Development
Creating a notification in the Admin UI
Node-RED’s admin UI has a built-in notification (toast) pop-up message feature. This article explains how to use it when creating custom nodes as it isn’t currently well documented.
Cleaning up npm package install problems
Node-RED uses npm to manage package installations such as its nodes. Sometimes, you can get into a situation where you start getting lots of npm installation or removal issues and it feels like you are going round in circles trying to fix things. If so, time to call it a day and to get drastic! Here, I try to explain an easy way to fix things quickly and completely without side effects.
A more comfortable way to edit the code for creating custom nodes
Node-RED allows us to create custom nodes to extend the features. While this is a great feature, actually writing the code can be tricky. In part because the code for the admin configuration panel is contained in an html file containing 3 script entries that are Node-RED specific. This post shows you a relatively easy way to split that into 3 files and combine them with a build step using an npm cross-platform script.
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 take control of JavaScript console output
All browsers have the console object that lets you output to the developer console log. But in production, you don’t want this output, only in development. So here is the easiest way I’ve found to take control.
What JavaScript versions are there and how do they map to Node.JS versions?
There are now far too many versions of JavaScript. Worse, there are several ways to refer to a JavaScript version. Then we have Node.JS which has its own versioning. This post tries to summarise it all.
Using npm configuration environment variables in package.json
npm automatically makes parts of your package.json file available as environment variables. This can be useful when using npm as a run script service.
Download a GitHub Repository using Node.JS
Downloading a repository from GitHub using Node.JS should be really easy. But it isn’t! This KB post reminds us of the tricks required.
How to walk through a JavaScript object in sort order
Using a JavaScript object like a keyed array, what is the simplest way to walk through the object?
How to get the properties of a JavaScript object without errors
You cannot natively request chained properties of a JavaScript object without the possibility of an error. This utility function allows you to get any properties, no matter how they are nested.
