Meteor has comprehensive documentation, tutorials using different front-end frameworks, example repositories, a discussion forum, and a Slack community. These resources serve both beginners and advanced programmers. But when you are using Meteor for the first time, it’s easy to get overwhelmed and not know how to get help when you are stuck.What is Meteor?Meteor is a full-stack JavaScript framework for building modern web and mobile applications. It offers you a way to develop in JavaScript only, in the application server, web browser, and mobile device.The first step to using Meteor is installing it. We will cover it in the next section.Installing MeteorMeteor currently supports OS X, Windows, and Linux. Only 64-bit is supported. Apple M1 is natively supported from Meteor 2.5.1 onward (for older versions, you will need to run with a rosetta terminal).To install it, run the following commands in your terminal:For Linux and OS X:curl https://install.meteor.com/ | shFor Windows (Node.js 14.x is required):npm install -g MeteorYou can check the installation process with more details in the following link from our documentation: https://docs.meteor.com/install.html.Alright, I already installed Meteor. Now what?If you are getting started, we have two different resources to help you get started with the basics of Meteor.Meteor UniversityIf you like to learn through videos, Meteor University is a great resource to learn the basics of the framework. This learning resource is an ongoing project as we are adding new sections. The purpose is to guide you from the basics to the more advanced concepts like scaling. The project uses React as the front-end framework.Watch the first two sections of the course, create a project to follow the videos, and you will have a good grasp of the basics. You can check our online school using the following link.Meteor TutorialIf you prefer to learn through textual content and/or use React, Blaze, Svelte, or Vue as your front-end framework, these tutorials can guide you in writing your first application using Meteor. You will learn concepts like methods and publications in the tutorials while applying them in a cool to-do list app.The tutorials are also great for learning new things to apply to your apps. Their structure allows you to look for concepts and functionalities easily and quickly, making it an excellent reference point. Want to implement login with GitHub in your app? We teach it. Want to deploy your app? We teach that too. These are excellent resources for quickly learning to implement things with Meteor without going to the main documentation.You can check the tutorials here.Meteor Guide and Meteor DocsOnce you grasp the Meteor basics, the Guide and the Docs cover intermediate material on how to use Meteor in a larger scale app and the details about the Meteor API.You can check them using the following links:
Okay, I read the details about Meteor and started developing my app, but I still need help.Meteor Forums and the Slack channelThis is a great way not to just ask for help but also to make new friends and interact with the amazing Meteor community. You can use the search function to see if there is a topic that describes and solves a problem similar to your own. If not, you can create a new topic where you can share the details of your issue. The community is always eager to help and exchange information, and the Meteor team is always looking at the forums and Slack to answer questions and listen to feedback.Since we — including our CEO — are always in the forums, you may be tempted to send a direct message to one of us asking for help with your project. We always recommend that you post it to the public instead. This way, if you get an answer from one of our team, all the other members belonging to the forums/Slack can benefit from the information.You can check the forums here and the Slack channel here.ConclusionWe hope you have a great time inside the Meteor community. Work on your projects, interact with the community, get help, and help others. This way, we can make the Meteor community even better.How to get started with Meteor and ask for help if you are stuck was originally published in Meteor Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.