Show Text ♾️MixlabApp

This node shows you text in the graph. That's the surface job - you wire a string into it and it renders the contents right there on the node, so you can actually read what came out of some upstream node instead of guessing. The "ForGPT" in the name is the tell: it was built to display the output of the pack's LLM/GPT nodes, where you genuinely need to see the model's reply. It also passes the text through, so it doubles as a tap point in a chain.

Where it really matters is app mode. This is one of the handful of nodes the Mixlab pack recognizes as a valid output for a published web app - the README lists it right alongside PreviewImage, SaveImage, and VHS_VideoCombine. So when you turn a workflow into a Mixlab web app and you want text to appear on the app page (a caption, an LLM answer, a generated prompt), Show Text is how that text gets there.

How it works

It takes a string and renders it in the node body, and - because it's an output node - it also reports that text back to the front-end so the UI (or the app page) can display it. Optionally it writes the text to a file on disk. There's no transformation happening; it's a display-and-tee node, not a processor. Think of it as the text equivalent of PreviewImage.

Inputs and outputs

• text (STRING, required) - the string to show. Usually wired from an LLM node, a prompt generator, a filename, or any node that emits text.
• output_dir (STRING, optional, multiline) - a directory path. Fill this in and the node saves the text to a file there; leave it empty and it just displays. Handy when you want a persistent log of generated prompts or model replies rather than something that vanishes when you close the tab.

The output is STRING (a list) - the same text, passed through so you can keep the chain going. That's what makes it useful as a mid-graph tap: you can inspect the text and route it onward in the same spot, instead of choosing between seeing it and using it.

How to install it

Ships with the Mixlab pack.

• ComfyUI Manager: search comfyui-mixlab-nodes, install, restart.
• Manual: cd ComfyUI/custom_nodes && git clone https://github.com/shadowcz007/comfyui-mixlab-nodes.git, install requirements (install.bat on Windows or ../../../python_embeded/python.exe -s -m pip install -r requirements.txt), restart.

Common issues

Text shows blank or won't update: make sure something's actually feeding the text input and that the graph ran. As an output node it renders after execution, so if the upstream node errored or produced nothing, you get nothing.

It doesn't appear in my app: app output only works when the node is on the recognized output list and the app was published correctly. If your Mixlab web app opens blank, the classic cause is the folder-name trap - a ZIP download unpacks to comfyui-mixlab-nodes-main and app mode won't run until you rename the folder to exactly comfyui-mixlab-nodes. Worth checking before you blame this node.

Saving to output_dir does nothing: verify the path exists and ComfyUI's process can write to it. A bad or non-writable path fails quietly. And on a hosted/serverless runner, a local path may not persist the way it does on your desktop - treat file output as a local-workstation convenience, not a durable store.