Speeding up flow creation via keyboard

Core Development Feature Requests
1

Node-red is very much drag and drop, although very nice, it is not fast when you have a large number of nodes installed in the palette.

I got a brainwave - what if you could use the cmd-shift-p command window to type in the nodes (with tab autocompletion) separated by a space and the editor adds them to the flow upon enter.

eg.

image
which would expand to (yes typo in mysl)
image

Perhaps under a submenu, create flow: ... (to make it technically work in the current action window)

2

The QuickAddDialog allows you to create nodes faster.

Capture d’écran 2024-09-19 à 09.00.28
Capture d’écran 2024-09-19 à 09.00.281152×610 39.1 KB

3

It's hardly a CLI but if you drag a wire away from a node and drop it in empty space you get a dropdown choice of nodes to create there.

image
image724×422 27.3 KB

No idea how it chooses the nodes at the top, recent use maybe.

4

Snap!

And we both get the same nodes at the top.

5

The top 5 are fixed

6

The dream! Something like emmet for Node-RED would be amazing. I've requested similar key entry and other ideas like parameterised flow templates but in the end, being 100% honest, the great majority would still drag and drop sadly.

7

The problem with templates is that there aren't really any with NR.

What could be a good idea is to add the nodes to the workspace with a command (the purpose here). This saves time because we don't have to search for each node anymore.

8

Me in 2025....

'Hey Node-Red, add an inject node connected to a change node and a debug node and deploy'

9

A worthwhile enhancement for them to be customisable?
The top 4 are also visible in the palette without scrolling.

10

Although I like it, but in reality it would take more time than dragging and dropping :wink:
'emmet' like interface would actually be very fast (if you are used to it).

11

Are you offering ?

12

Honestly I know I should.

I would do but JavaScript is not my native language, I'm more fluent in bash and sql.

I have previously got as far as forking (?) on GitHub but not written a single semicolon.

I need hand-holding!

13

That's OK, I don't use semi-colons in JavaScript either! :rofl: