Nodezator is a generalist Python node editor
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Micoloth
KennedyRichard
Hello, creator and maintainer of Nodezator here. I love Blender. Used it a lot until 2013. The only reason I haven't used it in the past few years is because I'm not involved with anything that requires me to work with 3D design. In addition to that, I found out recently that Blender doesn't launch anymore on my 4Gb RAM machine.
Blender is the reason why I created Nodezator, that is, because I wanted to use Blender's node editor for general computing as well, not only for 3D related workflows. I even bought Bartek Skorupa's DVD course on compositing with Blender, remember that?
Certainly there must be possible in theory to fork Blender's node-related internals into a standalone app. However, I very much doubt that'd be a trivial task, much less for someone in my situation at the time. When I started making Nodezator I had only been using Python for 2 years and knew nothing of C/C++.
According to Blender's developer website, Python is used for "interface layout, simple tools, key-maps, presets and add-ons", while GLSL is used for shaders and all the rest of the code is C++ (and a bit of C). There's also the size of Blender's repo (1GB + 979MB of LFS storage). With 1GB of source, even with someone skilled enough to disentangle the node editor bits from Blender's source, I believe it would still take a lot of time and probably not an endeavour for a single person. I think that is the reason why no one did it before.
That'd be awesome though!
cyanydeez
Animation nodes plugin for blender did wonders for understanding blender bedfore it was basically consumed by the core team by Jacques Locke
WillAdams
That last point is _very_ interesting.
catapart
Blender was my first thought here, too.
A while ago, I was asked to write a plugin for Blender since I really liked the program. I looked into it but realized that it was a python-only situation and I really just can't stand coding like that, so I passed on it. But if I could get the python ecosystem without having to code like that - that's a really interesting prospect!
Never looked in to its package size, as far as UI goes, but that does sound like something that could be interesting! I do wonder how different it is from imgui, but there could be something there!
echelon
It looks like ComfyUI, which is blowing up in the creative space.
hhthrowaway1230
Great work, I love node based uis! I'm still looking for an isolated minmal python package that soly does the backend part of these graph node frameworks like comfy, n8n, or node-red. I.e loading json & serialziing, executing nodes. Which also includes the various ways of processing nodes. Like topology sort, node executing queues. If you all know something lmk!
KennedyRichard
Hello, creator/maintainer of Nodezator here. Nodezator is not a framework, but an application where you can load, connect and execute your Python functions as a graph. You can also export your graphs back as Python code. Even so, it seems it is not what you are looking for.
Unfortunately I don't have much experience with other similar projects. I did research many of them before deciding to make my own in case one existed that already met my needs. Didn't find what I wanted, which is why I made Nodezator.
However, this doesn't mean what I found was bad. Quite the contrary. There are a few interesting node editor projects in the Python ecosystem, each awesome in their own particular way. Unfortunately, as I said, I can't say much about them, and some of them don't seem to be maintained often. Even so, I'll mention them here in case you want to take a look.
Ryven - always come up in node editor discussions PyFlow - another one that is mentioned often DearPyGui - python GUI framework built on top of imgui, includes facilities for node editing interfaces (I find their nodes very charming) NetworkX - not a node editor framework, but a lib with lots of utilities for representing and operating on graphs
halfcat
Say more. Are you wanting “Node-RED but for Python”? Or the non-UI parts that are accessible programmatically?
I’ve had similar interests and realized I essentially needed two things:
1. Something like “FastAPI without the HTTP parts”. Basically a request/response cycle with middleware functionality, where we run a registered Python callable in response to a JSON request, but where that JSON request can be from any source, like “pulled from a queue” or read from the command line, instead of “pushed from a web browser”. For that I essentially pieced together a basic task registration decorator class with pydantic’s `validate_call` decorator and let pydantic handle the serialization/deserialization. There are libraries like FastAPI, typer, Celery and others that do this, but they’re all tightly coupled with specific transports. I want to be able to delegate to a developer “build a function that takes this JSON and performs this task and returns JSON”, but not with HTTP (FastAPI), and I don’t want to be required to add Redis to run some small task (Celery), and I do want the task to be callable by CLI (typer), but not only CLI. It seems like there are all of these tools but none of them are loosely coupled enough to do this in a straightforward way.
2. Some way to run a directed acyclic graph (DAG) of those registered tasks. There are lots of tools that do this in varying degrees of heaviness (Airflow, Luigi, Dagster, etc), but for a lightweight solution this is built into Python with graphlib’s TopologicalSorter. But the point here would be, whichever one of these you pick, it helps to have #1 available in a way that allows for generic “running approved Python functions from JSON”.
So I sort of have those parts of it roughed out, but now I’d also like a better UI for it, for instance to allow for a more high level dashboard red/yellow/green status of things, or to enable a less technical user to adjust the schedule of a registered task, and so on. Django’s admin portal is a first step her but ultimately we’d need something more interactive to make it a team effort where more employees can contribute without needing to know Python.
Towaway69
NodeRED has a very simple json format to describe flows - basically an array of objects with each object describing a node and its connection.
If there were to be a commonality of formats between various node-based programming environments then an interchange between backends and frontends would be possible.
I was thinking of creating a python interpreter for node red flows but stopped at things such as jsonata support and mustache template engine.
NodeRED does make much use of its underlying NodeJS roots.
mistercow
I can see some advantages of this kind of editor for specific contexts, like if you’re building a shader, this UI forces you to be purely functional without explicitly teaching purely functional concepts.
But it seems like there’s also a general feeling that this is easier than learning how to code, and I guess my question is… is it? Is this really a better idea than a simple to use API with a DSL (or just a simple language like Go or Lua). Is it just less intimidating to beginners?
You still have to learn the concepts and rules of the system, in addition to figuring out cable management. It seems to make documenting your “code” a lot harder. And now with AI assistants, you’re giving up even more by not working with text.
MrLeap
I've got 2 decades of professional programming experience under my belt and I still think node graph editors are grand. I regularly use VFXGraph / Shadergraph / Custom nodegraph editors for various gamedev things (e.g. dialog trees, checkpoint graphs, all sorts of things)
I'm very defensive of my "repl latency". By that I mean, how much effort/time does it take for me to see the results of my change in action? Every node editor that's found its way into my workflow brings that latency down to real time.
They provide much more information so much faster about every change you're making as you're making it. It's like a causality scope. If the widget you're tuning/iterating on benefits from that, they're a joy.
mistercow
Isn’t that, again, specifically a benefit of being purely functional?
MrLeap
To me, the way inputs and outputs are presented in nodegraph editors adds value on top of the benefits functional programming provides. You see the cascade of every change in real time. Change parameters and see every stage's new inputs and outputs as they're transformed.
If I added Logger.Log calls to show as much info, my console would be a blur. I wouldn't be able to click on a parameter in my log and change its value and see what the consequences were.
You can change values at a breakpoint, but that's a single moment in time. If your code's running at 60hz, breakpoints can feel like trying to solve a where's waldo through an electron microscope.
I have not came across any workflow in my IDEs that is as flexible and informative for the situations where nodegraph editors shine. If something comes to mind for you, I'd love to know about it.
There's no theoretical reason a text editor couldn't be made to show the same cross section of key information though. TempleOS is kind of like that lol.
eternityforest
One really nice thing about visual programming in general is that it can be done from a phone. Not so much with free nodes, but with more constrained block based interfaces it can be pretty easy.
It's really nice for IoT controls, you can edit stuff without taking a laptop to the thing you're editing.
It also doesn't require memorizing anything, although LLMs largely solve that in text.
But before that one off tasks were annoying in text, every three months having to Google the exact same command syntax or dig up an old script as a reference just for one line of code.
KennedyRichard
Hello, creator and maintainer of Nodezator here.
> seems like there’s also a general feeling that this is easier than learning how to code, and I guess my question is… is it?
IMHO, node-based programming will never and should never replace text-based programming. Neither is in fact a replacement for the other. There are problems that benefit more from one approach and other problems that benefit more from the other one. There are also many problems that benefit from the cooperation between both approaches. There's even problems for which we should use neither, for instance, when a spreadsheet would suffice.
Unfortunately, many node editor projects sell/promote their tools as silver bullets that will solve all people's problems and replace all their tooling. I think this attitude prevented a more wide adoption of node editors and harmed their reputation a lot. It also prevented a lot of experimentation with them that could have led to more established and efficient workflows.
In the Nodezator project, it is quite the contrary. I only recommend the usage of a node editor, including my own, for specific problems for which node editors are better suited.
Which kind of problems are that? Well, since node editors are still not used much as tools for general computing, we only know about specific domains, like media compositing, for instance. There's much to be researched and experimented still.
I myself use Nodezator for generating position animation data for a 2D game as well as images that I use in video editing workflows in other apps. This year I've been very busy with development work so I didn't do much research, but since last year I've been experimenting with a lot of different tasks and documented my findings a bit. I'm only scratching the surface though. Experimented with SVG image generation and even parametric generation of 3D models. If you want to know more, you can check this thread on twitter/x: https://x.com/KennedyRichard/status/1747605744361300126
I'd also like to experiment more with workflows for non-programmers in the future (for instance, where someone designs a set of nodes and only teaches a non-programmer how to combine them for various tasks), although I already expect node editors to succeed in various domains regarding this (but as I said before, never replace text-based programming). The reason is that it already is used like that with success in other software. For instance, in Blender 3D, where non-programmers use their node editor for many different 3D-related workflows.
WillAdams
If you wish to look into DXFs I worked up a technique for making them at:
https://github.com/WillAdams/gcodepreview/blob/main/gcpdxf.p...
baq
It’s somewhere between excel and traditional source trees. It isn’t a bad idea, but the tooling isn’t there for general purpose work.
KennedyRichard
Hello, everyone! Creator and maintainer of Nodezator here!
Oh, so this post is the reason why the traffic for Nodezator's GitHub repo has been spiking today. I already replied to a few questions here, but I won't be able to do many more today. I'll try to answer all of them over the time though, so ask as much as you'd like. Thank you for taking a look at my tool and for all the feedback provided, it is much, genuinely appreciated.
SpeakinTelnet
KennedyRichard
DearPyGUI with its imnodes extension seems to be a good candidate as well.
Also, not a node editor, but NetworkX also has ways to represent and operate on graph data.
agumonkey
the customizable node source code is neat
antman
Very nice! It might be able to run on the browser with pygame-wasm/pybag
KennedyRichard
Creator/maintainer here!
December last year a user managed to run an instance on browser, as can be seen here: https://sefgit.github.io/nodezator/build/web/ (you must wait a few seconds for it to load, them again after the black screen, at least for me, but it works)
Corresponding repo: https://github.com/sefgit/nodezator/tree/nodezator-pygbag-de...
There are no official plans to bring and support Nodezator on the web for now, given how much Nodezator still has to evolve and implement. However, initiatives like that are very interesting and may indeed inspire and motivate us to pursue the possibility in the future.
tecoholic
Love the auto connection graphics choices :)
KennedyRichard
Thank you! Creator/maintainer here! My favorite is the ball toss one!
I'm happy I also included the more serious one (the one which is just an assisting line), so people can switch to it when they need to focus more on the work, though.
After I announced the feature, back when it was just on a dev branch, a lot of people either implemented the feature on their apps or requested the feature from the devs of their favorite projects.
That's the nice thing about open-source projects, that is, that we can all share knowledge/solutions.
I even wanted to submit an addon to Blender 3D, one of my favorite OSS projects, but unfortunately its more recent versions don't even launch on my 4Gb RAM machine (which is understandable considering how the scope of the project grew in the past years).
Socket proximity detection, regardless of the graphics used, should be available in every node interface, cause moving the mouse precisely between sockets to connect them in a single motion can be annoying, specially considering the countless time we must repeat such action in a single node editing session. Increasing the size of the sockets to help this isn't a good solution either, because it would take precious space from the nodes, which is better left for widgets and other useful controls.
jamilton
The hand-holding and the ball toss are both super cute.
tgv
Yeah, that's a nice solution. I hope there's something as clever as that for long distance connections. One of the pain points of graphic programming is large panes with lots of nodes.
Someone
FTA: “For instance, this is all you need to turn numpy.save() into a node:
from numpy import save
main_callable = save
third_party_import_text = 'from numpy import save'
So, if you want to turn multiple Numpy methods into nodes, you’ll have to copy-paste-edit this?
Looks unergonomic and slow (repeatedly parsing the Numpy file, once for each node to create) to me.
I would think a single file
from numpy import save,foo,bar,baz
What do I overlook?
KennedyRichard
Creator/maintainer of Nodezator here!
You are completely right. This very week someone on Discord presented a relatively simple script he came up (with help from AI) that could do the job relatively well.
As the creator/maintainer of the app, I always appreciate this kind of feedback.
In this specific case, as I said to the person that presented the script, I did think about the possibility in the past, but didn't put time into it because at the time there were a few corner cases that came to mind.
Also, as someone with insight into the many different parts that comprise Nodezator, it is not enough that a existing/pointed solution works, I must also think about ways in which these solutions integrate with the rest of the app, in order for everything to play well together.
For instance, that is not the only improvement I'm planning for the node definitions. I have several ideas, both mine or shared by other users, for improving the node definitions. So I have to plan everything carefully before deciding on anything to avoid redoing things.
Again, thank you for pointing that out though!
WillAdams
At a guess, the implementation detail/difficulty of making multiple nodes from a single declaration.
skeledrew
You could use a script to automate creating the modules from import specs.
magic_hamster
That's pretty cool. Not something I'd use for serious work, but a fun little toy nonetheless.
rcarmo
This is pretty amazing. I have so many ideas in what to do with it.
dennisy
Really? I thought it was very cool too, but had no idea what to do with it.
Would be interesting to hear what you feel this is well suited for?
rcarmo
Well, LLM workflows, to begin with.
teaearlgraycold
Also basic ML tasks
siva7
For whom is this? Is this some kind of editor for low-code folks?
throwthrowuknow
Node editors are also a good way to quickly compose fairly complex programs or modules even for experienced programmers. Working with them also forces you to design good interfaces for your code and eliminate tight coupling that often plagues many code bases. They do have downsides especially when using them to create complex workflows where they tend to evolve into ugly spaghetti monsters but you can prevent that by moving those workflows to code once you’ve settled on a design. This library seems like it would make that easy to do.
almostgotcaught
> Node editors are also a good way to quickly compose fairly complex programs or modules even for experienced programmers.
Experienced programmers use composition methods for their complex programs that are much more complex than connecting functions based on input and output. Well at least I hope they do.
throwthrowuknow
Man, HN really is full of shitty redditors now. Enjoy your bucket.
Towaway69
If you understand unix pipes then node based programming can make sense, for example in the guise of node red.
Think of nodes representing computation and lines the flow of data between distinct computational units and you have unix pipelines. This is what node red does.
This editor is more complex since it’s connects output to individual inputs.
skeledrew
A good way to not only eliminate syntax errors (given the minimal typing), but also greatly reduce type errors (although from a glance I don't see mention of type-hint checks to ensure incompatible sockets aren't connectable). It bothers me that I see nothing about async support, nor reusing a graph as a node in another graph (after all, it's all function compositions). Maybe I'll try it, but I don't like to think of the hoops I may have to jump through to work around limitations.
KennedyRichard
Creator/maintainer here. Thank you for the feedback, it is much, genuinely appreciated.
Nodezator has a long way to go. I only picked Python seriously back in 2017. At the time, type safety was in its infancy and in my experience most Python learning resources didn't even mention type hints, much less static typing.
Then I started making Nodezator in 2019, but only managed to launch it in 2022 due to a health-related hiatus.
Even so, I already have plans to greatly improve type safety in the future, with a related announcement to be made in a week or so.
Nodezator is a serious project, but since its development depends mostly on one person (me), its progress is relatively slow. Despite that, I manage to publish a couple big releases every year. Slowly but surely, though, Nodezator is evolving, mainly due to continued feedback from the community and userbase. So again, I thank you for the feedback.
samlinnfer
Is this in anyway related or inspired by ComfyUI
stavros
Node editors aren't new, ad Comfy isn't a particularly innovative example, so this would be like asking if the Honda Civic was inspired by the Skoda Fabia because they're both cars.
doctorhandshake
To be fair, this looks extremely similar to the comfy node editor. Would be a little more like asking if the Ford Fusion and the Lincoln MKZ are related because they look a hell of a lot alike from the outside.
throwaway314155
It doesn't look very similar to me. No more similar than Unreal Engine blueprints. ComfyUI has a better design I think but again, it's borrowing from other projects in that respect (and i don't think they would deny that)
KennedyRichard
Creator/maintainer here.
While I'm always glad to take inspiration from other projects and did research a few of them before creating mine, ComfyUI wasn't among the ones I researched.
In fact, I'm not sure it even existed at the time. I started making Nodezator at the beginning of 2019 and released it on June 2022, whereas the first tagged version of ComfyUI seems to be from May 2023, according to their repo.
I took a lot of inspiration from Blender though, and in fact reproduced many of its features/behaviours.
deknos
I would recommend you build a flatpak or guix package for this :)
dufzh
like node-red?
Towaway69
Node red is different since it defines message passing between computational units. It describes the flow of data between computational units.
pshirshov
Manual graph editors are extremely counter-productive for any program with more than a couple of dozens of nodes. All the code structuring issues still apply but now you also have a graph to maintain. And also you have an underlying framework which you have to understand (like in Node-RED). And you have versioning issues. And it's hard or impossible to write tests. And it might be difficult to share code across projects.
A better metaphor is a regular code editor which also shows your program as a graph in a sidebar and allows you to run quick simulations in a sandbox.
andybak
My feeling is that people need to stop building graphical node editors until we've solved some basic issues and agreed on some common standards.
1. Playing nice with version control. Opening a graph and moving a node by one pixel should cause not merge conflicts. Stop mixing logic and layout together.
2. Lossless round-tripping to a human-readable text format. Text editing tools are insanely powerful for many things. Not being able to use them is a huge drawback of node-based development
3. A common format that allows people to build tools that are agnostic to your specific environment. Node editors themselves should be like IDEs - not tied to a specific app. I don't use a different code editor when I switch from Godot to Unity - why is the node editor any different.
4. Just better everything. Batch/bulk changes, search/replace, auto-align. The quality of these essential features varies from "passable" to "what?"
Everyone is reinventing the wheel all the time. Every platform, app, environment has it's own way of editing node graphs. And most of them suck. The amount of wasted effort for mediocre outcomes...
Finally - are we sure node graphs are the best metaphor? Modifier stacks (like 3DS Max) give you 80% of what you want for many use-cases and they are a lot easier to learn and use.
Event grids are great for many things - and again they are much simpler.
Maybe node graphs should be the "expert mode" not the default (although the real "expert mode" is surely good old text coding - with all it's faults)
threecheese
Have you seen the Haystack editor? Addresses some of this: https://github.com/haystackeditor/haystack-editor
I am interested in “node-based” design tools and libraries, given the convergence of editors and whiteboards within the knowledge management domain (Obsidian canvas, Heptabase), and they are encountering the kinds of issues you noted. The generative AI boom has been pushing this along very quickly, by improving and creating libraries to support tools like ComfyUI, DAG visualizers, and knowledge graphs; these solutions being so “close to the code”, I am hopeful they’ll be solved.
WillAdams
The Haystack Editor has been mentioned here previously, and seems quite promising.
It makes an interesting contrast to:
https://leo-editor.github.io/leo-editor/
I wound up using TeXshop/TeXworks with a Literate Programming setup I hacked together with a bit of help from A.X. on tex.stackexchange:
https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/722886/how-to-write-...
andybak
My first thought was "I didn't mean browser-based GUIs" but then I paused.
It still feels wrong for the kind of apps I'm usually thinking of when people talk about node editors - none of them are web apps.
But I guess convergence and all that.
nox101
> 3. A common format
I'm not convinced this is possible. Text is simple which is why it is easy to make multiple editors. Most other things are not.
For example imagine structured drawing programs. Some might support circles, others might support ovals. If the 2nd one writes an oval and the first one doesn't support ovals then it's no longer portable. You can't think of all the features you could possibly want therefore you can't have a portable format. Even for the same features, one app might store a circle as center+radius and another as left corner+right corner of it's bounding box, and yet another as center+widthRadius+heightRadius and another as center+angleOfRotation+2radiuses and another as radius+group(scale/rotation/position)
You can see this issue throughout structured drawing programs. Illustrator,Affinity Design, Inkscape. They might all export/import to SVG but they lose all the data that makes them editable because every app supports different features and or similar features but defined in different ways.
Even pixel image formats are not portable for all the same reasons. Yes you can load/save a PNG from any image editor. But, generally, trying to load the apps own format, the one where it's still in a more editable format, into another editor is at best a lossy feature and usually not supported. It's lossy, because the editor doing the loading doesn't support every feature of the other app. For example, Photoshop supports "smart layers" (layers where the data is not rasterized into the layer but rendered on demand). Those layers can contain PDFs. So your app needs a PDF renderer to load and render them and keep them editable.
Node editors will arguably have all the same issues. The simplest example is that they might all support different widgets inside the nodes. A music node editor might show waves, or knobs. A graphics node editor might show a spinible cube/sphere preview. A node editor for tablets will also likely have a different UX.
threecheese
I agree that it would be tough to create a uniform standard; there’s at least one library that tries to use/extend SVG features for defining node shapes, and even they admit it’s a PITA and so provide programmatic wrappers: [GoJS Geometry](https://gojs.net/latest/api/symbols/Geometry.html)
They leverage SVG Paths [1] to define node/object shapes, and so you can use Bézier curves and other entities defined in the SVG spec in your graphs [2]. Alternatively you can just reference .svg files. They have a lot of cool samples [3]. I don’t remember where I came across it, but I’ve been digging through github to find the libraries that popular tools use; there are 3k forks, so somebody likes it.
1. [SVG Paths](https://www.w3.org/TR/SVG/paths.html) 2. [GoJS Path Strings](https://gojs.net/latest/intro/geometry.html) 3. [GoJS Samples](https://gojs.net/latest/samples/)
vacuity
Then you need to have editors specify which features they support and create common standards to make sure that two editors that support the same feature can actually understand each others' encodings of it. It's unfortunately too true that we will never have a single, perfect standard in any domain. It falls upon us to create smaller standards and be explicit in which ones we each dabble in. Otherwise there are no standards at all.
andybak
Surely it's no different to how IDEs can support autocomplete and intellisense for multiple languages. Something like a LSP definition would tell the editor what nodes were supported and what the syntax rules were.
Previews and feedback would be the toughest problem - a lot of node editors are very closely tied to rendering (or the equivalent) and real time feedback is common.
But - these are challenges more than they are blockers.
nox101
They aren't. For proof I give 50 years of this problem not being solved anywhere except text files effectively because text files have no structure except line feed.
There is no universal format for formatted text. You could point to HTML but try exporting to HTML from Word and then importing back in and you'll see what's missing. There is no universal format for structured graphics. No universal format for raster graphics. No universal format for 3D. No universal format for spreadsheets. Etc.....
They all have the same issue. There are infinite possible features and infinite possible ways to represent those features, each with their own tradeoffs.
andybak
And yet somehow every day people are importing files from one application into another application.
A solution doesn't have to be 100% to be useful. 3D file formats are a complete mess and yet somehow movies get made.
halfcat
> are we sure node graphs are the best metaphor? Modifier stacks (like 3DS Max) give you 80%
Worth noting that, generally speaking, a linear sequence of modifier steps is what we get as the output of a topological sort on a DAG.
Meaning, it is indeed simpler and easier to reason about if we just let the user define and manage that list, as opposed to building a graph which then produces that list.
It seems like both concepts can happily coexist, if the task runner just needs a list of tasks. Then any structure that can be transformed into a list can work (list, tree, graph), and then a “modifier stack generator” can transform a tree using a tree search, or a graph using a topological sort (or whatever algorithm is appropriate based on the kind of graph).
andybak
Not all node graphs are DAGs - a lot of audio platforms allow cycles I believe.
But I'm thinking more about how the user would want to interact with the system.
The trouble with graphs is that they tend to nudge you towards spaghetti and they tend to force micromanagement of layout on you. Smart autolayouts alleviate this latter point somewhat but you also lose some of the semantic value that spatial organisation provides.
Depending on the application you tend to most be doing "fan out" or "fan in" - most of the graph is a tree. "Fan in" is easy to handle in a stack. A modifier takes another stack as input. The other stack doesn't have to live somewhere different spatially - it can just be hidden and shown as needed.
I just don't want to spend my time tidying up my graph and zooming in and out just to see things. Node graphs are probably responsible for a decent chunk of the sales of incredibly large monitors! I like to work on a small-ish laptop and I have the eyesight of a middle-aged man.
WillAdams
Excellent points.
(much of the below has been posted in other discussions here, my apologies to folks who are seeing it for the _n_th time)
This is a sort of tool I've believed in/wanted for a long while (and I've been funding the author and chatting with him on Discord and via e-mail), but there seem to be a few fundamental issues which good answers need to be found for:
>What does an algorithm look like?
Can such visual tools be expressive enough to justify the effort?
They seem to work well for problems which can be expressed as one screen of diagram --- and while making modules would seem an easy way to increase the complexity, this goes against the initial mode of expression and if overdone, results in the wall-of-text one is trying to escape from, just dressed up in colored boxes and lines. Once one starts to scroll, or can't see the entire flow at a glance, things get complicated.
And of course, there are collections such as:
https://blueprintsfromhell.tumblr.com/
https://scriptsofanotherdimension.tumblr.com/
which might be used as arguments against.
I've been using:
https://www.blockscad3d.com/editor/
but it doesn't support all of OpenSCAD (and has some annoying bugs in what it does try to implement) and also funded:
https://github.com/derkork/openscad-graph-editor
but it has problems with a stylus (I have to leave the Windows Settings app open to toggle stylus behaviour which is enough friction that I don't use it as much as I would otherwise).
Hopefully the author will pop in and share a bit.
derefr
To me, it’s always been strange that we speak of “node editors” as the concept here, when the defining abstraction is the data structure of a node graph representing a dataflow.
Specifically:
• with the graph having an associated schema that defines node types;
• where each node type has fields, properties, and connectors;
• where fields are (potentially runtime data-bound) inputs, with types that define their data type, bounds, quantization, etc. and thus equate to a single optimal choice of input control;
• where properties are like fields, but always runtime data-bound, and read-only;
• where connectors are the actual graph vertices; are owned by specific nodes; are directional (in/out/inout); pair with other connectors on other node types, with connections permitted through each connector specifying an interface type that matching connectors must implement;
• where node-level connectors have a “purpose” (registered UUID) that may define how they are rendered at the UX level (e.g. “input” purpose = top or left sticky-outy knob; “plugin inout” = black internal rectangle; etc)
• where all fields have implicit inout connectors to control and/or sample their value; and where all properties have implicit out connectors to sample their value.
(Also, optionally: with sets of nodes able to be encapsulated into groups, with connectors of nodes exposed as connectors of the group, and connectors outside the group able to connect only to the group’s exposed connectors.)
A nodal dataflow graph document, then, would consist of 1. a schema (embedded or referenced); 2. a set of nodes, with groups; 3. the initial values for all fields without schema-specified default values; and 4. the connection edges between connectors.
Note how none of that defines what a program should actually do with a given nodal dataflow graph document, even when it has a well-defined schema.
This is on purpose; to me, a “nodal dataflow graph document” should be a thing like an XML document — able to be processed by domain-specific tools, but also by general-purpose tools. A nodal-dataflow-graph editor, could potentially be such a general-purpose tool.
(When using general-purpose tooling, you’d lose any rendering for domain-specific types in fields/properties, and you wouldn’t be able to “run” the graph… unless these documents could point to logic allowing a generic editor to understand domain types — like HTML5 does with JavaScript-based Custom Element definitions.)
threecheese
Great comment! I also struggle with the terminology, but from a much less cogent perspective :). It’s all over the place. As I dig into the existing libraries for tools like this in github, I keep finding new Topic terms that revolve around many of the same ideas: “dataflow”, “node based”, “graph”, “canvas”, “whiteboard”, “diagrammer”, “workflow”, “drawing”, and on. Systems being built with these components are blurring the lines between graph, diagram, and even text editor, and so maybe I am unfair to criticize; after all, it’s almost as difficult as cache invalidation.
spookie
What are the advantages of modifier stacks?
andybak
Simplicity. Compactness.
VMG
point 1 sentence 2: s/should cause/should not cause/
andybak
Thanks. Fixed.
nkrisc
Graph editors are useful when the nodes represent meaningful abstractions over the underlying code for whatever the domain is.
For example, I could use a bunch of arithmetic nodes to implement matrix multiplication, but a RotateAroundPoint node would be far more useful and desirable.
For low-code users, this is often exactly what they need. You could write a RotateAroundPoint function for them to use, but then they’re still managing a lot of the boilerplate around writing code. Graph editors solve many of these pain points when the correct nodes for the problem-space are offered.
navane
Maybe I'm misunderstanding this tool, but I'm looking for a ui for (technical put non programmer) end users that offers a lot of flexibility. I (the programmer) would create a bunch of partial calculations (the nodes) that the end user then could strong together in advanced and creative ways. The competitive product for the end user is not programming, but Excel.
Towaway69
I spent a year working on visual versioning for NodeRED flows because that was the first thing I felt was missing with NodeRED.
The result was FlowHub.org which differentiates between visual changes and textual changes. Which was my main focus.
There is no visual concept for merge conflict or similar but at least versioning is far simpler since comparison between versions is much simpler.
999900000999
>We recommend Nodezator for intermediate Python users. Or, in case you are not a programmer, have an intermediate Python user next to you so that person can help you set up a no-code/low-code workflow for you.
Seems like they're missing a key market. As an actual programmer using this node editor is going to be slower then just writing code.
I want something like this , but for Rust or another difficult language. Python is so easy this doesn't feel needed.
spookie
If you do anything visual, nodes provide significant iteration advantages (albeit with some other disadvantages).
Given the examples, I believe this is targeted to such uses.
fmbb
What are the advantages this provides that specifically apply to working with visual end results?
There is one kind of iterative work I can see nodes/graphical coding have a great advantage: when you don’t know what you really want to do. You want to compose and reorder a bunch of operations or compositions thereof speculatively and just see what happens.
Moving code around and reorganizing it by trial and error is definitely something I can see visual programming excel at.
WillAdams
No syntax errors is the big one for me.
Such tools are also great for exposing functionality --- what you see on-screen is what you can do.
bondarchuk
Tying together calls to existing functions is also not the difficult part of Rust, I'd guess.
I have a few questions - Is this inspired/based on the Blender node editor package?
Some stylistic choices look very much taken from there, even if some other details (eg font) look much more primitive
- If it’s not based on that, why?
Blander has an Excellent Python-based cross-platform ui which is completely open source. I’ve always thought it’s a crying shame that’s not available as a package to build desktop apps. And I think it would be very good to take things from there, like their very mature graph editor