pickup the change - existing installs will need to update the codeEditor entry in their settings file.
The ultimate goal will be to remove ace entirely in the 4.0 release in April next year.
Node Updates
Lots of good updates in the nodes:
- The Debug node has a new option to output to its status a count of how many messages it has received
- The HTTP Request node now lets you preconfigure HTTP Headers in the node itself
- The Link Call node can now be dynamically targeted based on the messages it receives
- Lots of fixes in the MQTT nodes
--
Be sure to read through the Change Log to see what else is in there.
Installing the beta
If you want to try out the beta, you will need specify node-red@next when you use npm to update. Without the @next you'll still get 2.2.x
So on a Pi you'd do:
sudo npm install -g --unsafe-perm node-red@next
Reporting problems
If you hit any problems, please report them either as a reply on this topic, or in the #core-dev slack channel. Please do not post new topics to the forum regarding the beta as that could confuse users who are not using the beta.
Outstanding work
This release contains pretty much everything we want to get into 3.0. There may be a final few bits and pieces, but nothing on the critical path.
The main work is documenting all these new features.
The goal is to release 3.0 at the end of this month.
