Input Port should allow multiple connections

[ghost]

This would be great. Is there a workaround for now?

[chrisjpatty]

This is an upcoming feature for sure. The groundwork is in place to make this possible, but at the moment there isn't a workaround. The first-class support right now is for root-style graphs. But there's significant community support for supporting different styles of graphs. Can I ask what your use-case is for that kind of graph?

[ghost]

Hi @chrisjpatty thanks for your response. Imagine a workflow. Different paths may lead back together again. Currently I would have to add the same node twice for this to work. As the node also includes controls / user input, I have to maintain the same node configuration multiple times.

[tjbaron]

@chrisjpatty I’m also very interested in this. I’m planning to have each node represent an async function that can call other async functions. So having a function callable from 2 places is a must.

As a workaround I’m thinking of auto adding an additional input every time the previous one gets connected using the Dynamic Nodes feature (though I haven’t tried yet).

Thank you for this project! It’s quality is great and applications endless.

[Francois-Esquire]

@chrisjpatty agree with everyone here, having multiple inputs per port would help for my use case as well, where I am modeling child/parent relationships.

[davinic]

This functionality is critical for my use case. The logic could be simplified if each input or output item held an array containing between 0 and N connections, with the ability to limit N when defining the input/output on the node.

This added concept of I/O configuration would also allow for better port definition reuse by moving instance details like the name and label to the node definition.

For example:

const config = new FlumeConfig()
config
  .addPortType({
    type: "string",
    color: Colors.green,
    controls: [
      Controls.text({
        name: "string",
        label: ""
      })
    ]
  })
  .addNodeType({
    type: "string",
    label: "Text",
    description: "Outputs a string of text",
    inputs: ports => [
      .addPortConfig( {type: "string", name: "fname", label: "First Name", min: 1, max: 1} ),
      //UI would show a warning if unconnected since min=1
      .addPortConfig( {type: "string", name: "colors", label: "Favorite Colors", max: 10} )
    ],
    outputs: ports => [
      .addPortConfig({ type: "string", name: "result", label: "Result"});
    ]
  })

You could probably use ES6 rest properties and unpacking to simplify the potential null condition for 0..n connections and backwards compatibility.

[davinic]

This could also solve the issue of the different graph types while keeping the concept of the root node. If the root node can accept any collection of inputs to a single port (thinking of the root node as "virtual"), then the outputs of the root are just the destructured input values.

Here is an example from TouchDesigner:

[JSH32]

Has anyone forked or figured out how this can be done?