After downloading ver 10.1 no help available

Question

I bought Version 10.1 after years of Final cut express as it no longer seems to work properly in Mavericks.
However every time I attempt to open the help file my MACPRO returns  nothing.
Is there a Manual on line and is there a way to make the help file available on my machine?
I also have 3 questions:
1st If one movie or photograph has a transparent area this file should be where in the time line? at the bottom, with the other on top?
2nd If I want more than one movie and photos with transparent areas each with additional trasparent areas how to place them on the timeline so I can see in the order I need to see.
EXAMPLE
1- Photograph as general background with several transparent areas in random shapes in the image
2- Movie A with other transparent areas keeping some of the previous layer trasparent but covering other as too become visible
3- Movie B only covering the remaining transparent areas both in Photo 1 and Movie A
3rd After reducing a movie to the size I need how to make it enter the frame, run across the frame in a line and then exit the frame after a number of seconds?
I think these are simple questions but the interface is so very different from the previous versions that I am lost.
Thanks a lot for any help.
Etnad

Answer 1

Thanks W. Richard Glendofor your Kindness and Happy new year from Italy:
as for question 2
I imagine the fotograph of a wood with sparse trees
You have a sky on top
You have different elements between the various trees
You have a small green lawn at the bottom
I use several programs to get
1 photograph where I only keep the trees, no sky (transparency) no elements between the trees, no lawn at the bottom of the picture
This should be my background.
2 I insert in the space between the trees a movie of a girl running in a dirt road
3 I insert a movie with a cloudy sky racing
4 I insert a guy running the opposite way of the girl where the sea touches the sand
Therefore in my original I only keep the trees I need
The girl running has the same dimension as the original backgroud picture, the sky and whater else is behind her is transparent
The sky replaces the clear sky of the original, with clouds running
The boy (always the same size as the original bckground photo has the upperside of the film transparent so I can place it at the bottomof my film.
I hope this gives you an idea of the various transparencies and their final order.+
I really miss the option I had in Final Cut expreee of using the eye dropper to choose the color I wanted to make trnsparent or if it is there I dont know hoe to appy it to my bckground image
I will indeed study however I am stuck now as the deadline is coming and my only option seems to be to buy a drive, put in my Mac Pro and go back to Snow Leopard which was stable and quite good (at least as I know how to use it weel enough for my work) and reinstall Finalcut express
Thanks again
Etnad