Learning RSD seems to be impossible for me. How did youse guys on this forum learn enough to use it to build websites, some for other people?

Coffee Cup’s HTML Editor is what I use to build and maintain my volcano website. I’m a full-time geologist but an occasional coder. I promised my wife I would build her a website to display (not sell) her pottery and I got the trial version of RSD, thinking it might be a useful tool, especially with most people using their cell phones to access websites.

At the end of a totally frustrating week (that probably could have been better spent kluging something together in HTML Editor, despite my limitations), I’m wondering where to go from here.

Slavishly following web tutorial #1449, I have tried to build my version of the “Visions” site 3 times, and each time RSD did something totally on its own. I do not know, and cannot discover, what or why. In the tutorial, a Button-link was placed in a row, given the class name “nav,” and then duplicated twice to make a nice row of green buttons. In my first two builds, that happened as expected. In the third build, duplication gave me a stack of three buttons. Delete, start over, same stack. Why? No clue!

The row of three pictures in the middle is exactly what I want for my wife’s Desert Pottery site. I have built this row a half a dozen times, some in Visions, some as stand-alone. Two of those builds resulted in the neat row of 3 pictures the tutorial shows. In the others, the first duplicate of the four span column wound up on the other side of the page with four empty spans between. Why? Because!

On the final try, today, using ctl-D to duplicate after the second picture showed up on the right, the third picture went between the other two making a row. I knew it could not last. After going back to review the video in another window, I came back to RSD and those 3 pictures were in a stack on the left. Friday seems to be stack day in RSD.

I guess I’m too old for software that makes it’s own, apparently random, decisions. Has anybody else had this experience? How did you get around it? Does Coffee Cup have any tutorials that are not puff-pieces for how awesome their goddamn software is? Should I just delete the trial and go back to the HTML Editor that is well behaved and familiar?

This topic expires 22 May, I will have decided by then.

Dan Lynch

Hello Dan
While i fully appreciate your frustrations having shared them and accepting there is a big learning curve from the cc html editor I can say that it is worth all the effort. The? RSD is a fantastic bit of kit which allows me as a poor coder to do reasonable websites which I am happy to put my name to.

As regards the specific issues you mention there are some extremely competent and enthusiastic people who will help. As they are all over the world and are volunteers you might have to wait a few hours for a response.

I hope you stick with RSD.

Regards.

Russ

Hello Dan
I can help get you started at least I have videos (others on this forum too) I can work with you producing specific video for you requirements rather than trying to adapt themes ot templates,, only a 9 days left for the trial so need to get you going soon if you are interested contact me via my web-site https://foundation-framer-tutorials.com don't worry about the foundation framer title we can usr RSD and the Foundation Framer wireframe

Wayan in Sunny Bali

Stonecherub, the Visions tutorial was made for a previous version of RSD, so it is not as valuable as it used to be. It has to be updated. I'm making an effort of doing that, but due to health problems in my family it takes me more time than I had hoped for.
But you can trust Wayan, he knows how to do things!

Hi Inger

Sorry to hear still having proble,, I hope & pray everything comes out good for you and your family soon.

I will place some Canang ( pronounced Chanang) on the beach tomorrow at sunrise to ask the spirits to guide & help also, it is a special day for Balinese Hindu so they should be listening.
Wayan In Sunny Bali

My main problem with the Visions tutorial was in following the cursor on the YouTube screen (full) - it moved too fast. I would have preferred move, then hover for at least a couple of seconds.

I could not build Visions because of the erratic, unexpected behavior of RSD on my computer, the tutorial was fine.

Visions, the way it was created, was for 'desktop down', meaning you start with a wide viewport and move to smaller ones. Now the new RSD has the opposite approach, starting with 'mobile first'. That is the reason why that tutorial is difficult to follow.
I take your point about the cursor movements being too fast. That is very often a hurdle for me too, in various intructional videos.

First off, do you know what breakpoints/media queries do? Do you have an idea about what the grid system is? If these concepts are foreign to you, then no matter what you do this software will be difficult. Once you get these concepts down, the rest down start to come into focus.

Strangely enough, I remember reading about the grid system several years ago when I was first trying to design my volcano website. I thought it cool but saw no practical way for me to use it. I understand how RSD uses the grid and assume it has some way to move objects from one place in the grid to another, but cannot find out how I can move them. I think I understand "break point" as a place (in pixels) on the x-axis of the GUI (is that term dated?), a boundary between two different page formats. I assume that "media" is where those format instructions are stored in the page code and that the "query" picks the appropriate format for any particular user's device viewport width.

Working with the trial version 2.1 of RSD Build 2121, my vexation comes from using tutorials written many months ago for previous versions of the software. I completed #1430 (the cat-house site). Following #1435, I discovered that the tutorial GUI lacks the “colored bootstrap 4 breakpoints that cannot be moved.” When I place a breakpoint at 800 px, and then change the format as directed, the new formatting lives in a bin between 800 and the immovable breakpoint at 768 with the old formatting outside that bin, apparently applicable to both larger and smaller viewport devices.

I'm a retired geologist and part time coder. I learn what I need to know by studying what other people have done. Right now, I'm flailing through the disjointed archival material at CoffeeCup and finding precious little to learn from.

I would go ahead and buy the software, then you get full capabilities and all the time in the world. Go to the help section and read it all and perhaps several times all of the way through. Read it all until you understand it all or all makes sense. When you do searches do not use the search provided here on the forums it always came up empty for me use google search, the items you are looking for might be in you tube or somewhere else. People will help you with problems here on the forums but they need to have specific rather than nebulous problems and then they need to have them put forth so that they know exactly what the problem is. The software is very good and does wonderful stuff, there is a learning curve and takes hard work. There is a reason why people pay to get this stuff done.