Hi, I’m returning to Rapidweaver after 4 versions away, trying to update/rebuild sites and enter the modern era… I can use some help getting up to speed again.
I see that Blocks has run it’s course, and Stacks is the way to go now for responsive sites, but it’s always been too structured for me to get the aesthetic I wanted.
Is there a Stack that allows for exact placement of graphical elements? Has someone created a Stack that does what Blocks would, where I could place a png file (with a roll over link) exactly where I wanted it, kind of like Blocks in Stacks?
I was one of those people that had no use for all the templates and used RW through Blocks and Blocksbox5 (it was a blank theme), and then added Accordions and Carousels, and snippets. It gave me limitless creativity to drag and drop. It was a really powerful tool and did everything I needed. I can still use Blocks, but I can see I’m better off with all the elegant Stacks available for the rest…and putting a Stacks page in a Blocks page sounds like counter intuitive trouble.
Are people still doing this with Rapidweaver? I looked at Blocs for a second (which claims to make responsive sites?) but I did work I’m proud of in Rapidweaver, and I’d prefer to find a solution here.
Really appreciate the help!! I’ve got multiple aging, broken sites that are long overdue for replacing.
The Blocks plugin has been updated fairly recently to work with RapidWeaver 7 and RapidWeaver 8. It is still actively developed and supported. The latest version is available here if you need it: http://www.yourhead.com/blocks
There are quite a few ‘blank’ themes available. A Google search would help you find them. Worth noting that some of the blank themes available are solely for use only with the Stacks plugin and their own “niche” set of purchased stacks. Others however are more “open ended” and can happily work with any page type, including Blocks.
I could not find any links to BlocksBox. I have a feeling that may have been discontinued a long time ago. However you may find it still works okay with newer versions of RapidWeaver. It should be feasible to import it into RapidWeaver.
Most websites now need to provide mobile compatibility. You may find a significant proportion of your website users are on mobile or tablet devices. If SEO is an important factor, then you may find some search engines penalise websites for not being mobile optimised. And most paying clients expect their websites to work flawlessly on mobile too.
I don’t know how successful a website built with Blocks would be on mobile. However a lot of non-RapidWeaver websites out there (including big companies like Facebook) still create separate mobile and desktop versions. Therefore that could provide you a viable solution here with Blocks. You could use Mobilize in the demo version of Stacks to create the special redirect code, for your Blocks pages. Then continue to use Blocks + RapidWeaver, but create separate mobile and desktop versions of the websites.