[uibuilder] The next step - 3rd-party comms with a uibuilder front-end

Share Your Nodes
18

WIP, no docs as yet. But here is the text from the changelog:

New node uib-sender - this node allows you to send a msg to any uibuilder instance's connected front-end clients.
That means that it is pretty much the same as sending a message directly into a uibuilder node.
You select the instance of uibuilder you want to use by selecting an existing uibuilder URL from the dropdown.
You can also select whether you want input messages to go straight to the output port as well.
Or, more usefully, you can allow "return messages". This allows a front-end client to send a message to node-red with some pre-defined metadata added that will route the message back to the uib-sender node. In this way, the sender node can be used as a semi-independent component.
Note that this same method can be used by ANY custom node, check out the code to see how it works. It requires the use of an external, shared event module @TotallyInformation/ti-common-event-handler. The msg metadata looks like: { _uib: {originator: <sender_node_id>}, payload: ... }. The sender node id is just that, the Node-RED node id for the sender node instance.
The uibuilderfe.js library has been updated to allow easy use of the originator property for uibuilder.send(). See below for details.

So you can use it as an alternative to link nodes if you want to send data into your uibuilder-powered front-end. Whereas a link node requires you to link an in and out link together manually, the sender node only needs to know what uibuilder url you want to use and everything gets routed automatically (it doesn't really, it uses JavaScript/Node.js EVENTs which is much more efficient).

Ah, that needs removing. I realised late on that only the 1 node is needed. There were originally a matching pair. But instead, I built the return capability right into the uibuilder node so that it is trivial to get a message back to the sender simply by using the metadata in the msg you send:

{
    "payload": "OOH! A return message :-)",
    "_uib": {
        "originator": "85fee74096237ff3"
    }
}

:slight_smile: Added to the fix list, thanks.

No, not at all, the testing is much appreciated and is greatly helping me get back into working on the nodes.

Hmm, maybe. I don't do videos though :sunglasses: Perhaps one day.

1 Like