The second beta release of Node-RED 5 is now available!
After a short break for the Christmas period, we're back to our regular scheduled beta releases of Node-RED 5
We're continuing to iterate the UI appearance towards the concept designs in the original issue. The most obvious change here being the restyled header.
We've also addressed some of the feedback/issues with the previous beta; it should now remember the layout changes you make with the sidebars, and some issues with the resizing of the panels have been fixed.
This release also includes two new features:
Pausing debug output
A long requested feature, it is now possible to pause the debug sidebar using a toggle button in the sidebar header. Whilst paused, it stops scrolling and any new messages received are dropped.
Delay node - burst mode when rate limiting
The default behaviour of the Delay node's rate limiting mode has always been to spread out the incoming messages evenly to the rate configured in the node. The node can now also be put into burst mode; where it will allow messages through at whatever rate they arrive at until the limit is reached - at which point it will block the messages until the start of the next time interval.
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 4.1.x
So on a Pi you'd do:
sudo npm install -g --unsafe-perm node-red@next
Docker images
The beta images will be available soon - all being well with Ben on holiday. They will be available under nodered/node-red-dev:v5.0.0-beta.2 - with the default image being based on Node 24.
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.
What's Next
The Node-RED 5.0 work is being tracked in this issue. From there you'll find sub-issues for the various strands of activity going into Node-RED 5.
For the UX updates, you can follow this issue - with a number of sub-issues already raised for the next betas to address.
We're going to revisit some of the sidebar changes. There's a concern that the horizontal space used by the button bars isn't good use of the space - and reduces the available workspace size.
The header has been restyled, but there are some functional changes to come. For example, moving the main menu to the Left-hand corner rather than the right and having a more standard search behaviour. As mentioned in the last beta, we also need to rework some of the menu contents to reflect the sidebar changes.
We also want to make sure each beta contains more than just theme changes - and there are still plenty of PRs to work through.
