Guide Maker

How do I . . .

How do I speed up Guide Maker compiles?

The slowest part of compiling a guide file is the time it takes for Guide Maker to write each of the objects out to disk. Big guide files are made up of thousands of resource-like objects. Because the resource manager gets overwhelmed by the number of objects created, they're all handled by some special database routines that write them into the data fork of the guide file. These database disk reading and writing routines consume most of the compile time. To speed up compiles, you can:

How do I quickly check for syntax errors?

Guide Maker makes many passes through your Guide Script commands, building up the hierarchy of objects in your guide file. This isn't quite accurate, but it goes something like this: Guide Maker proceeds as far as it can, but stops when it can't be certain that the objects required to continue have been built successfully. For example, when checking command syntax, Guide Maker typically completes the entire pass, but it sometimes stops if a huge numbers have been detected. By the time it starts building sequences, individual errors can stop a compile, because sequences often depend on other sequences being there.

A great feature available in Guide Maker 1.2.5 is Check Syntax Only. This command works through the compile process and reports many of the small syntax errors and typos without taking the time write out the objects to disk. If you've made lots of changes to a file, checking the syntax before starting a real compile can be a great time- and frustration-saving strategy.

How do I avoid Guide Maker / XTND translator crashes?

As many have noted, Guide Maker crashes when using XTND translators to import text from many word processing formats. Our experience has been: If you want to include styled text on your panels:


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