Slack is the primary tool for communicating at Suncoast Developers Guild. This guide covers some of our favorite Slack tips and tricks.

Posting Code!

When you want to post a small code block to Slack it helps to format it!

If you are simply showing a one line bit of code and want to do it inline you can format it like so:

Hi there, is this code correct: `var answer = 42;` or do I need to do something else?

This will format the snippet var answer = 42; in a stylized manner directly in your message!

If you have a longer block you can enclose it in three backtick (`) characters like this:

Hi Mary, can you help me with this code?
```
var answer = 42;
Console.WriteLine($"The answer to your question is: {answer}");
```
I'm not sure if this is what we were supposed to do. Thanks!

And the code inside the backticks will be formatted as block of code!

Posting snippets for LONG blocks of code

If you click the lightning bolt icon next to where you would type a message there is an option titled "Create a Text Snippet." This will launch a dialog box where you can:

• Type a title for your text
• Tell Slack the language type for your text (HTML, CSS, C#, JavaScript, Markdown, etc)
• Paste or type your long text
• Type a message to accompany the long text

This posts the long text in a way where the receiving user, or channel, will get a brief summary and a "click to see more" message as opposed to pasting the entire text in backticks, which will include the entire body. If the text is long, creating a snippet is more friendly!