The rebuilding nodes in the electron Node-RED

[kazuhitoyokoi]

As we talked about in the pull request, the electron version of Node-RED needs to rebuild nodes that have version-specific binary because the binary is incompatible between Node.js in the Electron and normal Node.js which is installed in the local machine. In this discussion, I would like to clarify the timing when the rebuilding process is needed. In my understanding, there are two cases as follows.

• Case 1: Rebuilding when changing the Node-RED environment
  When a user changes the environment from normal Node-RED to Election Node-RED, there may be some existing nodes that the user installed using the normal Node-RED environment. In this case, the Electron version of Node-RED needs to rebuild all of the existing nodes before starting Node-RED.

• Case 2: Rebuilding after installing a new node
  When a user installs a new node in the Electron Node-RED environment, the installed node requires rebuilding for the electron environment.

The pre/postInstall hook is for the case 2 only. Therefore, we need to consider case 1.

[dceejay]

For the whole electron app - is it really using the existing ~/.node-red directory ? Are we really expecting users to be able to swap between electron use and an existing install ? How would they swap back ?

[kazuhitoyokoi]

The current implementation is using the ~/.node-red directory. If users want to swap back to normal Node-RED, they need to execute npm rebuild.

As you asked, another directory like ~/.node-red-installer may be better for the Electron app to separate it from the normal Node-RED environment.

[knolleary]

Right, this is all part of the basic standalone design that still hasn't been agreed. We need to agree the basic model of what the installer provides.