# 🎉 Node-RED 5 Beta 1 available

**URL:** <https://discourse.nodered.org/t/node-red-5-beta-1-available/99937>\
**Category:** News\
**Tags:** docker\
**Created:** [12 December 2025 17:22 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/node-red-5-beta-1-available/99937 "2025-12-12T17:22:06Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 31

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**Author:** ![knolleary](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/knolleary/32/3_2.png) [@knolleary](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/knolleary)\
**Post date:** [17 December 2025 09:16 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/node-red-5-beta-1-available/99937/31 "2025-12-17T09:16:07Z")

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@jbudd not being able to drag the panel out of existence is a deliberate choice _at this stage_ - as the current work doesn't support having the sidebar split, but only show one of the panels.

I'm still evaluating how well this UX works; it feels like there's a lot still to get right around the behaviour of the panels.

I'm also still wondering whether allowing panels to be dragged to the LH side is a good idea or not. I'm sure there will be those who welcome this level of flexibility. But it is leading to a number of UX compromises that aren't working for me yet.

We still want to have the Explorer and Palette on the LHS side - focussing on the well structured information hierarchy that @dimitrieh talked about in his [comment here](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/node-red-5-beta-0-released/99870/38). That doesn't mean it has to mirror the UX of the RHS.

Thinking about the newcomer to Node-RED, they aren't interested in customising the layout on day one and want to just use Node-RED. It's important for it to work well for them.

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_[View the full topic](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/node-red-5-beta-1-available/99937)._