The version you are using is the offline version if that's the URL. The manual no longer loads in the IDE but in the default browser for the user (the IDE loading was very flaky and this is much more stable). The initial load might take a moment, but it shouldn't be taking as long as you're saying, and if it is then you should mention it in the Beta Forums on the helpdesk so it can be looked at.
PS: You may find it slow, but it's not "half broken"!!! Functionally, it's a massive improvement over the old manual....
Don't get me wrong, it's an amazing manual and I'm not trying to discount the hard work that went into it, but I just recorded a video to show you what's happening. speedtest.net clocks me at 12ms ping, 128Mbps download, 10Mbps upload and no other sites are running slow so it's not my connection lol:
- I closed GM2.3 and re-started it and created a brand new project with just a script & room in it
- first I middle-click on static and after 18 seconds the help finally loads...but it shows the Getting Started section instead of static?? This happens often enough that it happened on my first try recording lol
- then I type static into the search bar of that page and after it loads I click on Method Variables and it loads properly, yay!
- then without closing that browser window, I go back to my code and middle-click on show_debug_message and after 15 seconds it shows show_debug_message
- then I type in function into the search bar and after it loads the seach I click on Function Call and spend a full minute watching those grey boxes flip around
- when I'm selecting the txt I accidentally click on Compiler Output Window lol (you can see the URL at the top change) but regardless it takes another 30 seconds waiting for it to finally show that (ignore my "WTF" text, I didn't realize I hit Output Window that time lol and the first one still loaded the Getting Started page instead of static)
- I click Function Call again (you can see the URL change at the top) and it gets stuck loading for infinity (I stopped the recording after like 40 seconds)
The worst is the infinite loading, because when it takes 30 seconds for a normal page to load that means I have to wait 30 seconds before I know if it's even stuck, and then I have to try reloading or reopening it and wait another 30+ seconds to see if THAT gets stuck (it happens multiple times in a row sometimes) and it's like now I'm 2+ minutes into just trying to quickly check the syntax for using static lol
I just middle-clicked constructor in my code and got taken to the index.html again, so bare minimum "static" and "constructor" middle-click to the index.html instead of their page it looks like, if that helps...maybe it's just not linked up properly for some keywords?
The old manual didn't have as many features but you just middle-click a keyword and INSTANTLY you're looking at the definition and sample code to refer to and were immediately back into coding again. That quick in and out to the necessary page was such a HUGE help for self-teaching because any time I didn't remember what to do I could instantly check the reference and learn fast.
With the current state of this thing I'm trying to avoid even opening it, and dreading when I start learning the sequences stuff where I know I'm going to have to check the manual a ton because it's totally new stuff
Is it possible for there to be like a "lite" version of the manual that just instantly goes from what you middle-clicked to the page relevant to it and that's it, without loading all the stuff that's making it take forever to get to?
(edit): I've got a C:\Program Files\GameMaker Studio 2-Beta\RoboHelp\YoYoStudioRoboHelp.zip file, is that supposed to be unzipped or something? Maybe it's unzipping this thing every time I open help? lol
(edit2): oh
lol I unzipped that to another directory and opened the HTML file in it in my browser and it's lightning fast...the search is still a little slow but once I've got the list of search results I can click them and INSTANTLY see the page's content! I'mma just keep this thing open in a browser for now...although it means I can't use middle-click which was a huge time saver, but I'll take that over the 30s load times for now lol
Would it be possible to add an option in the Preferences/Help/ to choose a local directory for the manual but with a big red letter warning that it won't get auto-updated while that option is selected or something? Or is that a hassle on YoYo's end lol