There are a ton of videos on using X-Theme Pro... none I've found start at the beginning

[rcstevensonaz]

Brand new, absolutely totally novice user here. I bought the goods that X-Theme / Pro is the easiest and best way to create a simple consulting website.

So how do I start? I’ve got a blank canvas. I’ve reviewed lots of the Cornerstone videos, and EVERY SINGLE ONE starts with the speaker going to a page that is already created, and then describes how to to use Cornerstone to modify it.

But I don’t have any pages already created. I want to create an initial site based on a combination of elements in some of the beautiful (albeit incredibly limited) templates. No clue how do to that. And nothing I’ve found in the documents takes a novice user from blank canvas to initial site created based on one of the provided templates.

[prakash_s]

Hello @rcstevensonaz,

Thanks for writing to us.

I would suggest you go to the Cornerstone—>Click on the plus icon —>Themeco —>select the site template that you want to import.

Hope it helps
Thanks

[rcstevensonaz]

I did that. And then after doing so, all I have is a blank screen. You will reply “of course”. But as someone who has never done this before a single time, it sure looks to me like it failed. And in fact, after trying with several different themes, it still appears that no themes are in place.

IMHO, your training videos are missing a very key audience: the person doing it for their absolutely very first time — people who don’t yet know aspects that are blindingly obvious to anyone who has done it at least once.

A video could walk through a few steps demonstrated on a typical hosting site – I’m using BlueHost.

1. Create the site on BlueHost
2. Go into settings menu and add WordPress to the site <<< wasn’t obvious at first that I needed to do that
3. Go into new WordPress website, and install X-Theme / Pro
4. Paste in your license key <<< your text is such pale grey in a white box in the middle of a very busy page, it took me a while to figure what to do here… it wasn’t obvious at first
5. Go into Cornerstone mode
6. Add page, using Themeco to create site (as you showed on this page)
7. Explain that after that step, the site is installed but you see a blank canvas because you haven’t told Cornerstone which of the site pages you want to work on editing
8. Show clicking on Cornerstone to see a list of the site pages that were created, and then select which page you want to work on.
9. Note that from that point on, you can follow the other videos on how to use Cornerstone to customize the pages.

But, a bonus section would also be helpful for those who are starting out and not yet familiar with how to use the various themes. For example:

• Show where to go to find examples of all of the current site themes in the pack so that we can see what each of the installed pages will look like
• Show an example of how I might grab a sample layout page from another site themes, but pull it into the current site theme that I’m already working with. For example, I setup my site using Lawyer; but I want to use the About page layout from Agency. I am not sure if I should go ahead use the + Add Page to install the Agency Site in addition to the Lawyer site that I already added; or if that will screw up the theme settings.

As I noted in my initial message, all of the tutorial videos start from someone already having active pages. This tutorial is to simplify getting to that starting point. A good Remedial Video for the Absolute First Time Novice coving these very simple steps would save many hours of trial & error just getting to the starting block.

[marc_a]

Hey Craig,

We’ll certainly keep your suggestions in mind for future videos. We are considering a series on building a site from scratch. Having said that, I’d encourage you to check out our Getting Started with Cornerstone Series if you haven’t already. It is for people who are completely new and walks you through all aspects of the builder experience.

Thank you.

[rcstevensonaz]

@marc_a

It is for people who are completely new and walks you through all aspects of the builder experience.

But this is exactly my point. That video is not for someone completely new nor does it walk through any of the initial steps to create the first page from one of the templates.

After a brief intro—at the 32 second mark—it literally says “Jump to the top, click, and you can see all the pages that you have ALREADY created.” And moreover, the canvas is NOT blank; which further leads the new person to assume there was an error when they do click the + Add Site option (only to be again given a blank page). That same situation was true for every single video blogger who talks about how to get started with X-theme or Pro… they all assume you are in fact already started with your initial pages in place.

I’m over that first hump now. But a simple visual tutorial guide for the person who really is brand new would have been incredibly helpful. So hopefully you can add that to your queue for those who follow later and want to have clear idea of how to get started and to create their first demo site using one of your templates.