UCCW, Nova, and other "themeing" programs

[sonicresidue]

I'm very new to Android and have been experimenting with these programs. While I am able to figure them out after fiddling with them for a while, I find it frustrating that the help files do not give much information. Do these programs have any kind of more extensive documentation, or alternatively, are there any write-ups here or elsewhere that walk you through some basic steps to creating layouts and themes?

Also, UCCW is a very good program but is there anything similar that lets you do this on your computer? Keep in mind I have no programming background. I'm sure if I did I would be able to accomplish the same things without having to ask such basic questions.