Hi, All,
A few years ago, I learned a bit of HTML and used Coffeecup's HTML editor. I did okay, nothing that an expert would be wild about, but my painting students loved it.
I then moved on to VSD, which was nice, because it was easier, I could spend more time painting and less time editing my site.
Since then, I had to let my site go, while I attended nursing school and graduated and worked 3 years as a nurse.

I'm back now, and VSD is retired, and I've forgotten most of the HTML that I learned and don't really want to learn it again. I've downloaded a free trial of the RSD and I'm LOST.

I don't know whether to keep on trying, or just give up. I need a site that I can update with my painting classes and my husband and my art and craft products and festival dates.

Am I wasting my time with RSD? It seems amazing, I love the concept but I am so dang confused. I'm afraid that I'm in way over my head but I love Coffeecup products, and I so want to have control over my site, like I did before.

Thanks so much for your input.
Faye

Hi Faye, I know what you mean about being overwhelmed. Trying to keep up with the rapid advances in web design and software right now is pretty daunting. Take heart and don't give up take a look or two at this tutorial on creating a web site with RSD http://www.coffeecup.com/help/articles/1449. It is one of the best tutorials created for us novice web masters.

Hi Faye,

If you are really feeling overwhelmed there is a couple options available to you. One you can open up a support ticket and they would gladly help you get your website converted. The second is to contact me via my website below. The help won't be free but maybe I can get you started with a few template pages and you can go from there.

Either way don't give up. Stick to it you will get it.

Steve

Just consider what it is you want to do:
Would you like to spend a little time and learn how to re-create / re-design your website and perhaps do more down the road? Then don't give up.
Do you just want your old website updated a bit? Then just ask any of a number of really nice people in the forums here that have been around a while and you will get more than fair treatment.

My personal opinion: I've been a web developer / designer for a long time and of course am very used to doing things 'my way'. However I'm always looking to find better ways to do things.
RSD was a bit difficult for me to grasp at first. Until you actually start using it, and use it repeatedly for a bit, it just won't make sense.
I would say I had a steeper learning curve than some just because once you become so set in your ways about things, it is difficult to 'unlearn' things sometimes. I had to force myself not to 'fix' things by resorting to coding when it wasn't going my way. lol

My main point I guess is that even with two decades of technical background - I took me a good 2 to 3 weeks of constant use, tutorials, asking questions, to become comfortable with it. It's been at least a month now I think? I'm now at the point where I'm really enjoying learning more and more almost daily about the different little tweaks and nuances this software is capable of.

So if you want to learn, you can't expect to do so without some time investment. It does seem almost counter-intuitive at first on some things, but it really starts to make sense and it really makes life easier in the end. Once again, praise be to the CC Gods that proved fore myself and my family... amen. XD

Take care, and I hope you are soon enjoying yourself with this! Remember there are a LOT of great tutorials and examples out there now to go off of. I've used almost all of them at some point or another, and I tried to use at least some element of most of them as an homage to everyone's help in my latest website conversion for some people. I can't stress how much *fun* it has put back into design for me.
- John

Hang in there Faye! Just keep working with it and IT will become easier