I purchased RSD last week and I can totally relate with the frustration regarding the documentation. My 2 cents on the matter:

- There is in fact a ton of material to learn RSD on the Coffeecup website and even in the few video tutorials (both on Vimeo and Youtube). But, the material is really scattered and hard to find. You have to find the links (usually within individual posts to find whatever it is you are looking for). And the articles are very "chatty" (i.e. written more as a blog or live tutorials than as quick guides with info).

- Take for example the main RSD "guide" (Responsive Site Design Overview post): That post would be infinitely more useful if it had an index at the very top with links to the appropriate posts or locations within posts. Even better: cut it up in smaller pieces and use numbered sections to organize it.

- Then the post on design elements (http://www.coffeecup.com/help/articles/ … -elements/)... the post reads more of a "novel" than a quick, concise summary of the list of elements and their attributes. Seriously, it is pages and pages of chatty talk and there isn't a single table with a summary of the elements, attributes, or how to perform common tasks/operations with them.

RSD urgently needs a "User Guide" written for the technical geeks (like me) who don't have the time (or desire) to read through lengthy blog posts to find info. Such guide should start with an awesome table of contents and an alphabetical index of RSD terms (nope, I don't want to search through the whole Coffeecup website to find how to center a picture in a column -which produced a gazillion results in all of Coffecup's shades and flavors of software-... there should be an index within this RSD guide that says "Picture - Center" with a link to the specific instructions on how to center a picture on RSD... and, hopefully, an actual example).

Bottom line: we need a true technical user guide (with concise and consistent numbering, summaries, tables, examples, summaries of common tasks and indices)... not a chatty blog scattered through the site!!!!

RSD is really an incredible product (seriously). But there is in fact a learning curve to it. Don't blow it with the poor documentation/training (or worse, by refusing to admit you do have a problem with documentation).

PS. You should also create more video tutorials... particularly useful to get overall views of the functionality of the different parts of the software, and provide examples of the most challenging and common issues facing RSD users.

@Jay, don't give up... As others have said, if you need help just ask here...

Hello everyone. I bought RSD when it first came out. Now, I'll admit I'm not a coder but I can do old-style HTML adequately, so I jumped at the chance to get a smart package that can help drag me into the 21st century.

Typically, when learning new stuff (especially something like RSD that is quite different from the CC HTML Editor I've known and loved), I like to start with a template, look inside it, adapt it, fiddle with it, grow it and eventually make it mine. I've downloaded the basic free templates from CC, but I see that CC doesn't have any RSD templates for purchase yet. I'd love to update my 20-year old websites (stalag17b.com and 511bs.com), and look forward to doing that. I welcome any assistance to help this old dog learn new tricks.

We actually have a few that you can purchase William.

http://www.coffeecup.com/help/articles/ … heme-pack/

Hi, like you I had a good bit of experience with the editor and just lately starting to get my head wrapped around responsive design. There is much willing help and information here and you will not be left hanging.

But I really wanted to just say thanks for your two web sites. A very difficult and worthy effort to preserve some almost forgotten and important history. I salute you for that.

Tom Harris
US Army Retired

Thank you, Scott, for pointing the themes out - I couldn't find them in the themes section of CC's shop. But CC has already provided me with all of them but two gratis, so I'll play with those first. The switch from straightforward lines of HTML to elements, types and classes is going to be a challenging new trick for this old dog.

And thank you, Tom, for your kind words about my websites. That means a lot. Both sites have been works-in-progress, like giant jigsaw puzzles. A labor of love nonetheless. And I've met a lot of very nice folks like you along the way.

Bill Doubledee

About two hours after my last post, I had my "aha!" moment during dinner. Starting with the Visions template, I got to work after dinner and built a basic 6-page site in about an hour of noodling around; no content yet, but I have some menu buttons, pages and some images (mostly to make sure I see which page I'm working on).

The RSD Duplicate function is currently my best friend.

For grins, I exported my project to my local web projects folder and looked inside at that RSD generated. Holy Schnikes! Great gobs of yummy code! I called my wife over to take a look, and her response was "How the h@#$ did you do that? You can't even use the satellite remote!" I think that meant that she was impressed.

I look forward to adding stuff pop-down menus, content and bits of shiny things here and there.

Bill

Welcome to the land of responsive design William. As Bob Marley , "I can see clearly now..."

Hello:

Where is the step-by-step-tutorial that was mentioned?

In support of previous commenters, improved documentation is sorely needed. Time spent hunting for information, as described by others, quickly raises the software's effective price. Responsive "blank pages" deliver no value.

We keep slugging down the learning curve, but at one point we may need to cut our losses and abandon RSD.

Please don't "blow it", CoffeeCup.

Remorsefully,
Wayne//

I see you only have owned the software for a few hours now. Have you gone to the Help Menu yet? With the amount of information and articles we have online, it would take hours to go through all that. There is an absolute plethora of information online on how to use RSD Wayne! ;-)

We have a bunch of articles on RSD to help you get more familiar with how this app works. Our Quick Start Guide is very helpful when getting started. We also have a new step-by-step tutorial which will walk you through transforming a static site to a responsive one that is perfect when you are just starting out. http://www.coffeecup.com/help/articles/1430

If you are a visual based learner, a new tutorial has been posted that breaks down the creation of a responsive page in just 5 steps. This article is unique as it includes 8 instructional videos. Check it out at: http://www.coffeecup.com/help/articles/1449

Looking at your account, I also see you have never downloaded any of the templates that came with RSD. I highly recommend downloading those so you can see some of our designs in action. You can even adapt some of these for your own design.

RSD does require some commitment on your part to really read through all the articles and how-to's so that you have a good understanding of the terminology and how things work. Just jumping right into RSD without working through these tutorials will make things challenging for you. I guarantee you that once you do, you will wonder how you ever lived without RSD!