uibuilder Template: Blank (Default)

NOTE: You can replace the contents of this README with text that describes your UI.

This is about the simplest template you can get for uibuilder. Is is also (as of uibuilder v5+), the default template.

It does not use any frameworks and has no other dependencies. It demonstrates that you can use uibuilder purely with HTML/JavaScript or even just HTML and still easily build a simple, dynamic, data-driven user interface with the help of Node-RED.

All it does is load the uibuilder client library and connect to Node-RED.

UI

Initially only shows an H1 heading with a sub-heading. However, it contains a <div> with the id "more" which is used by many of the examples in the Node-RED import library.

In addition, the more div uses uibuilder's uib-topic special attribute which allows it to be used as a target for messages sent from Node-RED. This is a useful feature that allows you to easily update the content of the page without having to write any JavaScript code. Send a message containing { topic: 'more', payload: 'Hello World' } to the uibuilder node and the content of the more div will be updated with "Hello World". Note that the payload can contain HTML. As an example, use an inject node with msg.payload set to use a JSONata expression like "<b style='background-color:var(--error)'>Hello!</b> This is a message from Node-RED at " & $moment(). Don't forget to set msg.topic to more so that the uibuilder client library knows where to send the message.

Warning

: Using the "more" topic completely overwrites the contents of the more div.

Folders

/ - The root folder contains this file. It can be used for other things but it will not be served up in the Node-RED web server.
/src/ - the default folder that serves files as web resources. However, this can be changed to a different folder if desired.
/dist/ - the default folder for serving files as web resources where a build step is used. In that case, the /src folder is the source used by the build tool and /dist is the destination for the build (the "distribution" folder).
/routes/ - This folder can contain .js files defining routing middleware for uibuilder's ExpressJS web server.
/api/ - This folder can contain .js files defining REST API's specific to this uibuilder instance.
/types/ - Contains typescript definition files (*.d.ts) for the uibuilder client library. This is not used by uibuilder but can be used by your IDE to provide type checking and auto-completion for the uibuilder client library. This is useful if you are using TypeScript or JavaScript with type checking enabled. Remember to update these for new uibuilder versions.

The above folders will all pre-exist for the built-in uibuilder templates. The folders can safely be removed if not needed but one folder must exist to serve the web resources from (this cannot be the root folder).

The template only has files in the root and src folders. The src folder is the default used by uibuilder to serve up files to clients.

One reserved item in the root folder however will be a package.json file. This will be used in the future to help with build/compile steps. You can still use it yourself, just bear in mind that a future version of uibuilder will make use it as well. If you need to have any development packages installed to build your UI, don't forget to tell npm to save them as development dependencies not normal dependencies.

The dist folder should be used if you have a build step to convert your source code to something that browsers understand. So if you are using a build (compile) step to produce your production code, ensure that it is configured to use the dist folder as the output folder and that it creates at least an index.html file.

You can switch between the src and dist (or other) folders using the matching setting in the Editor. See uibuilder's advanced settings tab.

Also note that you can use linked folders and files in this folder structure. This can be handy if you want to maintain your code in a different folder somewhere or if your default build process needs to use sub-folders other than src and dist.(Though as of v6, you can specify any sub-folder to be served)

Files in this template

package.json: REQUIRED. Defines the basic structure, name, description of the project and defines any local development dependencies if any. Also works with npm allowing the installation of dev packages (such as build or linting tools).
README.md: This file. Change this to describe your web app and provide documentation for it.
eslint.config.js: A pre-configured configuration for the ESLINT tool. Helps when writing front-end code. Note that you need at least eslint v8+ installed for this to work.
LICENSE: A copy of the Apache 2.0 license. Replace with a different license if needed. Always license your code. Apache 2.0 matches the licensing of uibuilder.
src/index.html: REQUIRED. Contains your basic HTML and will be the file loaded and displayed in the browser when going to the uibuilder defined URL.
src/index.js: Contains all of the logic for your UI. It must be linked to in the html file. Optional.
src/index.css: Contains your custom CSS for styling. It must be linked to in the html file. Optional.
tsconfig.json: A configuration file for TypeScript. This can be used by your IDE to provide descriptions, type checking and auto-completion for the uibuilder client library. This is useful if you are using TypeScript or JavaScript with type checking enabled. Uses the typescript definition files in the /types folder, remember to update these for new uibuilder versions.

Note that only the package.json and index.html files are actually required. uibuilder will not function as expected without them.

It is possible to use the index.html file simply as a link to other files but it must be present.

The other files are all optional. However, you will need to change the index.html file accordingly if you rename or remove them.

Multiple HTML pages

uibuilder will happily serve up any number of web pages from a single instance. It will also make use of sub-folders. However, each folder should have an index.html file so that a URL that ends with the folder name will still work without error.

Note that each html file is a separate page and requires its own JavaScript and uibuilder library reference. When moving between pages, remember that every page is stand-alone, a new environment. You can share one index.js file between multiple pages if you prefer but each page will run a separate instance.

If multiple pages are connected to the same uibuilder instance, they will all get the same broadcast messages from Node-RED. So if you want to handle different messages on different pages, remember to filter them in your front-end JavaScript in uibuilder.onChange('msg', ....) function. Turn on the advanced flag for including a msg._uib property in output if you need to differentiate between pages and/or clients in Node-RED.

URL endpoints

When specifying links in your HTML, CSS and JavaScript files, you should use relative URLs. e.g. ./index.mjs will load that file from the src folder or wherever else you have told uibuilder to use.

When using uibuilder's server-side resources, you will generally use ../uibuilder/...., for example ../uibuilder/uib-brand.min.css as seen in the default index.css file. When accessing a front-end library being served by uibuilder, you can use the form ../uibuilder/vendor/..... Use the "Full details" button in the uibuilder node to see all of the possible endpoints you may want to use.

License

This project is licensed under the Apache 2.0 License - see the LICENSE file for details.

This template may be used however you like. It is provided as a test template for uibuilder and is not intended to be a full template. You are free to use it as a starting point for your own template or to use it as-is if you find it useful.

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