doc-RED

A Node-RED plugin to help you managing your flow creation and documentation.

This plugin enhance the Node-RED documentation feature with those features:

• adds a tooltip with the nodes documentation
• adds a documentation-tab to keep an overview for your documentations as well as your todo lists
• shows the input / output names in the tooltip if requested
• adds a small icon if a todo list and/or documentation exists

Usage

General

You can use the node-red documentation section which has every tab, group, subflow or node.

Everything you write there will be counted as normal documentation, with three exceptions:

"# Inputs", "# Outputs" and "# Todo" will be handled different and will always be shown above your documentation in the tooltip (no matter where you write them).

Input and Output

If you want to quickly see the names of your input and outputs you can add an "# Input" (or "# Inputs") or an "# Output" (or "# Outputs") header into your documentation.

If you want also some detailed text for an output you can add a subheader like "## Outputname" and write some text to it.

# Output

This is a docu to the three outputs, but only the special and the error output are documentated...

## special

This special output would be much more important if the flow would go on!

## error

Well, this is unfortunate...

Create a Todo list

Use the node red documentation in a tab, group, subflow or node.

Add a "# Todo" headline and write your text what should be done. This info will be shown in the documentation tab.

Tip: You can use markdown to create a list with things that must be done.

# Todo
- [ ] step 1
- [ ] step 2
- [x] already done step 3
- [ ] step 4

If you use a subflow you can add a todo list either on the node self or in the subflow description. The description on the node will be used if both has a todo description.

Icons

(1) If a node has a todo list a small pencil icon will be added. If the todos are completed, the icon will became light grey. (2) If a node has a documentation a small document icon will be added. If the documentation is purely automatic (#Inputs and or #Outputs) it will became light grey. (3) If a node has a documentation and a todo list it has both icons. This color of the icons in the picture is black, as the todo list is not completed and it has a documentation written.

Hovering on the icons will get you the text (either todos or documentation with Inputs and Output texts)

Documentation tab

If you want to have an overview on your documentations as well as your open tasks use the documentation tab.

It lists all nodes by the order subflow -> subflow nodes, flow -> groups -> nodes. If you hover the node you also get a search icon to find the position of the node and an shortcut to edit the nodes documentation.

You can also search for any text you see in the tab.

If your todo has a completed list, it will still be added but with grey text and a (done) suffix.

The documentation tap also has a settings menu. Here you can hide the tooltips or the icons on the workspace or show only todos in your documentation tab.

Gitpod and example json

A ready to launch gitpod setting is available. Just start it, wait till your workspace is ready and start "node-red examples/todo.json".

License

This repository and the code inside it is licensed under the MIT License. Read LICENSE for more information.