Wanted: Curated list of "great" nodes (preferably a pinned post or in the documentation somewhere)

Developing Nodes
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I have a simple yet difficult request for beginners like me.

My desire is for the ninjas to put up a list of Nodes that are well laid out and structured - simply to have a "look at these nodes on github for inspiration" - with a couple of notes why they are of high quality. This would be great inspiration when trying to get the scaffolding done right in the first place.

Cheers

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Well you could visit the flows library and sort the results by 'Rating' - Library - Node-RED

Screenshot_20220816-184214
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Also most of the nodes have a scorecard (again in the flow library) which checks node's against set standards (it's not a defacto test, as it currently throws up a number of anomalies :grimacing:).

Because the nodes cover such a wide range of functionality, it would be difficult to pull together a preferred list, although in the forum we do tend to 'steer' users towards the better nodes.
It all depends upon your individual usage requirements.

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The Rating seems to max out at 5.0, but when I look at them randomly I find some oddities, like main in package.js pointing to nonexisting files, tests that does not exist and such.

Therefore my desire for a curated list - which (3 / 5 / 10?) nodes should you look at when trying to grasp Node-RED node development.

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I kind-of like the idea of an "Awesome Node-RED" page along the lines of other great awesome style pages. That need not be limited to just nodes.

Problem with a list of nodes (well problems):

  • Do you really need them? And if you do, do you need the same as other people? who would say which are great nodes?
  • Who would maintain the list? There are thousands of nodes, many very specialist. Who has time to curate all that?
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Just to clarify @Laro88, are you wanting the list to help you construct interesting flows, or are you wanting it to use as a template and learn how to write your own contrib nodes?

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@Steve-Mcl it's good to see my 'time related' contrib node node is on the list, yet your +node isn't :grin: :smile: :grin:

Therefore it's maybe not the best list...

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Ah, keep forgetting about that!

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Kind o proves my point I think. Only 7 people seem to have contributed to the list and it hasn't been updated in months.

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My request for a curated list was to learn from them - and the curation is all about pointing out some "good" nodes that are up to date and adheres to the best practices as intended by the ninjas.

I need a "good" example that shows how to:

  • has a proper help and example structure
  • uses best practice everywhere and has no bonkers leftovers from npm init etc.
  • properly integrate an external node project from github (the project has some bitbanging due to an old-school tcp implementation by the vendor and is just easier to have as a separate node.js project when messing around inside it)
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In that case, maybe your best option is to take a look at node-red-contrib nodes in the git repos which are owned by the more experienced node-RED contributors, and have proven to write consistently well-coded, quality nodes.

I would suggest a good start to be;

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A curated list of Ninjas - and the works they are most proud of would also be great :slight_smile:

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Is there an up-to-date skeleton/boilerplate for creating new contrib nodes, or cli tool init? I too have tried to find a "really great" example to base my contrib-nodes off of. There seem to be lots of "good" ones, but like what was pointed out, "usually a minor thing here or there is missing". I try my best to develop good coding habits, and one thing I've found that really helps is a good example to look at (code-monkey see, code-monkey do). Having an Official example or Node-RED approved list of quality example contrib-nodes would be nice.

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​One thing that the forum community could do is open, on a regular basis, a thread to request feedback on one specific node (kind of the contrib-node of the month, if you will)​. The members of the forum could ​share their experiences with that specific node, the pros and cons, flows examples, etc. This would be good for the developer and for the community. Further to the "ninjas" mentioned before ​​there are many others that deserve recognition and gratitude. I could be mention for instance the awesome nodes from @hotNipi , the ngrok node from @sammachin , ​the ui-builder from @TotallyInformation , ​just to mention a ​few from a huge list.

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Instead of rating, use downloads instead ? Then again, nodes add functionality, but not every node is relevant for everyone, it is all about the use case/need.

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I seem to recall reading some time ago that the download count also includes 'bot hits', and is not necessarily actual user downloads.

Exactly :+1:

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