I have sorted out the major problem that I was having and that was I couldnt talk to my arduino with anything other than its own IDE. And I wanted to use node-red, home assistant etc.
I will try and summarize the problems I had and my 'fix' if any one wants more info I will try and send. The more experienced will read my stuff and say -Yeh we all know that etc..... but but a lot of times it is the really obvious stuff that causes problems a ':' instead of ';' --looks similar etc.
OK - here we go. As a hobby and for the practicality of having an automated home system I wanted to learn and use stuff to control stuff 
I have installed a working camera security system. After trying a few systems I settled on Blue Iris and am very happy- 5 cameras recording 24/7.
Home Security Assistant seems like what I want and its still there in the background. However, node-red seemed to do everything I wanted without all the overhead. I tried installing node-red a number of times (because it wouldnt connect to arduino) and I would search google look for help and I was lost 
I Could not decipher the error messages and I couldnt believe it would be that hard.
I tried the simplest sketch and loaded and tried about a dozen sketches all with errors and no contact. I resigned myself there was no easy fix and I needed to go thru the errors one by one and fix them. This did not seem like an easy task because I didnt have a clue what they referred to.
Well (as probably everyone knows-except me) - a few changes to a file and life will be good again. The file is settings.js. I had problems finding it and editing it. I cannot emphasis strongly enough how useful Visual Studio Code is-(vscode). This file is 90% comments (helpful) and it is a case of working out your circumstances and changing accordingly. As I say vscode was invaluable to me. I had a split screen with node red running on one half and vscode in the other the vscode was split in three - terminal, settings.js and file/folders. Then I could start node-red in the terminal and see the errors and change. Then easy- to control -C to shut down and re-do sketch arduino IDE.
I will paste in a bit of stuff I did - maybe someone can explain better?
FROM SETTINGS.JS--------
// By default, credentials are encrypted in storage using a generated key. To
// specify your own secret, set the following property.
// If you want to disable encryption of credentials, set this property to false.
// Note: once you set this property, do not change it - doing so will prevent
// node-red from being able to decrypt your existing credentials and they will be
// lost.
credentialSecret: 'trevssecretkey', <<<<<<I did this
then this
// Customising the editor
editorTheme: {
projects: {
// To enable the Projects feature, set this value to true
enabled: true, <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<from false
workflow: {
// Set the default projects workflow mode.
// - manual - you must manually commit changes
// - auto - changes are automatically committed
// This can be overridden per-user from the 'Git config'
// section of 'User Settings' within the editor
mode: "manual"
hope that gives you the idea?
