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

**URL:** <https://discourse.nodered.org/t/uibuilder-the-next-step-3rd-party-comms-with-a-uibuilder-front-end/51684>\
**Category:** Share Your Nodes\
**Tags:** uibuilder\
**Created:** [29 September 2021 20:25 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/uibuilder-the-next-step-3rd-party-comms-with-a-uibuilder-front-end/51684 "2021-09-29T20:25:51Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
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**Author:** ![TotallyInformation](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/totallyinformation/32/31_2.png) [@TotallyInformation](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/TotallyInformation)\
**Post date:** [16 October 2021 13:11 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/uibuilder-the-next-step-3rd-party-comms-with-a-uibuilder-front-end/51684/4 "2021-10-16T13:11:16Z")

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Another round of changes pushed to the GitHub vNext branch today.

- A couple of annoying bugs got squashed.

- Package Management is now almost completely rewritten - still some work to do to allow you to install local packages though. But installing from npmjs and from GitHub both work and you can add tag/version/branch specifiers as well. Useful if you want a specific version or branch.

- The Editor panel has been extensively rewritten as well.

- Behind the scenes, the ExpressJS route handling has been extensively reworked and now uses Express's Router capabilities. This greatly simplifies how routes are created and removed. Especially when instances of uibuilder have their URL changed or when an instance is removed from the flows.

Still left to do is simplifying and tidying up the security feature - I fear it won't have all the features I'd hoped for in this release. Also I want to include @shrickus's [idea to allow a custom middleware](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/can-i-host-stand-alone-nodejs-apps-inside-uibuilder-nodes-if-so-should-i/51813/6) to be added to an instance so that API's can be added.

A couple of other bugs to squash too.

The changelog file in the branch has details of the changes and a long todo list (not all of which will make it into this release) 🙂

Please do try it out if you have a chance and let me know of any bugs, issues or wishes.

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_[View the full topic](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/uibuilder-the-next-step-3rd-party-comms-with-a-uibuilder-front-end/51684)._