POST /flow - label optional but not generated, causing issues

[Shaquu]

During writing Swagger API based on Admin API Methods I noticed that Node-RED might behave incorrectly.

Current state

Editor

When clicking which is responsible for adding new flow, new flow will be generated in editor with some properties preassigned, label will be generated providing unique value.

Label

Label generation is based only on flows with labels matching localized format (for eng it is Flow __number__).
Number assigned will be the first missing in the ordered collection.

• Having labels Flow 1, Flow 2 the new generated label will be Flow 3
• Having labels Flow 1, Flow 3, Flow 5 the new generated label will be Flow 2

As mentioned in the precondition labels with names not matching the format will be ignored.

• Having labels Flow 1, Flow 2, My Flow the new generated label will be Flow 3
• Having labels Flow 1, My Flow, Flow 3 the new generated label will be Flow 2

API

In API, we have a POST /flow method.
As described, it should be used to Add a flow to the active configuration. A flow is represented as a tab within the editor..

Method accepts following body:

{
  "id": "91ad451.f6e52b8",
  "label": "Sheet 1",
  "nodes": [ ],
  "configs": [ ]
}

Only nodes is mandatory - as both documentation page and api code proves.

Label

In code, label is optional and if not available is left undefined.

async function addFlow(flow, user) {
    var i,node;
    if (!flow.hasOwnProperty('nodes')) {
        throw new Error('missing nodes property');
    }
    flow.id = redUtil.generateId();

    var tabNode = {
        type:'tab',
        label:flow.label,
        id:flow.id
    }

Issue

While we have added flow with empty label via API it will be displayed as below in the editor.

First of all, you can see that label is empty.
Why could it not be generated just like in the editor?

Secondly, once you try to interact with the flow (to change it's name) you can notice that flow editing is no longer possible for any flow until you refresh the website.

Solutions

API label should be generated if empty

For me it is the most user friendly solution (preferred).
Keeping in mind that we would keep API compatibility and the flow would be generated just like in the editor.

Problem is that we need localization services (i18n) so we can found out how the label should look like.

API label should be mandatory

Probably the easiest, we brake API compatibility (new version required) but we make it clear that API client must provide valid label.