Wrapped Metanodes: Remove need to wait for all outputs (feature request)

I huge gripe I have with the wrapped metanodes (vs metanodes) is that one needs to wait for all the outputs to complete to continue even if one output takes very fast to complete. If you want to also have the wrapped node configurable, you will not want to use the legacy quick forms and hence normal metanodes aren’t really an option in that scenario.

This is annoying especially when building workflows when you could continue with one output and complete that one and then work on the other output.

So the desired behavior is as with metanodes. Once an output completes it should be immediately usable.

I agree that the usage of wrapped metanodes isn’t as ‘smooth’ as people like it to be. The fact that you can only properly configure it when all upstream nodes are executed is one of these typical limitations. There is a ticket open for that one.

As for the outputs (you are referring to the outputs of the wrapped metanode – not the outputs of the preceding nodes, right?): Wrapped metanodes behave very much like native KNIME nodes, that is: Either it’s completely executed or not at all. Note that the traffic light is associated with the node, not with the output (unlike ordinary meta nodes).

Apart from these soft arguments there is also a good illustrative example: Flow variables! If you had two outputs and the output of the first output port is available then the second output may define new flow variables. And they will also need to be available downstream of the first output. That’s a design decision – flow variables are ‘node global’, they don’t exist in only one output port.

So it is basically a design decision that wrapped metanode acts like a normal node? I certainly can make a metanode with 2 out ports that have different flow variables.If I want them linked I would have to do that explicitly with a flow variable connection. In fact I can argue that often you do not want all flow variables on both out-ports.

I mean I can’t argue against a design decision except that changing it (not acting exactly like a node) would make a lot of stuff better and easier. What would be best are classic metanodes that support the “new” quick forms. So maybe changing the metanode would also be a solution to my issue.