Gosh. We have here so many PRO Plugins from @isaiah @joeworkman @Elixir @rob @Gary @yuzool @Doobox (I cannot name them all, sorry).
This thread relly becomes obscure and deviates from the original post. I guess it should be closed now. @LaPan
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It was just my opinion from an end user as I stated. Also maybe a new thread should be started. It is a discussion worth having.
Itās good enough for Vibralogix, makers of SiteLok, who say āWe love Rapidweaver and use it for our website as well.ā
I didnāt say it wasnāt a good enough product for some. But if you raise or double the price as suggested it better be amazing!
The good thing is the suggestion of increased prices was by a user, not a developer. I canāt speak for anyone else here, but as a developer I donāt have any plans to double my prices, and IMHO I donāt think other developers do either (again, just my opinion and not any inside info I have). So I think you can rest easy.
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So to be clear before I start, Iām not complaining - RW meets my own needs just fine.
One critical barrier to RW becoming a āprofessionalā product is that it doesnāt support group development of websites. I.e., thereās no simple way to put a site into GIT and have different people working on different parts of it in parallel, checking in their work as they go. When the project is saved in a monolithic file, thereās no way to merge updates from different people.
This model works fine for a single person making their own web site (my case), or a solo developer making websites for small organizations. But without supporting team development I canāt see RW cracking the big-leagues of web development.
Like I said, Iām very happy with RW as-is, and to be honest I get a little nervous of talk about turning it into an expensive āprofessionalā product.
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I agree that the RapidWeaver team seems shorthanded, and that theyāre passionate about their software. Where there is an extremely serious problem, however, is how they communicate with users, especially new ones. There are plenty of problematic text sections and incorrect videos on their website. Thereās also the almost hopeless documentation that doesnāt seem like anybody cared to proofread it or to test it with someone whoās unfamiliar with the software.
Donāt get me wrong. I absolutely LOVE the RapidWeaver application. And I know in many companies, thereās a strong urge to keep hiring engineers, while giving the job of user instruction to whoever is around, somebodyās spouse or to contract it out to whoever is the absolute cheapest. The result is angry, frustrated customers like the original poster. Because of poor communications, they interact with the company. Some seek refunds. The engineering, marketing, support, finance and customer service hours that it takes to resolve these situations costs a lot more than making sure that user instruction is clear in the first place.
Look at it this way: Letās say RapidWeaver is a foreign language (it is to all new users). Hiring more engineers to create more RapidWeaver phrases is fine. Whatās needed, however, is a skilled, full-time instructor who can oversee production of a good textbook, helpful videos and a clearly worded web presence. Having good tools and a good instructor to help learn the language would dramatically cut down on the unnecessarily steep learning curve. It would also help if RapidWeaver went to live web-based textbook rather than a PDF. Updating a PDF can be difficult (especially if it was created by an outside contractor), and expecting users to always have the latest version of the docs can be a nightmare. Web-based docs can be changed and expanded. This can be done, for example, when a large number of customers have problems understanding how a particular feature works. Some applications have their online web-based docs linked to the Help button in the software. It seems ironic to be advocating web-based documentation for a web development product.
I know that you can do better, RealMac. Not doing better is way too expensive and I want you to be around for a long time.
Neither that or a PDF helps when nobody reads itā¦
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I think that is @Adiantumās point. Personally, finding what you need is very difficult to find and understand. In the end you stop reading and give up.
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I have used RW for many years, having emigrated from Dreamweaver (became too complex for my liking) and before that NetObjection Fusion (a friend suggested its code was too proprietary). It took a while to emotionally accept third party thematic software for my websites but having found a theme I like and a third-party developer I can get on with I am pleased to say that the combination of RW and Will Woodgate has stood me in good stead. A custom-built stack that Will did for me has received lots of plaudits. Ultimately, although a website appearance is important, it is the content that matters more relative to the target market for visitors. The number of adds on that I require for the content I write are few in numberā¦ Which is just as well because I dread to think about the amount of money Iāve wasted on experimentation,
I agree with you concerning a few points. I also interpret Free as meaning free. Also, I find it irksome to pay in dollars: that may not be unreasonable when the exchange rate is favourable but not currently.
As for the forum, it is all very well the RW staff being content to allow users to help one another but the snag is that anyone posting a question on the forum is only likely to get an answer if another user(s) can be bothered to help. Iām not suggesting others canāt be bothered generally; on the contrary I have received help on numerous issues but itās help given voluntarily. As for emails direct to RW staff, all of mine have been answered, sometimes not as quickly as Iād like but answered and problems resolved nevertheless. (As a benchmark for customer service, one could learn a thing or two from ASOS whose approach is response to customer emails within one hour, social media contact within 15 minutes and phone calls within 30 seconds.)
Hang been admonished on the forum for criticising the quality of RW podcasts, and having subsequently listened patiently to the entirely of some only to have formed the same conclusion, namely that a lot less banter and chit-chat of no consequence should be edited out, my assessment of the RW developers is that they waste time on creating and launching new products to make up for the fact that RW is not as successful as they would have liked.
The Apple Mac community is relatively small and although growth has been explosive since āiItel insideā - others more knowledgeable can correct this, my knowledge is limited - website design software was formerly Appleās iWeb, with third parties including but perhaps not limited o Sandbox and RW. Apple having ditched its app, the field would have been left to Sandbox and RW were it not for the growth of browser-based template software such as WP.
Part of the reason for the limited success is that the RW owners have allowed a host of third-party developers to capitalise and some of those devs are better at promotion, In allowing their core product to be latched-onto, the RW developers have missed out on where the money is to be made, namely in the development of accessories/adds-ons. Hence, the desire to catch up by charging disproportionately to the cost of the software its;f for video training lessons.
There is no doubt, at least not in my mind, that Stacks is the best thing that could have happened to RW but Stacks was not developed by RW but a third party. It would be so easy to complete with Stacks if the RW folk were so minded but instead they have turned their attention to for example Typed (as if the world needs another blog!) and then wonder why thatās not as successful as their enthusiasm.
As for the software itself, it is only suitable for beginners that are content to use it straight out of the box, so to speak. I donāt do coding so there is a lot of technical stuff that is over my head. I was a late comer to Stacks and to be perfectly honest I didnāt understand how to use it at first. Iām not sure that I get the most out of Stacks now but at least Iāve a better idea of how to use it. However, by sticking to what I know and teaming up with a third-party developer I get along with, RW is likely to remain my supplier of website software for a long-time yet.
I donāt think Realmac are desperate for a few quid. I think theyāre desperate for a run-away success but because they donāt have what it takes how they are going about it is why RW is nothing like as good as it could be.
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Amongst my favourite web-based help sites is for Capture One 9 (photography)
Even people who donāt read manuals thumb through them sometimes, looking for a quick answer. If the section that they read is confusing, incomplete, tangled or just doesnāt make sense; they give up quickly. The RapidWeaver manual has many sections that would make even the most patient person give up.
For example, on page 16, thereās a section titled, āUsing Resourcesā that starts at the bottom of the page. It says:
"Using Resources Thereās two incredibly useful ways to make use of resources. Firstly, when using RapidWeaverās āAdd Linkā feature, when there are resources in your project file you can directly link to them (and RapidWeaver will automatically generate the correct link to the resource, no matter where in your project the page is located).If you need to embed the image, or have use for the imageās address, instead of hardcoding the link you can use whatās known as a resource macro. Whenever a resource macro is found in your project, RapidWeaver will substitute it for a link to the resource."
Why this is confusing:
- Basic grammar: It should say "There are" and not "There's." "There's" is a contraction of "there is." The sentence refers to multiple objects ("ways") so "There is" is incorrect. Poor grammar doesn't usually stop a reader from continuing, but it sometimes makes people need to read a sentence more than once to figure out what is meant.
- The next sentence is a run-on sentence that contains too much information to make sense.
- The first paragraph refers to RapidWeaver's "Add Link" feature without saying where it's located in the interface. If you click on a resource in the Resources list, there's no Add Link button. There's no Add Link item in any of the menus or in the Inspector. There's also no Add Link button in the Library panel.
- The second paragraph doesn't mention the mysterious Add Link feature, but it might be trying to explain how to add a link to a resource. It's unclear. A resource macro might be the same as the Add Link feature, but it might not. If they're the same, then the paragraph should say so.
- The section begins mentioning two ways to use resources. If you read to the end of the section, there's no place that the word, "secondly" is used. If you use "Firstly," then you should use "secondly" someplace. Otherwise, readers will keep hunting for that second point. If they can't find "secondly" (or a similar word or phrase), then they'll end up confused and will feel lost.
With writing like this, I donāt blame anybody for not wanting to read the manual.
It also would have ben nice for us new users not to have to buy into seeing the instruction video examples, $25 per month or whatever it is to further see examples on how toās might have helped him if freeā¦
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You can see Getting Started videos here: http://rapidweavercommunity.com/tutorials/series/getting-started
Thereās no cost involved.
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Yes those are free but I did not say the Getting started, I said the Tutorialsā¦http://rapidweavercommunity.com/tutorials those you have to upgrade toā¦
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Iāve never watched the RapidWeaver videos and I donāt think anyone needs to watch them. Iāve learnt to use RW mostly by using this forum and reading the manuals for particular plug-ins.
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For what itās worth, Iām going to agree that the entry-level RapidWeaver tutorials should be free. For sure, charge for the special-purpose and advanced tutorial series like how to set up an e-commerce site or do SEO. But the basics like how to use Stacks or how to customize a theme should be free. As a new user, it left a bad taste in my mouth that I had just paid for the product, and then was being asked to pay a monthly fee for what is de facto the manual.
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Actually any new user should get 6 months free tutorials. Then the user can decide if he steps into the subscription or not. A 6 months free period is also a good selling strategy for RW.
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Iāve found the generous amount of instructional videos from concrete5.org on YouTube to be a big plus for that platform (same with WordPress.tv).
Not sure why Realmac Software isnāt more active in trying to promote just how good a product they have in RapidWeaver to as many people as possible, both for novice and professional alike. There hardly seems to be anything on YouTube for RW7 at all.
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