Help for a starcraft newbie?

Hi, I just bought Starcraft 2 a few days ago, but I suck at it. I keep getting pwned by the AI on Medium, let alone multiplayer. At the moment I'm going with Terran as it seems to be the more straightforward, but I still can't figure out a good strategy. Here's what I did this match.

1v1, melee, T vs P

Rushed to 250 minerals for supply depot and barracks, bought the nuclear whatever addon for the barracks (the 2 at a time construction).

Bought a few SCVs. Upgraded CC for the supply depot / mining bot / recon thing. Built another barrack with the nuclear thing and used two barracks and a factory to wall with an SCV standing by to repair. Bought more SCVs

I continued this way, using cash and vespene to build a huge army of marines (like 50 of them) and a few siege tanks, which I massed behind my wall. This defense held against a few attacks by the Protoss. Soon I got the seige tank upgrade, but a second later the Protoss came and managed to destroy me anyway.

So what did I do wrong? If you have tips about buildings / units / techs, do please mention how to unlock them, because I don't know anything.

Another issue: when I lost, my minerals had almost been exhausted (although I did have like 2.5k in my inventory). What am I supposed to do when minerals run out? I know that I can move my CC and workers to a different patch, but that means I have to move my wall too, right? Isn't that really risky?

And a few final questions...

1. How do you build the medivac? And does the medivac heal automatically, or do I have to bind it to a unit to heal it?

2. Is there a hotkey to select all idle workers?

3. Is there a "unit list" I can use to quickly see how many units I have, and select them by type? eg. suppose I want to select all my marines when they're mixed up with a ton of other units.

4. Can barracks and factories be selected? Can I set all of them in one hotkey so I can build tons of units with one click and without microing?

 

you need to continue practicing, in order to know the pure basics, play the campaign if you have to.

1. build your barracks which lets you build a factory which lets you build a starport and you can build a medivac. it heats automatically anything that is biological (marines, marauders, scv, ghosts, reapers)

2. if you press F1 it will select idle workers, im not sure but i think if you press ctrl and F1 it will select all of them

3. there is no list, but if you double click on a unit, it will select all those units in your screen. if you double click on a marine it will select all the marines in your screen and then you can press CTRL + 1 (any number), and then if you press 1, it will preselect all the marines that you selected (control groups)

4. select all your barracks and do CTRL + 2 (any number). Now press 2 and press A a bunch of times, and it will queue up marines evenly between your barracks.

Again, the best way to learn how to play well, is by watching youtube videos of pro starcraft players.

4.

 

1. How do you build the medivac? And does the medivac heal automatically, or do I have to bind it to a unit to heal it?

>>Starport (factory first) No Binding, heals automatically, upgrade at techlab.

2. Is there a hotkey to select all idle workers?
>>>F2 and in the left of your screen.

3. Is there a "unit list" I can use to quickly see how many units I have, and select them by type? eg. suppose I want to select all my marines when they're mixed up with a ton of other units.
>>No make groups and control these. 1 unit composition s never good.

4. Can barracks and factories be selected? Can I set all of them in one hotkey so I can build tons of units with one click and without microing?
>>Yes same as units, Control group them. Find out hotkeys on building units. Set rally point to your group.

Go into control panel options and check hotkeys ;-)