# \[SOLVED\] Button that passes through events as clicks but not config messages?
**URL:** https://discourse.nodered.org/t/solved-button-that-passes-through-events-as-clicks-but-not-config-messages/100731
**Category:** Dashboard
**Created:** [7 April 2026 22:15 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/solved-button-that-passes-through-events-as-clicks-but-not-config-messages/100731 "2026-04-07T22:15:33Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Radoom](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/Radoom)
#### Post date: [7 April 2026 22:15 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/solved-button-that-passes-through-events-as-clicks-but-not-config-messages/100731/1 "2026-04-07T22:15:33Z")
I have a Dashboard (v1) button that gets text and color property messages from a bespoke logic. And when clicked in the UI dashboard, it also triggers a complex logic behind it. That all works fine. Messages for config (font, color, label) arrive on input, and the button changes.
Now, I have a hardware button in the house that "noobs" shall be able to push without the need to fiddle with the dashboard UI on a device and locate that specific UI button.
So: I want the "hardware button pressed" event to arrive at the UI button and trigger it to fire the logic behind it. So I would normally simply active "If message arrives on input, emulate a button click". But I can't do that in this case, because if I do, every "config message" arriving also triggers a button click.
How can I control the buttons appearance AND only have those "hardware button trigger events" passed through? With dashboard v1 preferrably to not be forced to migrate/rebuild my whole complex logic (several dozen buttons on that dashboard also from various other flows; so I'd have to migrate them ALL just because of this one problem to keep all in one place - nightmare, even with half-automatic migration I fear).
Last resort, V2, if only that makes it possible... hope not 🙂
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### Author:  [@omrid](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/omrid)
#### Post date: [7 April 2026 22:45 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/solved-button-that-passes-through-events-as-clicks-but-not-config-messages/100731/2 "2026-04-07T22:45:49Z")
You can define the button with HTML in a template node, listen to incoming messages, analyze them and decide whether to pass them to the button click handler.
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### Author:  [@jbudd](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/jbudd)
#### Post date: [7 April 2026 23:50 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/solved-button-that-passes-through-events-as-clicks-but-not-config-messages/100731/3 "2026-04-07T23:50:38Z")
Welcome to the forum @Radoom .
To distinguish between an actual button click and a passed-on message, set some extra message property eg
```auto
source: "inject"
```
That property will be passed on by the button, but an actual button click will not set it.
I expected to be able to do this with msg.topic but it seems not to work.
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### Author:  [@Radoom](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/Radoom)
#### Post date: [8 April 2026 07:26 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/solved-button-that-passes-through-events-as-clicks-but-not-config-messages/100731/4 "2026-04-08T07:26:23Z")
jbudd, thanks, that was a hint in the right direction. I had that in the back of my head yesterday but it was too late to allow it to come forward 🙂
I have now added a property _msg.isconfig_ to the inbound nodes sending format properties to the UI button node. I set it to be boolean (and true), but that really doesn't matter, as only the existence of a _distinguishing_ property does the trick.
The hardware button node's messages do not have this property _at all_.
Also, the UI button will not add this property if it is clicked, nor will it remove it if it emulates a click on any incoming message.
So:
- When a config message arrives, the UI button "auto-clicks", and the "unwanted" forwarded message still has the _msg.isconfig_ property.
- When a hardware event arrives (also, and as intended auto-clicking the UI button), or the UI button is actually clicked, the "wanted" forwarded or UI-triggered messages _lack_ this property.
Behind the UI button node a switch node checks: _msg.isconfig_ `is null`. With this:
- only the _intended_ messages (i.e. those that _do not_ have the _isconfig_ property) pass through this switch node
- Config messages pass (i.e. fake-trigger) the UI button, but get lost at this post-filtering switch node.
Happy 🙂
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### Author:  [@system](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/system)
#### Post date: [22 April 2026 07:26 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/solved-button-that-passes-through-events-as-clicks-but-not-config-messages/100731/5 "2026-04-22T07:26:32Z")
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