- docs
- Overview
- Administering FlowForge
- Contributing to FlowForge
- FlowForge API
- FlowForge Cloud
- Using FlowForge
- Changing the Stack
- devices
- Environment Variables
- FlowForge Concepts
- FlowForge File Nodes
- FlowForge Persistent Context
- FlowForge Project Nodes
- Instance Settings
- Logging
- Migrating a Node-RED project to FlowForge
- Node-RED Tools plugin
- Shared Team Library
- Snapshots
- Staged Deployments
- Teams
- Running FlowForge
- Installing FlowForge
- Configuring FlowForge
- DNS Setup
- Docker install
- Email configuration
- First Run Setup
- FlowForge File Storage
- Install FlowForge on Kubernetes
- Local Install
- Upgrading FlowForge
# FlowForge Project Nodes
Node-RED instances running within FlowForge include a set of nodes that make it very quick and easy to securely send and receive messages between different instances in a team.
The nodes act in a similar way to the Node-RED Link nodes, but by allowing the links to extended between different instances, they open up a wide range of possibilities.
For example, a single Node-RED instance may contain a set of utility flows that you want to reuse in other instances. Rather than copy the flows around, the Project Nodes allow you to easily call those flows and get the result back.
# Nodes
There are three nodes in the Project Node collection:
Project In- listens for messages being broadcast by other Node-RED instances, or for messages being sent just to this instanceProject Out- sends messages to other Node-RED instancesProject Call- sends messages to other instances and waits for a response
The nodes send the whole msg object. Due to the way the nodes encode messages, there are some data types that do not get sent. For example, the msg.req/msg.res properties used by the core HTTP nodes will not be sent.
Each node is configured with a topic on which it either sends or receives messages on. This is similar in concept to MQTT topics - although the nodes do not currently support using MQTT wildcards in their topics.
The Project Out nodes can either broadcast messages on a topic to anyone listening, or they can send messages on a topic to a specific other instance.
The Project In nodes do the opposite - they can either listen for messages being broadcast, or for messages sent directly to them.
The Project Call node can be used to send a message to another Project In node and then wait for a response, with a built-in timeout if it doesn't arrive. The response is sent back using a Project Out node configured to respond to the call node.
# GitHub
The nodes are published under an Apache-2.0 license and available on GitHub.