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In this lecture, I'll show you how you can use the node groups feature in Node Red.

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This allows you to group together one or more notes.

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You can give a group a name.

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You can copy a group and therefore copy all of the notes inside of it and use it in other flows and

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so on.

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Groups have existed in note since version 1.1.0, but also in no division two and onwards.

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Groups have been given the ability to also have their own environment variable set.

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And I'm going to show you how to use environment variables in a separate lecture in Section 18.

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So to get the details of what I'm about to show you, you can go to the documentations user groups,

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ED Workspace groups, and there's quite a bit of information here, but I just want to show you an example

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of how groups work.

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So I've got a very simple flow here, just an inject note to trigger everything that follows after that.

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And I've got a couple of notes here that do something very simple.

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The the change node will just set the payload or whatever comes out of this particular mode to an example

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message which have been set earlier in the inject note here you can see a sample message is set to just

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some fixed text, nothing fancy here.

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But what I want to show you is that I can actually do a multiple select with my mouse and then go to

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the menu up here.

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Groups and group selection like that.

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Now I've got a note group.

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I can get the properties of this group and set those properties by double clicking on the group border.

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And then I can give this group a name.

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And example group set a color for the outline feel.

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It's part of transparency.

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And I'm going to show the label at the top left corner of the books here.

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Okay.

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And you can see what the effect is of what I've just done.

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Of course it is cosmetic.

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A very interesting new feature in.

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No threat to the environment variables.

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I'm going to leave this aside for now and show you how to do that.

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As I said in a separate lecture coming up.

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But you can also have a description set specifically for this node.

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So I can just say here, this is just an example.

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New group, something simple that explains to whoever is looking at your flow and this particular group

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what this group is supposed to do.

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Another nice thing about groups, of course, is convenience.

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So let's say that I want to make a copy of the notes and their associations inside this group.

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I can just select the group first and then do a command C and command V or control C, control V and

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have an exact copy of this group.

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And of course, for a simple flow like this one, a group is not a big deal.

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You don't have much complexity to worry about.

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But if you have something more complex like this, then having the ability to create groups becomes

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a lot more important.

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So for example, I can go and say that I'd like to see be more specific.

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I like to have these items these know selected into a group.

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Done.

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Then I can move all of those items in one go.

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Just move those up a little higher.

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Rearrange things.

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Name it.

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Set the various parameters.

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And of course, a quick copy.

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Of the entire group like that to UN group, the items in a group are to select the group.

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But back to the menu groups and on group.

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And that's it about groups is just a simple way to group together multiple nodes.

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If you're interested in learning how to use environmental diagnoses, start a group and have a look

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at the relevant lecture in Section 18.