I’ve been building generators with the AI Helper for a couple of months now. Lately I’ve been getting a few questions that could easily be answered with a beginner’s tutorial that takes you from zero to a working generator in about ten minutes. No coding needed.

Eleven steps, roughly ten minutes:

  • What Perchance is, and what a generator actually is
  • Meeting the AI Helper and how to talk to it
  • Finding your way around the editor
  • Your first prompt — hands-on, you build something real
  • Making it yours, adding a feature, saving and sharing
  • The 3 golden rules for prompting the Helper
  • Common mistakes and quick fixes, plus a quick-reference step to bookmark

It’s interactive — each step has a “try it now” box, and your progress saves on your device, so you can work through it in bits. It’s written for total beginners, so it’s important that I get it right.

Here’s where I need you. I’ve been staring at this thing too long to see my own blind spots, and I’d rather have the community sharpen it than leave it being just okay. If you build generators — experienced creators especially — I’d genuinely love your review. Specifically:

Is there anything a new builder NEEDS that I left out? Any step still too jargon-y for a true beginner? Anything wrong, outdated, or misleading? Does the order feel right to you? And if you’re new and you work through it, tell me where it lost you — that’s the review that matters most. You can comment here, or leave a note in the guestbook at the bottom of the tutorial.

I’m not pretending it’s perfect — it’s a first version. If you’ve got five minutes, I’d love your honest take, especially if you think a beginner would trip over something I missed.

The tutorial is here: https://perchance.org/ai-helper-tutorial

  • RandomHugs@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    5 days ago

    It’s a decent tutorial. I’m very inexperienced with coding and solely rely on AI Helper for my projects. I skimmed through it, hoping to find some secret prompts for the AI Helper, didn’t find any. Still a good tutorial. I tried to think of something else to add that you didn’t already cover, but I couldn’t think of anything.

    The only feedback I have, is that the guide pretty much repeats the perks of prompting correctly and splitting up the tasks. All good tips imo.

    [Edit] Perhaps briefly go over the plugins, explain what they are, how they work, the differences between a plugin and a generator, and when a plugin might be useful.

      • RandomHugs@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        4 days ago

        Nice work! I’m sure it’ll be useful. I’ve learned a lot from just trial and error while building, I can easily spend 30-40mins on phrasing a prompt, just to make sure my vision is explained thoroughly. It does a lot of difference.

        Oh, another suggestion I have is to directly explain that if there’s an situation where the AIH is unsure how to proceed while working on a task, it should pause the task to ask you rather than assuming or making a decision.

        It also works to keep an eye on the actual work being executed while AIH is working, even if you don’t understand the code. The reasoning (<thinking>) blocks can be a very good indicator if there’s something wrong. It’s a good habit to go over the process every once in a while during the wait.

        • Daveed@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
          1·
          4 days ago

          Thank you for your feedback! Sounds like you already figured out how to use the AIH effectively, and I appreciate what sounds like much the same process I went through. I put together this simple tutorial as a kind of introduction to the AIH that isn’t scary or intimidating, and I hope it helps ease a few people into the process of “figuring it out”!