I’ve been rebuilding our 1,300+ page website in Elements, and the first 85 pages are now complete. Working on a project of this size has been a great way to experience the framework beyond a typical brochure site, and overall I’ve been extremely impressed. I’m convinced RapidWeaver Elements is the right choice for us moving forward.
It’s fast, stable, intuitive, and a pleasure to work with. One feature I’ve particularly enjoyed is the ability to move components seamlessly between the page layout pane and the WYSIWYG editor. It feels incredibly natural and has made building complex pages significantly faster.
There is still a tremendous amount of work ahead—RW CMS integration, SEO and accessibility reviews, content refinement, and plenty of cleanup—but I needed to get our new Resource Center, updated pricing and navigation live so customers could begin benefiting from the new content.
Elements has been fast, stable, intuitive, and genuinely enjoyable to rebuild the site with. It’s obvious a tremendous amount of thought has gone into the framework, and it’s been a pleasure to work with.
As with any large project, real-world use uncovers opportunities that smaller websites never expose. Here are a few things I’d love to see in future releases.
Image Alt Text
This one surprised me the most.
The standard Image component doesn’t currently expose an Alt Text field. With accessibility, SEO, and AI all relying on meaningful image descriptions, having direct control over the alt attribute feels essential.
As a experimental workaround, I added an HTML component and was able to recreate the image while adding my own alt attribute. It blended in seamlessly with the rest of the page, but I’d still love to see native Alt Text support added to the standard Image component.
If you’re curious, the California image on this page is the HTML version.
Render Custom HTML in the Editor
Some of our pages include embedded forms and custom HTML.
Being able to render Custom HTML components directly in the editor instead of displaying an empty placeholder would make page layout and visual editing much easier.
Canonical URL Improvements
Two small improvements would make a big difference:
- Automatically generate canonical URLs by default.
- Display the end of long canonical URLs in the inspector rather than only the beginning. When working with deeply nested pages, it’s much easier to identify the page by the end of the URL than the beginning. The full url to this page is: https:// oneeleven (dot) surf /resource-center/privacy/laws-and-regulations/connecticut-data-privacy-act/
Better Link Visibility
When reviewing a page, it would be helpful if linked elements displayed whether they open in the same window or a new window without having to open the Link dialog. On larger sites, this would make auditing links much faster.
Search in the Elements Store
As the Elements ecosystem continues to grow, a search feature in the Elements Store would make finding components much quicker.
Thanks to everyone at Realmac for all the years you’ve invested in building and supporting RapidWeaver. It’s been a big part of my business since 2011, and Elements feels like the beginning of another exciting chapter. Keep up the great work—I can’t wait to see what’s next.
