Node-RED Q & A

Node-RED Questions and Answers. Node-RED is a flow-based (visual) programming tool. These pages have some information that may be currently missing from the documentation or may expand on it.

  • Understanding the Node RED Runtime API

    Node-RED exposes an extensive API at runtime. While most of this is _not_ available within your flows, much of it _is_ available to custom nodes. Unfortunately, documentation for the API lags behind development. This page documents some of the key things I've learned about the API, what it does and how it works.

  • Node RED Courses and Tutorials

    A list of some tutorials and courses for learning Node-RED and Node.JS, maybe some web stuff too.

  • Node RED Dashboard Template Examples (AngularJS)

    Some examples of using AngularJS with the Node-RED Dashboard. Not all features of Angular are accessible via the Dashboard.

  • Node RED debugging flows

    Some hints for debugging Node-RED flows

  • How to extract a table from HTML

    While Node-RED has some nodes for extracting data from HTML, the nodes are rather simplistic. Here is a quick way to extract the data from an HTML table element.

  • How to use the ACE editor in the Function node

    The ACE editor is used in the function node to help you create well-formed JavaScript. However, there are now a number of different versions of JavaScript and it is sometimes helpful to use slightly different styles of coding to the defaults.

  • How node.send() works

    Some detail not included in the documentation.

  • Node RED Q & A

    Node-RED Questions and Answers. Node-RED is a flow-based (visual) programming tool. These pages have some information that may be currently missing from the documentation or may expand on it.

  • Using JSONata to transform msg data

    JSONata is a syntax designed by IBM to help reformat and restructure JSON data in a similar vein to the way that XLST is used to transform XML data.

  • How to create a clone of a message object

    Node-RED tried to pass messages by reference not copy. Sometimes though, a copy is needed.

  • Making Node RED available over the Internet

    There are already too many people putting up insecure services over the Internet. Please don't add to this problem. This article explains a simple way to get some level of connectivity to Node-RED over the Internet without security issues. It also explains some of the wider issues and where to go for more details.

  • Installation and running permissions

    People seem to get very confused about file permissions when installing Node-RED and associated nodes. This article tries to set things straight.

  • Easily search for contributed nodes on the Node RED Flows site

    Excellent work has been done to make sure that new nodes are discoverable. Here is a quick way to easily search from your browser.

  • How to extract a substring from the msg object

    Node-RED passes a msg object between node instances in a flow. It is common to need to extract a sub-string and there are multiple ways to achieve this. Here are some simeple examples.

  • Secure Home Automation Controls via a Telegram Bot

    Shows how to create a secure set of home automation controls without exposing Node-RED to the Internet. It uses a Telegram bot with a number of pre-defined commands.

  • Node RED How to use the Visual Studio Code debugger

    Using the Visual Studio Code debugger to debug Node-RED issues