I'm a web 'old-timer' who desperately needs to move my sites into the 21st century. Built my first sites back in the mid-90s by hand-coding and eventually upgraded to the CC HTML Editor, which I used for many years. I've thrown hundreds of $ at nearly every application that CC has offered in recent years, including all of the responsive design tools (except for RED) but haven't successfully used a single one of them for the simplest of projects.

I want to skip using the FF and BB apps I've paid for and never installed, and I don't want to deal with the CSS Grid Builder separately, if it's an integral part of Site Designer, as I've been led to believe.

I recently bought the Gougly Mougly theme and would like to use that as a jumping off point. I've also downloaded the KitKat and Visions themes and would like to have them available to use and learn from. But darn it, CC -- you've given me zip files without directions on where to unzip them so that they can be opened and used in Site Designer. I can't find this information anywhere, not in the zip files, not in the FAQ or Help documentation. I don't mind looking for things, but why not put this vital information in a logical place for users to find?

I feel stupid that I can't get started with this, because obviously many people on this forum have figured it out. But it is what it is -- can somebody point me in the right direction? (I have watched a lot of the tutorial videos, but haven't seen any references to using themes, aside from the few that are built-in to the basic product.)

Help, please!

Hi Cur, you are right about the grid Editor, it is indeed incorporated in Site Designer (short: SD3).

As to installing themes, unzip it to some place where you find it, and then, when having SD3 open, you will see 'Import theme in the File menu. Navigate to where you have your theme, and then the rest should be easy.

If I were you (and I come from the same starting point, website hand coded in 1996, later found the html Editor), I would start exercising with the Visions theme. It is basic, straight forward, no bells and whistles, but it is great as a learning tool. Be a bit careful with the KitKat theme, it is based on Grid. Most of us forum regulars are using traditional tools, and at least I haven't made the plunge into grid yet. In SD3, if you go for a Foundation platform, you will find lots of helpers here in the forums. Bootstrap also has its congregation, but I haven't seen much discussion around the other options in SD3.

Thanks, Inger, for a prompt and very helpful reply.

I really appreciate the tips about which theme and frameworks are better-suited to responsive beginners like me!

I'm coming from the same background, dearie. I started with MSDOS in the late 80's and used to communicate in the "echoes", where we would log into a local BBS and post in forums, then after midnight, they would call all around the country on the phone lines and exchange updated messages. Crazy, huh?

Few people realize that the internet was a DARPA project originally - Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and was developed to be able to maintain communications, in case of a war. So here we are. :-)

I had my small business site done by Adam here, for starters, and have been struggling to maintain and update it, using RSD 1.5, which has some frustrating limitations.

I'm VERY tempted to get into the latest greatest Responsive Designer ( this V3? ) , but my home business had slow holidays, so we're trying to catch up.

So with this latest, I understand it's radically different. You just design things by moving stuff around on a web browser style screen?

And is everything editable, like the CSS sections, page titles and all that?

I wish CC had a good SEO program. There are so many people out there claiming to know how to do it, but they want big bucks and don't always know either.

I didn't think all that way back, Melissa, when I replied to Cur. We also had the same thing, we called it 'Arpa-net' here in Norway. I came in just at the end of the bulletin board period, caught the tail end of it. I was familiar with MSDOS, but there was no real internet here until 1993. My own site came alive in 1996, with Win 3.1. Remember all those Usenet groups?

I see that your site was done with CC's own framework, CoffeeGrinder. If you move to SD3, the first thing that happens with your project when you open it, you get a question about which framework you want to convert it to, Foundation or Bootstrap, because SD3 doesn't support CoffeeGrinder. It would be a good idea to accept Foundation, for the same reasons as I told Cur above here. When the conversion is completed, take a good look around to see if everything is ok before you upload it.
The next thing you need to brace yourself for, is to work from mobile size screens up to desktop ones. that can be a bit hard to remember, especially to begin with.
Anyway, you know your way to the forums here, and you know we can be fairly helpful - if we choose to be

Danke Inger!

Those were the days, Inger & Melissa!

I go back to the pre-public internet days of bulletin boards, too. Started in the very early 80s on a Sinclair ZX-81 with a 300-baud modem.

First internet experience was with a SLIP account, and everything was text-based. When somebody figured out how to an image, it required running a separate program to download and display it!

Wasn't until Mosaic came around that I began to ponder creating my own presence, but realistically, it was the early Netscape Navigator that made me jump in with both feet. Hence my reference to the mid-90s.

Wish I had the ability to learn and adapt to change that I had back then. Things seem so complex and confusing these days, despite the powerful tools we have to make them 'simple'...

I also started with Netscape Navigator. I can remember everyone seemed annoyed when IE came along, especially because it was integrated in Windows, and the complaints were that M$ wanted to take over everything.

As said earlier, get some practice with the Visions theme first, while not thinking so much about your own project. That will teach you some basic skills necessary in SD3. When you get as far as to your own site, you could tell us what you want it to look like, and we would be able to assist you getting there. We've done that before with new users. Just holler when you need something.

Sound advice, for sure!

I have taken the first, very tentative steps, importing the themes as you instructed and opening up the Visions theme to experiment. To be honest, I have to force myself to do it. As a retiree who's now cooped-up in cold winter weather, I have all the time in the world to fiddle, but am, perhaps, too afraid of frustration and failure to dive in with both feet.

Think I'm going to use the https://www.coffeecup.com/help/articles/video-guide-for-creating-a-basic-page-in-css-grid-builder/ to get acquainted with the process. I'll use it in a dual monitor setup, with the tutorial on one screen and SD3 on the other. Should be 'fun'...

Thanks for being there, Inger, and others who frequently come to the aid of those who struggle...

Good thinking!