You're reading from Practical Node-RED Programming Learn powerful visual programming techniques and best practices for the web and IoT

Product type Paperback

Published in Mar 2021

Publisher Packt

ISBN-13 9781800201590

Length 326 pages

Edition 1st Edition

Languages

JavaScript

Tools

Node-Red

Concepts

Server Side Web Development

Author (1):

Taiji Hagino

View More author details

Table of Contents (19) Chapters

Preface

1. Section 1: Node-RED Basics

2. Chapter 1: Introducing Node-RED and Flow-Based Programming FREE CHAPTER

3. Chapter 2: Setting Up the Development Environment

4. Chapter 3: Understanding Node-RED Characteristics by Creating Basic Flows

5. Chapter 4: Learning the Major Nodes

6. Section 2: Mastering Node-RED

7. Chapter 5: Implementing Node-RED Locally

8. Chapter 6: Implementing Node-RED in the Cloud

9. Chapter 7: Calling a Web API from Node-RED

10. Chapter 8: Using the Project Feature with Git

11. Section 3: Practical Matters

12. Chapter 9: Creating a ToDo Application with Node-RED

13. Chapter 10: Handling Sensor Data on the Raspberry Pi

14. Chapter 11: Visualize Data by Creating a Server-Side Application in the IBM Cloud

15. Chapter 12: Developing a Chatbot Application Using Slack and IBM Watson

16. Chapter 13: Creating and Publishing Your Own Node on the Node-RED Library

17. Other Books You May Enjoy

Appendix: Node-RED User Community

What is a node?

Let's first understand what exactly a node is in Node-RED.

Node-RED is a tool for programming Node.js applications with Graphical User Interface (GUI) tools. Node-RED also serves as an environment for executing software (Node-RED Flow) programmed on Node-RED.

Normally, when programming with Node.js, the source code is written with a code editor or Integrated Development Environment (IDE). An executable file is generated by building the written source code (compiling, associating with dependency files, and so on).

Visual programming on Node-RED basically follows the same process. The difference is that the coding part is the act of placing the node on Node-RED instead of the editor.

In Node-RED, the basic processing used when programming with Node.js is provided by implemented parts called nodes. In normal object-oriented programming, these parts may often be provided as library files in the form of common parts.

Since Node-RED is a GUI-based visual...