Posting Labview Snippets to the Fourm

[Eric1977]

Hey guys,

I wondered how some of you post sections of Labview code to the forums? Do you use the 'Insert Code' button? If so, I've never gotten mine to work.

Just curious as it may come in handy sometime.

[Darin.K · Accepted solution]

1) Use the Code Capture Tool or Native LV Edit->Create VI Snippet to create a PNG file containing the LV code.

2) Use the Insert Image Button in the message editor and browse to the snippet file.

(Some people like to attach the image to the post, copy the link location, and then edit the post to embed the image.  The thinking is that you may some day empty your image gallery and lose the image.  Ironically, the only problems encountered to date have involved attachments and not an image gallery.)

I am too lazy to attach/edit/repost and also too lazy to mess with my image gallery so it is all good.

[Eric1977]

[Eric1977]

Thank you!

[nathand]

One slight advantage to the attach-post-edit-link approach is that you can do it without needing to install Flash, which I don't have installed in my primary web browser.  However, when I do need to attach an image it's usually easier to load up a different browser, with Flash installed, and then restore my comments from the auto-saved draft.

[RavensFan]

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@Darin.K wrote:

(Some people like to attach the image to the post, copy the link location, and then edit the post to embed the image.  The thinking is that you may some day empty your image gallery and lose the image.  Ironically, the only problems encountered to date have involved attachments and not an image gallery.)

I am too lazy to attach/edit/repost and also too lazy to mess with my image gallery so it is all good.

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The only problem to date really had nothing to do with the method to embed images, and actually affected all attachments, if you are thinking about the one a few weeks ago that was a major screw up on the web server database that they eventually fixed without any known remaining problems.

I think the only reason that we really haven't seen a problem with the image gallery method is that the frequent posters don't generally use it and will use the attach, edit, embed link method rather than the image gallery.  And the infrequent posters who don't know it are more likely to use the image gallery, but probably haven't used it enough worry about cleaning it out.

I'm sure it is just a matter of time before we will see some post that has a lost image because that person's gallery was cleared.  But it would need to be the right set of circumstances where someone is revisiting a much older post where the poster has long since cleared out the image.  (It's not likely they'll clear their gallery shortly after posting an image.)

I highly recommend never using the image gallery except for special circumstances like your user icon, or a set of images that you frequently reuse (like Ben reuses the images from some of his nuggets).  Otherwise the rightful place for an image is to be directly attached with the message where it is used.

For grins, I've attached a small image above using the first tab of the Embed image dialog.  Shortly after posting this message, I'll delete it from my gallery to see what exactly happens.

EDIT:  Okay, now that I've deleted it, I see a box with a faint red X.  The image is now lost forever and there is no way to ever fix this post.  (Not that the image was particularly important in this case.)

You sometimes see this same problem with people use those annoying 3rd party image hosting sites.  In addition, those sites are frequently blocked by corporate firewalls, and even if the image still exists at that location, we may not be able to see it.

Here is what I say people should do:

1.  Never use the first tab for embedding images except in rare circumstances.  If embedding an image, attach it to the message, edit the post and embed the images link using the 3rd tab of the screen. 

2.  If you violate rule #1, then never delete images from your gallery.  One problem with the gallery is that there is no way to determine what posts may have a link to that image.

One other question I have about the gallery method.  If you wind up not deleting the image from your gallery, but reorganizing it such as moving it to another album, does the link break in that case?

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@nathand wrote:

One slight advantage to the attach-post-edit-link approach is that you can do it without needing to install Flash, which I don't have installed in my primary web browser.  However, when I do need to attach an image it's usually easier to load up a different browser, with Flash installed, and then restore my comments from the auto-saved draft.

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I'm curious about this comment.  Where does Flash come into play with one of the alternative methods?

[RavensFan]

One slight advantage to the attach-post-edit-link approach is that you can do it without needing to install Flash, which I don't have installed in my primary web browser.  However, when I do need to attach an image it's usually easier to load up a different browser, with Flash installed, and then restore my comments from the auto-saved draft.

[nathand]

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Ravens Fan wrote: 

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nathand wrote:

One slight advantage to the attach-post-edit-link approach is that you can do it without needing to install Flash, which I don't have installed in my primary web browser.  However, when I do need to attach an image it's usually easier to load up a different browser, with Flash installed, and then restore my comments from the auto-saved draft.

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I'm curious about this comment.  Where does Flash come into play with one of the alternative methods?

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Not sure what you mean by "alternative methods."  If you attach the image as a file, you can then edit the post and insert the image by linking to the attachment URL without using Flash.  No idea if there's a way to upload images to the gallery without Flash, haven't tried it.

EDIT: of course, the direct embed approach uses Flash.  You can go through your gallery and at least see the post to which the image was originally attached, if you're trying to clean up old images.

[nathand]

One slight advantage to the attach-post-edit-link approach is that you can do it without needing to install Flash, which I don't have installed in my primary web browser.  However, when I do need to attach an image it's usually easier to load up a different browser, with Flash installed, and then restore my comments from the auto-saved draft.

[RavensFan]

You said the advantage was that the attach/edit/embed method (which is my preferred method as I think I pretty much stated in too many words) did not require flash.  (I'll call that tab 3)

The alternative methods I was talking about were whichever of the other methods (tab 1 and/or tab 2) would require flash.  I've used tab 1 a few times (including my experiment above).  I've never used tab 2 (embed an image that is already saved in the gallery.)  In the rare times I used tab 1, I never noticed any particular problem and was not aware that Flash was even being used.

It is good to know that the gallery does show where the image was used.  I looked closer at some of my images and see those links now.  But I also have a some other images in the gallery that don't show any links which is why I thought the images weren't showing where they were used.  I don't if they are used anywhere, or perhaps I posted them and then deleted them from my post while I was still in the edit window meaning I still have the image in the gallery, but the message no longer uses that image.  That is a likely scenario.  I see two images of mine that are nearly identical (at least I don't see any obvious differences right now) that were posted in the same minute.  One is linked to a message and the other is not.

What is your primary web browser and why isn't Flash installed into it?  Flash seems to be one of those things that is installed almost by default whether you think about it or not.

One question I have about Flash and Adobe Reader.  Why is it that the request to install updates on both of those are so much more frequent nowadays?  It seems like once a week for a while there, and on average once every few weeks, one or the other is asking to be updated.  Can't Adobe get there $h!t straight the first time?

[nathand]

My primary browser is Firefox. I don't have Flash installed because so many sites use it to display obnoxious animated ads and so few require it for anything useful. I could probably solve the problem with an ad-blocking extension instead, but this lets me solve it through inaction which is easier.

The frequent updates are mostly to fix security issues. It would be nice if they wrote perfect software before releasing it, but failing that, at least they seem to be responding to vulnerabilities quickly.