About ProGUIDE In Short!

The Problem released a cool new hypertext system for the Amiga. It is best descibed as a cross between AmigaGUIDE (it is almost 100% compatible!) and HTML. ProGUIDE has already been used to create the diskmagazine Probe. If you haven't seen it yet, check it out now to see what ProGUIDE will be able to do for you. (You can download it FREE from the Transfer Station!)

The markup-language used by ProGUIDE is almost the same as that of AmigaGUIDE, only with a lot of commands added, and a small difference in the way pages are drawn. The power of ProGUIDE is mostly thanks to it's page-driven interface that will allow the author of a Guide to do some pretty sophisticated stuff!

ProGUIDE will behave somewhat like an interpreter. It reads the Guide and draws it to screen in-sequence. This allows, just to mention something, more than one font per page, or even per line, placed at pixel-precision. 'Drop-capitals' are super-easy to create in ProGUIDE (and not in HTML -WEd). There are commands that influence the position of the cursor in pixel resolution, so text can be placed very accurately.

ProGUIDE is completely pixel-oriented, so text generated on one Amiga, will look exectly the same on the other. A screenmoderequester is available at any time to enable you to adjust the (autoscrolling) screen to your eyesight(!)

Just to give you an idea of how powerful the ProGUIDE markup is, here is an example of a ProGUIDE command:

  @CALL node arg1 arg2 ...

This command allows the author of a guide to use a complete node (chapter if you will) as a macro. For example, you could define a node that sets up a standard page look, loading all the right fonts, backdrops, images etc. This node (named 'head' for example) can now be inserted in every other node by using @CALL. Try that with the @MACRO command in AmigaGUIDE (v40)! It will be inserted at the current cursor position. Anything (ANYthing) is possible this way.

Hypertext links in ProGUIDE can be created very easily. Standard hypertext links are simply buttons with text on them, that link to a node. But you can also create invisible or visible areas, or use pictures as buttons. Links (any type) can be linked to either nodes or to ProGUIDE commands!!! Imagine what can be done if a button or area is linked to the @CALL command we just saw! But you can also link buttons to all other commands such as:

@REQUEST text

A requester appears when the button is clicked.

@RETRACE

The link behaves as a custom retrace button.

@SYSTEM filename

An executable program is started (just like the AmigaGUIDE @{..SYSTEM..} command)!
• ANY other ProGUIDE command!

If you are interested in this release, keep a close watch on this site, because it is completely FREE to download right here! If you still haven't seen Probe Magazine Issue 1: Global Expansion, download it now and see what ProGUIDE can do for you. Note that the ProGUIDE version included with Probe is not usable for other purposes, since we have encoded the Guide that is Probe. Check out the 'Information' page in Probe... we have included the original Guide of that section with the release of ProGUIDE. And if you want to know more, just say so!