FlowForge 1.1 released with persistent file storage

Persist files on your FlowForge Projects, publish locally developed flows to dozens of Devices in a few clicks, and use our new interface for managing Project Deployments.

We're pleased to announce version 1.1 is now available! The latest release of the FlowForge application contains new features, many improvements, and bug fixes. Keep reading for the details of what's in this release or you can watch our 1 minute roundup video of the new release above.

#  Features

Persistent File Storage We've had a great deal of feedback from our customers that being able to persist files in a project is a vital feature in Node-RED. In FlowForge 1.1 flows can now create and persist files within your Projects. We know those files are used in many creative ways and we're looking forward to seeing how users improve their Projects using this new feature.

Import Snapshots from Outside FlowForge Developers may wish to work on Node-RED in a local environment but want an easy path to share that with their team. You can now link your Node-RED instances running outside of FlowForge and push Snapshots directly into your FlowForge Projects to leverage FlowForge fully. With this new feature we've made it effortless to push a local build of a project to FlowForge for deployment to your staging and production FlowForge instances.

#  Improvements

Project Deployments UX We've reworked the interface for managing your FlowForge Deployments of Node-RED. We are seeing FlowForge users deploying their Projects to edge devices at scale. This is another step towards making it easier for users to manage a large quantity of devices in their Projects.

When users change their username, email address, or password they'll now be notified through email of changes to ensure they were made by the user.

In this release a lot of effort went into the install process, specifically the local install method. First and foremost; a default Stack and Template will be installed automatically. That will ensure users get up and running with Node-RED more quickly. Administrators of each platform can still change Stacks and Templates when needed. Secondly, the installer now auto generates the configuration file for Mosquitto, the MQTT broker FlowForge uses. This again should save administrators time when installing FlowForge.

#  Bug Fixes

The v1.0.1 release included a bug fix where snapshot rollbacks didn't work, which has also been included in v1.1 onwards.

We've fixed the following bugs in this release.

• When installing the stack during a FlowForge installation the process would quit on Windows #62

• After accepting an invite to join a team, users are no longer seeing a blank page #1208

• Pagination on device deployments wasn't showing all devices #1207

• Markdown rendering when selecting the project type wasn't quite working, fixed now! #1171

• Continuous spinner in UI body when entering a new (short) password #1280

• Friendly stack name not shown in the Change Project Stack option list #1169

• The stacks view in the admin area didn't render properly #1260

• Like the deployments page, pagination for stacks was broken. #1164

• Several UX and UI bugs got polished away!

#  Contributors

We'd like the thank the following for their contributions to this release:

mikermcneil for their work on #1301

As an open-source project, we welcome community involvement in what we're building. If you're interested in contributing, checkout our guide in the docs.

#  Try it out

As said before, a lot of effort went into the local installer. We're confident you can have your own FlowForge running locally in about 30 minutes. Get started right away! (Docker and Kubernetes are available too!)

If you'd rather use our hosted offering: Sign up for FlowForge Cloud with the coupon RELEASE11 to get your first project free for a month.

#  Upgrading FlowForge

FlowForge Cloud is already running 1.1. To use persisted files you'll need to upgrade your projects stack. You'll be prompted to do so on the project page.

If you installed a previous version of FlowForge and want to upgrade, our documentation provides a guide for upgrading your FlowForge instance

#  Getting help

Please check FlowForge's documentation as the answers to many questions are covered there.

If you hit any problems with the platform please raise an issue on GitHub. That also includes if you have any feedback or feature requests.

Chat with us on the #flowforge channel on the Node-RED Slack workspace.

You can also raise a support ticket by emailing support@flowforge.com