So you have a question that needs answering and you want it answered as fast as possible? Follow this guide and you will have a question that people can help answer quickly!


Before you begin to write up that question have you actually bothered to search properly? Yes, you may have used Google and not gotten the result you want but have you searched the forums here? 9 out of 10 times someone has asked the same question or a very similar one.


Have you looked in the guides section?


Have you checked the Valve Developer Community Wiki?

https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Main_Page

You've run into a problem with your map. Maybe it's not compiling or that really cool puzzle you made is just not working. Either way, you need help.


When you compile your map a log is generated that looks something like this

Select all the text in your compile log and copy it, then go to Interlopers[www.interlopers.net] and run it through their tool. It catches 90% of the errors and tells you how to fix them.

The following are tutorials that are considered good quality

• TopHATTwaffle has both a website[www.tophattwaffle.com] and a YouTube Channel
  
• Valve Developer Community
  
• Source Modding[www.sourcemodding.com]
  
• Interlopers[www.interlopers.net]
  
• Optimization Guide[www.optimization.interlopers.net]

We're going to break this down into a few steps.

1. What game or mod are you mapping for? Things can be different between games so you telling us what game or mod it is you need help with goes a long way.

2. Be as descriptive as possible about what the problem is and/or what you are trying to accomplish. You telling us that your button doesn't work tells us nothing and leaves us guessing as to what it is you are trying to do.

3. What have you already tried? This lets us know both that you have already tried to do this on your own and what not to suggest or ask.

4. Provide the compile log. The compile log provides a lot of information and often enough just glancing through it can help determine what the problem is.

4. Provide a VMF. This will speed up things immensely if we can look at the map directly. No one wants to steal your map and if they really did they would decompile it after you release it.

5. If you solve it let people know, and how you did it. There is nothing more frustrating to come across a similar question and have the person not shared how they solved it. Steam forums even let you mark an answer in the thread now!

Code not compiling or you're not sure how to do something?


C++ is a very common topic and your question has probably been answered


Often enough Valve has already done what you want to do you just need to find it. In most editors you can press CTRL+SHIFT+F and do a project-wide search for a keyword.


If you haven't yet check the wiki[wiki.garrysmod.com]. If you are completely new to programming for Gmod CODE BLUE has a good YouTube tutorial series https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1mQ3mpdiJU&list=PLyQg3m0a5UivaAXEfVDngKYp9jyNSTIo_


Read the fundamentals and look over the links on the page.

(most adopted from Automate The Boring Stuff[automatetheboringstuff.com])

• Explain what you are trying to do not just what you did. This lets the people helping you know the bigger picture
  
• Tell us the point at which the error happens. Is it happening as soon as the map loads up or is it happening when you do a certain thing
  
• Copy and paste the entire error message and the code segment to http://pastebin.com/ or http://gist.github.com/
  
• Explain to us what you have already tried to do to solve the problem. This shows us that you put in some effort and so we don't suggest things you have already tried
  
• If the error happens after you make a change post the before and after versions of the code