---
title: uibuilder Documentation
description: >
  uibuilder provides a stand-alone web server that allows for interfacing with Node-RED, while giving you help and complete freedom to create custom web interfaces.
created: 2019-06-16 16:16:00
lastUpdated: 2023-02-08 10:17:10
---

It includes many helper features that can reduce or eliminate the need to write code for building data-driven web applications and user interfaces for Node-RED.


All you need to start making use of uibuilder is a uibuilder node added to your flows. Select a suitable URL path and deploy. Then click on the "Open url" button to open the new page in a new tab.

Now you can edit the front-end html, JavaScript and CSS files. You can also send messages to your front end and send messages back to Node-RED.

uibuilder comes with some *templates* to give you some front-end code to get you started. Load a different template if you like, use the editor to customise the UI. Use the library manager if you need any front-end libraries or frameworks (this adds the appropriate folders to the web server so that you can access them from your UI).

uibuilder also comes with a number of *example flows*. These are accessed from Node-RED's "hamburger" menu, import entry. They are fully working flows that demonstrate the use of uibuilder.

## Getting help and contributing

node-red-contrib-uibuilder is contained in a [GitHub repository](https://github.com/TotallyInformation/node-red-contrib-uibuilder) and is [published on npmjs.org](https://www.npmjs.com/package/node-red-contrib-uibuilder) for ease of installation.

Help is available in this documentation, the help sidebar in Node-RED, and the [GitHub WIKI](https://github.com/TotallyInformation/node-red-contrib-uibuilder/wiki). If you get stuck, you can also create a new topic in the [Node-RED Discourse Forum](https://discourse.nodered.org/tag/node-red-contrib-uibuilder) or in the [GitHub discussion section](https://github.com/TotallyInformation/node-red-contrib-uibuilder/discussions).

Issues occuring with uibuilder should be raised in the [GitHub issues log](https://github.com/TotallyInformation/node-red-contrib-uibuilder/issues) but please feel free to discuss in the Node-RED forum first if you like.

WIKI, code (PR's), documentation, and examples are all welcome contributions and I always aim to give credit to contributors. Please see the [contribution guidelines](https://github.com/TotallyInformation/node-red-contrib-uibuilder/blob/main/.github/CONTRIBUTING.md).

## Using uibuilder

* [A first-timers walkthough of using uibuilder](walkthrough1.md) - Let's get started!

* [Did you know?](did-you-know.md) - Things you might not know about uibuilder, hints and tips
* [Creating data-driven web apps with uibuilder and Node-RED](web-app-workflow.md) - Different styles and workflows you can use
* [Configuring uibuilder](uib-configuration.md) - Configure the uibuilder platform. Affects all uibuilder nodes
* [Standard messages](pre-defined-msgs.md) - A catalogue of messages and properties
* [Creating Templates](creating-templates) - Pre-defined and reusable front-end code, dependencies, and optional build steps
* [Browser auto-refresh](browser-refresh.md) - Automatically reload your page after a change
* [Zero-code UI creation](using/zero-code-ui.md) - Dynamically creating web UI's

## The nodes

* [`uibuilder`](nodes/uibuilder.md) - The main node. You need at least one of these in order to make full use of all of the features.

  It is this node that creates a custom web server. You can have many nodes if that best meets your needs. But each node can serve many pages.
  
  It also creates a set of filing system folders and files on the Node-RED server. These define the front-end UI you see in the browser as well as providing some important configuration.

  This node is also where you configure much of uibuilder's web server such as installing helper libraries that you may wish to use to support your interfaces (e.g. VueJS, jQuery, etc). You can also use it to edit your custom UI code.

* [`uib-cache`](nodes/uib-cache.md) - Provides a capability to temporarily or permanently save data sent to uibuilder (and hence to your browser) such that it can be automatically replayed to new clients that connect later.
  
* [`uib-element`](nodes/uib-element.md) - Converts raw data to UI configuration data.
  
  This is one of the zero-code capabilities of uibuilder.

  It allows your input data to be automatically converted to a UI description. That description data is "hydrated" by the uibuilder client library into actual HTML. The output of this node can also be further manipulated. The `uib-html` node uses the same code and can be used to hydrate the description into HTML in Node-RED flows.
  
  The UI configuration data is a documented and re-usable standard, other Node-RED nodes could be created to output or consume the same data.

* [`uib-update`](nodes/uib-update.md)

* [`uib-sender`](nodes/uib-sender.md)

These will be available in the next release:

* [`uib-html`](nodes/uib-html.md) - Converts (hydrates) UI configuration data into HTML.

  Optionally wraps the output with full HTML document tags so that snippets of UI input data can be converted to full pages.

  Output can be saved to files using `uib-save`, this then allows you to have highly efficient "static" HTML created from data that perhaps is only occasionally updated.

  Output can also be used with other tools such as the `http-in`/`http-out` nodes or the Node-RED Dashboard.

* [`uib-save`](nodes/uib-save.md) - Save files to a specific uibuilder node instance.
  
  A convenience node that saves you needing to think about where in the servers filing system resources need to be saved.
  By specifying the name of an existing uibuilder node, it will work out the correct location for you.

  Can be used to save anything that can be "[serialised](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Glossary/Serialization)". Including code, data, images, etc.

## The front-end (browser) client library

  * [Introduction](client-docs/readme.md)
  
  * [Features](client-docs/features.md)
  * [Controlling from Node-RED](client-docs/control-from-node-red.md)
  * [Dynamic, config-driven UI's](client-docs/config-driven-ui.md)
  * [Functions](client-docs/functions.md)
  * [Variables](client-docs/variables.md)
  * [Custom Events](client-docs/custom-events.md)
  * [uib-brand Style Sheet](client-docs/uib-brand-css.md) - How to use the uibuilder standard style sheet uib-brand.css
  * [Troubleshooting](client-docs/troubleshooting.md)
  * [Old uibuilderfe client library](front-end-library.md)

## Zero-code element types

  * [Tables](elements/tables.md)
  * [Forms](elements/forms.md)
  * [Lists](elements/lists.md)
  * [HTML](elements/html.md)
  * [Headings, text boxes, etc.](elements/other.md)

## UI frameworks and builds

Working with uibuilder and specific front-end frameworks.

* [VueJS complexities](vue-complexities.md)

* [VueJS Components](vue-component-handling.md)
* [Svelte](svelte.md)
* [Avoiding a build step](front-end-no-build.md)
* [Optimise & transpile (build)](front-end-builds.md)
* [Snowpack as build tool](front-end-build-snowpack.md)
* W3C Web Components - TBC

## How to

* [How & why to use the sender node](sender-node.md)
* [How & why to use the list node](list-node.md)
* [How to use the cache node](cache-node.md)
* [Changing the root folder (uibRoot)](changing-uibroot.md)
* [Create instance-specific API's](instance-apis.md)
* [Other How-To's](how-to/README.md)

## Security

* [Securing uib web apps](security.md "Overview of general web app security with some specifics for Node-RED and uibuilder")

* [Securing Data](securing-data.md "How to use flows and uibiulder middleware to secure your data")
* [Securing apps using NGINX](uib-security-nginx.md "How to use NGINX as a reverse proxy with TLS and identity authentication")

## Developer Documentation

Deep dives into the internals of uibuilder. This is where to go if you need to understand how things work. These documents may lag behind the actual code however, so it is always worth also referencing the current codebase.

* uibuilder node
  * [`nodes/uibuilder.js`](uibuilder-js.md) - Main node definition.
  * [`nodes/uibuilder.html`](uibuilder-html.md) - Node-RED Editor configuration panel for the main node.
    
    This is not developed directly. The actual code to edit is in `src/editor/uibuilder/` and is built using `gulp` scripts.
  
  * [`nodes/lib/uiblib.js`](uiblib-js.md) - A uibuilder-specific utility library.
  * [`nodes/lib/tilib.js`](tilib-js.md) - A generic Node.js utility library.
  * [`nodes/lib/web.js`](web-js.md) - Web interface library.
  * [`nodes/lib/socket.js`](socket-js.md) - Socket.IO communications library.
  * `nodes/lib/package-mgt.js` - Package management (npm) library. TBC.
  * `nodes/lib/admin-api-v2.js` - v2 Admin API library. TBC.
  * `nodes/lib/admin-api-v3.js` - v3 Admin API library. TBC.

* uibuilder front-end client library
  * `front-end/uibuilder.iife.min.js` & `front-end/uibuilder.esm.min.js` Modern library builds
  
    These are generated by a `gulp` script that uses `esbuild` from `src/front-end-module/uibuilder.module.js`.

  * [`front-end/uibuilderfe.min.js`](uibuilderfe-js.md) - Old `uibuilderfe` client library
    
    This is generated by a `gulp` script from `src/front-end/uibuilderfe.dev.js`.

* uib-cache node - TBC
* uib-element node - TBC
* uib-update node - TBC
* uib-sender node - TBC
* Gulp scripts - TBC

## Testing

Some information on testing uibuilder. Unfortunately, I have no real clue about automated testing and TLD, if you would like to contribute something, please do!

* [Regression Tests](regression-tests.md)

## Other

* [Glossary of Terms](glossary.md)

* [Changelog](changelog) - What has changed between releases. What is currently in-progress/outstanding (the "unreleased" section)
* [Roadmap](roadmap) - All about where uibuilder is going in general, what I think needs doing next and some speculation about longer-term change.
* [Main Readme](uibhome) - This is what appears in [GitHub](https://github.com/TotallyInformation/node-red-contrib-uibuilder), [npm](https://www.npmjs.com/package/node-red-contrib-uibuilder]) and the [Node-RED flows page](https://flows.nodered.org/node/node-red-contrib-uibuilder).

## Archives

* [v5 Changelog](archived/CHANGELOG-v5)
* [v3/4 Changelog](archived/CHANGELOG-v3-v4)
* [v2 Breaking Changes](archived/v2-breaking-changes.md)
* [v2 Changelog](archived/CHANGELOG-v2.md)
* [v1 Changelog](archived/CHANGELOG-v1.md)

> [!TIP]
> These are the docs for uibuilder v6. If you need the v5 or earlier docs, the easiest way is to set up a test instance of Node-RED and manually install the appropriate uibuilder version: `npm install node-red-contrib-uibuilder@5` then use the documentation links from a uibuilder node.
