I know, this question has probably been asked over and over on the forums, but I would like to reach out to all the rookies here, like myself. I don't get into code much at all, made many sites in Visual Site Designer. I love VSD and recently purchased RSD. I did not get RLM, so I am starting as clean of a slate as you can. I started looking at videos on Youtube and read a few articles here in CC's website. Doing this has confused me a bit, as a lot of questions began to take over and block my advancing I know there is a lot to learn, and I tried using a template to click through, but that left some questions, like where do the background images come from, or get inserted.
So here goes, where do you feel is the best place to start? It's ok if a pro wants to answer, I'm all ears....

Background images can be applied to the Grid, Rows and Columns. Just select any of those and go to the Design Tab and then scroll down to the BACKGROUND area. Here you can use colors, gradients or even images. Pretty easy right?

http://s13.postimg.org/p8ctecex3/Screen_Shot_2015_08_23_at_3_47_35_PM.png

Our Quick Start Guide is very helpful when getting started with Responsive Site Designer. We recommend taking a look at it as it explains many different parts of the program.

Scott, In reference to THE COAST template, I did see BACKGROUND under Design, but where it says IMAGE it says NONE. That is where I was confused, it says NONE ans the template did not come with any images.

I will start going through the Quick Start Guide and see how much trouble i can get in

You selected the Column, not the Row. Remember, background images can be applied to the Grid, Rows and Columns.

http://s16.postimg.org/6rx771fut/Screen_Shot_2015_08_23_at_4_35_48_PM.png

Just wanted to stop back in and give an update, for all the other RSD newbies like myself. I have read through Scott's Quick Start Guide he listed above, and followed along Step by Step on CC's Youtube tutorial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yz9ChP_hmZc Doing both of these things has been a huge help. I'm not ready to launch yet, but these two things has given me a good sense of what's going on. Before I felt like a HUNGRY kid outside a candy store. Off to bed as I'm a bit full....

As my wheels continue to spin, I am trying to figure out where to put my energy. I think later these questions will be rather obvious, so please bear with me. Short answers are fine, as I will dig deeper later.

1) Let’s say I want to keep my site exactly the same, is it best to start off by thinking small? (Should I plan on what the layout will look like on a phone, or is this a three phase plan it is not relevant?)
2) Is the push/pull effect relative to a single column or element, or can it be applied to both?
3) Do I need to plan out ahead of time what each element is going to do as it screen resolutions gets smaller?

I always start at Desktop Down approach. Its a lot easier in my brain anyway to think logically what i want my website to look like in full version. Then I start shrinking it down by moving my slider to the left and adding a breakpoint when needed. Realigning my content and continuing the process until I am at the smallest size.



I believe it can only be applied to a row/column



As mentioned earlier I really don't sit down and really plan what its going to look like at each level. The reason I don't plan at the specific breakpoints is because I really don't know what my breakpoint is going to be until I start sliding it to the left. Think of it this way... design your website, slide the slider to the left until the content or elements start looking squished or out of alignment, then add a breakpoint and fix all alignment/font/display issues you see and continue moving your slider to the left and adding breakpoints and fixing until you get to the smallest size. Doing it this way will guarantee your website to look good at any screen size at all!

I got to say its the best software on the market today!

Steve,

Thanks for the info, this helps! As I starting learning I got a bit overwhelmed by the entire thought, but what you said makes sense and seems easier that what my brain was trying to tell me.

So, other than learning the controls, copying a website should be pretty straight forward. So far, images seem a bit tricky, but I have been experimenting but not getting too far.......

Speaking of images: If I am going to use the same image in three different places, different sizes, is it easier to size them ahead of time, or can I have them auto fit to a grid, row or column?

I would resize them before hand. Because, let's say, the image is 500kb and you serve that image 3 times with different widths set in the CSS that is 1.5MB that the user had to download. But, if one is 500kb, the second is a smaller size that makes it 250kb and the third is even smaller at 100kb, this means the user only had to download 850kb, saving them data on mobile devices and time...

Thanks Adam. Makes perfect sense.