Ive used a few shopping carts that wer every easy to configure and design

I must admit that Magento is totally confusing. I have spent many hours trying to establish wher to begin and I’m no further forward. I don’t even know where to begin to change the layout.

The training videos stop half way through. The instructors don’t explain what they doing in the parts that are streamed, and the documentation is difficult to follow.

It seems like a great product, but what’s letting it down is lack of documentation. 

I have a strong programming background and am a bit new to web programming in general although have had some experience with PHP.  It’s been driving me bonkas fumbling my way around Magento.  It’d be good to get some basic how to do XYZ stuff in here.  like, e.g. how to do a vertical nav with an attribute like manufacturer rather than category.