# Create node which displays input message content

**URL:** <https://discourse.nodered.org/t/create-node-which-displays-input-message-content/3682>\
**Category:** General\
**Created:** [4 October 2018 12:04 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/create-node-which-displays-input-message-content/3682 "2018-10-04T12:04:08Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 3

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**Author:** ![BartButenaers](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/bartbutenaers/32/10476_2.png) [@BartButenaers](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/BartButenaers)\
**Post date:** [4 October 2018 16:57 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/create-node-which-displays-input-message-content/3682/3 "2018-10-04T16:57:56Z")

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Hi Nick (@knolleary),

I had already read multiple times in the past, that the flow editor shouldn't become a dashboard (for displaying runtime state). I'm very convinced that there will be very good reasons for that decision, so I won't argument against it !!!

Although I must admit that Riku Rouvila's [node-red-contrib-image-output](https://github.com/rikukissa/node-red-contrib-image-output) is a very good aid for me, when I'm experimenting with video in Node-RED:

![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/uploads/nodered/original/2X/0/0eb8bb745d3ae0de7f8b41b48b84ef6dd908dfd9.jpeg)

This way I can tweak my flows, and seeing the results on the video immediately. It has become my private video debugger tool... I could also display the video in other tools (like e.g. the dashboard), but this way is just much easier and quicker.

There is currently _no way to expand or collapse the balloon_, which could be a nice feature for people that don't want to show it all the time...

P.S. I have no commercial advantage of that contribution, I only created some pull requests to add extra features to it 😇

Bart

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