A modeling session can lose momentum for a surprisingly ordinary reason: you know something is wrong, but not which page of the documentation will help. Is it a frequently asked account or installation question? A problem you should diagnose by its symptoms? Or a feature whose exact behavior you need to look up?
Those are different kinds of questions, and treating them as one can lead to unnecessary browsing. SAMSON’s help resources are organized into three destinations—FAQ, Troubleshooting, and References—so you can choose a route based on what you know about the problem already.
First, identify the kind of uncertainty
Before searching, take a moment to describe the issue in one sentence. You do not need to know the cause. Just decide whether you are looking for a recurring answer, a way to resolve a symptom, or authoritative details about a feature.
- “Is this a common question?” Start with the FAQ. It is the first stop for recurring questions about accounts, installation, updates, and extensions.
- “Something is not working; what should I try?” Go to Troubleshooting. This is the symptom-based route when you need a practical fix path.
- “I know which feature I am using; where are its details?” Open References to find the relevant reference family.
This small distinction can save time: a feature reference is not necessarily the fastest place to answer a general account question, and a FAQ may not be the best place to investigate a clearly symptom-based failure.
A simple triage routine
- Write down what you need. For example: “I have a question about an update,” “I need a fix for a problem I can observe,” or “I need the detailed reference for a feature area.”
- Choose the matching page. Use FAQ for common questions, Troubleshooting for symptoms, and References for feature details.
- Move on if the page does not match. If a recurring-question answer does not address the issue and the problem is clearly symptom-based, switch to Troubleshooting. If you already know the feature family, use References rather than reading unrelated help pages.
The goal is not to follow every page in order. The recommended reading order—FAQ, then Troubleshooting, then References—is useful when you are not sure where to begin. But the best route depends on the question in front of you. The documentation explicitly allows you to skip pages that do not fit: skip References when you only need a quick answer or fix; skip FAQ when you already have a troubleshooting case; and skip Troubleshooting when you only need a feature reference.
Use the symptom, not the frustration, as your clue
When a molecular modeling task is interrupted, it is natural to search broadly or repeat the last action. Instead, separate the observation from the explanation. “I cannot complete this step” describes a symptom; “I need to know what this feature does” describes a reference question. You may not yet know why the issue occurred, and that is fine—the troubleshooting path is designed for cases where you need to work from the symptom toward a practical fix.
Likewise, if your question is about an account, installation, update, or extension, begin with the FAQ rather than trying to infer a technical cause. Matching the question to the help format is a useful first diagnostic step, even before you know the solution.
Keep the wider help map in view
Some questions point beyond these three resources. For installation, first-use orientation, and onboarding follow-up, continue to Start here. For SAMSON Connect, permissions, groups, and shared documents or jobs, see Share and collaborate. For scripting, extensions, and developer-facing workflows, visit Automate and extend.
A useful rule to remember: common question → FAQ; observed problem → Troubleshooting; known feature → References. It gives you a clear starting point without requiring you to browse the whole guide.
Learn more in the Reference and help documentation.
Note: SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. Get SAMSON.