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How do I create an Apple Guide if I'm not a programmer?

There are a number of tools, such as Guide Composer and the Apple Guide Starter Kit, that you can use to create guides without knowing GuideScript (AppleGuide's script language). These tools serve as a front end: you type in your text and specify certain aspects of how you want the guide to behave, and the tool generates the appropriate GuideScript code, ready to be compiled into a guide.

Because these tools don't offer as much power and flexibility as you can get from working directly with the GuideScript source, you may decide to collaborate with an experienced scripter. The scripter can either work with you from the beginning of guide development, taking your text and transforming it into GuideScript code, or take a preliminary guide you've created with one of the tools above and add advanced features to it.

While you don't need to be a programmer to write a successful guide, you should be aware of the general outlines of how Apple Guide works "under the hood"; this way, you have some idea of what is and is not possible for your guide to accomplish. You also need to know a little about how your guide works with the program it documents. There are a number of enhancements the application programmer can provide to make your guide work better - context sensitivity, custom coachmarks, and custom context checks - and your ability to work with the application programmers in these areas will result in a better guide, as well as less hair-pulling during guide development.

How do I create sidebars and notes in a guide?

Jeanne A. E. DeVoto jaed@jaedworks.com
Copyright © 1996 Jeanne A. E. DeVoto