Feedback on NI Community
A wish for better quoting
Quoting an earlier message in a thread should provide a link to the original message to properly show the post dependency.
An example is this post, which quotes a post that is located pages earlier. In this case I had to resort to the forum search to actually find that post. Is there a better way to find the original post?
I suggest that the quote automatically inserts a link to the quoted post. Here's an example how it looks now and how it could look like:
Current:
@broken Arrow wrote:
To sequentially index an array, so many people wire sequential numbers to individual Index Array functions rather than just expanding the function. I see it all the time, even by experienced wire slingers.
OK - What is wrong with that? If you want really quick traceability of a wire halfway down a large index array function that you are then going to bundle after performing an operation on it, coming back to the code in 6 months time it's really useful to see which index is connected to which wire. Then you KNOW you have done what you intended or can see what the original programmer intended without having to count e.g. 13 lines down the index funtion which indexes 24 lines of a 1x36 array starting at index 5.
James
Suggested:
Broken Arrow wrote: <<<<<< note that this line is now a link to the quoted post!<<<<<<
To sequentially index an array, so many people wire sequential numbers to individual Index Array functions rather than just expanding the function. I see it all the time, even by experienced wire slingers.
OK - What is wrong with that? If you want really quick traceability of a wire halfway down a large index array function that you are then going to bundle after performing an operation on it, coming back to the code in 6 months time it's really useful to see which index is connected to which wire. Then you KNOW you have done what you intended or can see what the original programmer intended without having to count e.g. 13 lines down the index funtion which indexes 24 lines of a 1x36 array starting at index 5.
James
LabVIEW user groep Actually, thinking about this a bit more, the problem is even more pronounced if a post is NOT quoted.
Imagine we have a thread with posts A,B,C,D and somebody replies to post C (without quoting). If the response is opaque enough (many are!), the author of response D might think it is in response to D and reply accordingly.
This can lead to endless confusion, especially in cases where several users reply at the same time There will be an inpenetrable mess of parallel discussions.
Also remember that the posts can be sorted several ways (by topic, by time and reverse). I actually would suggest we get rid of the "by topic" sort option, because in longer, multi-threaded threads it is impossible to find the newest posts because they might be scattered in several sub-threads.
So let me improve my suggestion:
Any reply should have a small link "in reply to", either on top of the post or in the icon area, for example.
@altenbach wrote:
Actually, thinking about this a bit more, the problem is even more pronounced if a post is NOT quoted.
Imagine we have a thread with posts A,B,C,D and somebody replies to post C (without quoting). If the response is opaque enough (many are!), the author of response D might think it is in response to D and reply accordingly.
This can lead to endless confusion, especially in cases where several users reply at the same time There will be an inpenetrable mess of parallel discussions.
Also remember that the posts can be sorted several ways (by topic, by time and reverse). I actually would suggest we get rid of the "by topic" sort option, because in longer, multi-threaded threads it is impossible to find the newest posts because they might be scattered in several sub-threads.
So let me improve my suggestion:
Any reply should have a small link "in reply to", either on top of the post or in the icon area, for example.
How much do your points show why Question And Answer sites like Stackoverflow are better (for me):
-you only resond to the question
-you can always edit your own posts
-you can add comments to questions/posts
-if you have a high enough rep you can edit other peoples post.
This technique is force because they think about each answer as a single entity, not part of a larger discussion (discussion is discouraged).
Ton
