Packaging

This section is largely citing the Node-RED documentation.

Nodes can be packaged as modules. This makes them easy to install along with any dependencies they may have.

Naming

If you wish to use node-blue in the name of your node please use node-blue-node- as a prefix to their name. Alternatively, any name that doesn’t use node-blue as a prefix can be used.

Directory structure

Here is a typical directory structure for a node package:

├── LICENSE
├── package.json
├── README.md
└── sample
    ├── examples
    │   ├── example-1.json
    │   └── example-2.json
    ├── icons
    │   └── my-icon.svg
    ├── locales
    │   ├── de
    │   │   ├── sample.help.html
    │   │   └── sample.json
    │   └── en
    │       ├── sample.help.html
    │       └── sample.json
    ├── sample.cred.json
    ├── sample.html
    └── sample.php

There are no strict requirements over the directory structure used within the package. If a package contains multiple nodes, they could all exist in the same directory, or they could each be placed in their own sub-directory.

package.json

Along with the usual entries, the package.json file must contain a node-blue entry that lists the code files that contain nodes for the runtime to load.

Nodes written in some programming languages also require an maxThreadCounts entry. Just set this entry to 0 when you don't start any threads.

Note

Please do NOT add the node-blue keyword until you are happy that the node is stable and working correctly, and documented sufficiently for others to be able to use it.

{
    "name"         : "node-blue-node-samplenode",
    "version"      : "0.0.1",
    "description"  : "A sample node for node-blue",
    "dependencies": {
    },
    "keywords": [ "node-blue" ],
    "node-blue": {
        "maxThreadCounts": {
            "sample": 1
        },
        "nodes": {
            "sample": "sample/sample.s.php"
        }
    }
}

README.md

The README.md file should describe the capabilities of the node, and list any pre-requisites that are needed in order to make it function. It may also be useful to include any extra instructions not included in the info tab part of the node’s html file, and maybe even a small example flow demonstrating it’s use.

The file should be marked up using GitHub flavoured markdown.

LICENSE

Please include a license file so that others may know what they can and cannot do with your code.

Publishing

Just upload your node to any publicly available Git repository.

Adding to Node-BLUE palette

Please post a submission request in the Homegear forum. Before doing that, make sure all of the packaging requests are met.