I know the recipes are available online, but have you guys figured how to read these scrolls that are supposed to teach you how to make potions?

For instance, I bought a scroll that tells me to mix the right combination of the three colours of ingredients... They all talk about mixing the right combination of ingredients... Sometimes it's like "three red ones and three yellow ones"...

Except... That's not how it works. You put one ingredient in one bottle and it makes a potion and you can't add more ingredients to that one potion. Then you have to mix different colours of potions. I tried mixing three yellow potions and three red ones but, I don't think that this is working either? I'm confused.

Guess I'll have to alt-tab all the time to visit the FAQs and hope the game doesn't crash when I do so (it did twice).

Potions have 4 tiers: For each above Base you need certain Alchemy level.
Base (solid colour): three from herbs (red, blue, yellow), three from mixing these (orange, purple, green)
Layered (two-coloured): made from combining two Base potions
White: made from combining two Layered or Layered+Base
Black: made from White+Base or White+Layered

From herbs you can get only three base potions. Mixing the same potions will get you nothing.
If the recipe mentions 3 reds and 3 yellows, it could mean any combination of such, i.e. (Orange+Red)+(Orange+Yellow) = Divine Cure

(total 3xRed + 3xYellow used)

As for the correct reading, I don't think I ever did that. All my alchemy notes for whites and blacks come from experimentation.

If you don't want to look it up online, then you have to experiment. The scrolls aren't really useful until Might and MAgic VIII: Day of the Destroyer, when you can trade the right number of herbs of the correct color to potion masters living in different houses.

That said, at least you know what to start with.