@shockers/node-red-plugin-grouped-flows 0.5.0

Replaces the built-in Node-RED flows tab bar with a grouped two-tier tab bar to improve navigation of large Node-RED environments.

npm install @shockers/node-red-plugin-grouped-flows

node-red-plugin-grouped-flows

A Node-RED editor plugin that replaces the default single-row flow tab bar with a two-row grouped layout. Flows are organised into named groups; the top row displays group tabs and the bottom row displays the flows belonging to the selected group. Ungrouped flows appear as standalone tabs in the top row.

Group assignments are persisted server-side and shared across all connected editor sessions. Changes take effect for all users after a Deploy, following the same lifecycle as standard flow changes.

The original implementation lives at SvenHockers/node-red-grouped-flows.

This repository includes Node-RED 5.x compatibility updates adapted from YRoshcha's fork. See NOTICE for attribution details.

Node-RED 5.x compatibility

The current implementation works on both Node-RED 4.x and 5.x. The same grouped-flows.html detects which layout it is running on at mount time and adjusts accordingly. If your theme uses unusual tab sizing, the fallback --nr-grouped-flows-header-height-* values documented below can be overridden.

Requirements

• Node-RED >= 3.0.0
• Node.js >= 18

Installation

Install via the Node-RED Palette Manager, or from the command line in your Node-RED user directory:

npm install @shockers/node-red-plugin-grouped-flows

Or from git directly if you want the current repository state:

npm install github:SvenHockers/node-red-grouped-flows

Restart Node-RED after installation.

Usage

Assigning a flow to a group

1. Double-click a flow tab, or open the flow's Edit dialog (right-click the tab > Edit).
2. In the Group field, enter a group name.
3. Click Done, then Deploy.

The flow will appear under its group tab. Multiple flows can share the same group name; they will all appear in that group's row.

Navigating flows

• Click a group tab in the top row to display that group's flows in the bottom row.
• Click any flow tab in the bottom row to activate that workspace.
• Ungrouped flows appear directly in the top row as standalone tabs.

Reordering

Flows and groups support drag-and-drop reordering. Reordering is persisted on the next Deploy.

Removing a group assignment

Open the flow's Edit dialog, clear the Group field, and Deploy.

Group Persistence

Group assignments are stored server-side in nr-grouped-flows-groups.json in your Node-RED user directory. This file is written on each Deploy and read on editor load, ensuring all connected users see the same group layout after a Deploy.

Prior to version 0.3.0, group assignments were stored in the browser's localStorage and were therefore device-specific. After upgrading to 0.3.0, group assignments will initially appear empty; reassign flows to groups and Deploy once to restore the shared state.

CSS Customisation

The plugin exposes CSS custom properties for overriding the default tab area heights:

These properties are defined on #red-ui-workspace.nr-grouped-flows-enabled (and, on NR5, mirrored onto #red-ui-header-tabs.nr-grouped-flows-enabled). Override them in a custom theme or a browser extension stylesheet targeting the same selector.

NR5 only

On Node-RED 5.x, the tab bar lives in the redesigned header rather than inside the workspace, so growing it also has to grow the header itself (otherwise the Palette/Workspace/Sidebar row below gets covered). This is handled automatically at runtime - the plugin measures the actual rendered height of the tab bar and applies it, rather than trusting a fixed number - but the values below are the fallback used for the very first render before that measurement lands, and can be overridden if your theme's tab row height is unusually large:

Defined on #red-ui-editor.

Debug Mode

Debug logging can be toggled from the browser console without restarting Node-RED:

window.nrGroupedTabsDebug(true)   // enable
window.nrGroupedTabsDebug(false)  // disable

Debug output is written to the browser console under the [nr-grouped-flows][debug] prefix.

License

Apache-2.0. See NOTICE for attribution on the imported Node-RED 5.x compatibility work.