Classic and Elements Planning

Elements
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I’d like to discuss the current status of Elements and Classic here, to provide some certainty for planning when it comes to updating and launching new projects.

@dan said the following just a few days ago: “Classic isn’t going anywhere, we still support it, we’re just finding more and more users are switching to Elements so it’s becoming less financially sustainable for us to dedicate time to.”
That sounds promising. As far as I can see, you no longer have to buy Classic. So it’s clear, of course, that it’s no longer generating any revenue. That’s why I bought an Elements Pro licence a long time ago.

Things have been quite difficult for RapidWeaver recently. The sudden demise of Foundry, Stacks on one side, Elements on the other, and finally the departure of several key developers from the platform – for whatever reason. I’ve now opted for Elements, am finally testing it thoroughly, and the way it works is truly very promising. Building it on Tailwind CSS was certainly a very good plan. Nevertheless, the fact remains that the absence of the developers who made the RW universe so powerful is leaving very large gaps in Elements, at least for the time being.

Just to name two significant examples:
Forms: the built-in form is only suitable as a very simple contact form; nothing more. What’s missing is a truly powerful tool like FormLoom, for example. It might be possible to integrate a working form into Elements using Tally, for instance. But in any case, it’s a time-consuming stopgap solution.
Galleries: Even the (incredibly expensive, by the way) Pro Gallery is quite nice, but for professional photographers, it’s nowhere near enough. We don’t really need to discuss that.

So the question is, what should I do about updating larger projects? Build them again in Classic and risk them no longer being updatable in a year’s time? As I said, Elements looks very promising, but I can’t yet build many pages fully with it, and I’m slowly running out of time. Or just give up on the whole thing and go back to WordPress…

How do you all sort this out? Are there any designers among you who actually use RW for larger projects and face the same questions or problems, or are you happy with it as it is?

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I do have some middle large sites and yes, some functionality is still missing. Looking at the speed custom components are arriving I do not worry at all.

So: I build all sites in Elements and rework/update them when it is possible to do so.

My clients approve this as they benefit from the speed of sites loading, improved accessibility and I from only having to maintain one development framework.

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What functionality are you missing as @dan asked me this question today?

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I’ll say it if no one else will. If you think you need to build a new site using Stacks, then you pretty much should just go with the still-Beta New Stacks and buy modules from Joe Workman’s Weaversspace. You’re sort of stuck with Foundation and Total CMS to do anything extensive.

To do it in RapidWeaver would mostly mean that you’d be running the old Stacks and the modules you already have (though you can buy more Workman ones, as necessary).

The problem for “old Stacks” is whether it survives macOS transitions, and we’ve got the next big one coming up in six months. I’d think that most of the effort on Stacks at that point will go into the “new Stacks”, which doesn’t need RapidWeaver.

Hidden within the above is the notion of “foundational underpinnings.” Foundry, Foundation, and other templating platforms didn’t win. Tailwind did. Some day, something else may take over, but for now, the technologies that Realmac chose for Elements were the correct ones. So Elements is well set up for the longer term.

Personally, the WYSIWYG aspect of Elements is its real gem, though. It feels more like you’re designing, whereas the old Stacks approach felt more like you’re building. That’s a clear fundamental difference that’s important. You can build without a plan and get yourself into all kinds of design issues. It’s hard to design without a plan and not see that something’s wrong immediately.

As for FormLoom and other big Stacks that many used, if Realmac continues on their current path, those will start appearing as Elements Components, I’m pretty sure. However, what I’m finding is that if you’re decent at programming with the latest AI (e.g. Claude, but Qwen and Gemma are pretty good now, too), there really isn’t anything you can’t currently do with Elements.

You say you’re trying to figure out what to do about updating projects. I think that depends upon what you mean by “updating.” If that’s approaching complete redesign, then you need to change horses now. If it’s do some tweaking to gain another year, stick with the horse you’re on.

Finally, I’ll say this: in technology when new abilities/tools appear that go beyond what you used to be able to do, if you want to stay relevant, you have to get on those horses and learn how to ride them. AI is one of those technologies. Tailwind and Twig are not exactly technologies, but shortcuts for technologies, and are others that build your skill set into the future, not the past.

WordPress is a database upon which design is kludged. If your sites aren’t data driven, that’s a lot of extra investment in time and energy.

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As mentioned in the other thread, I definitely need the functionality for a relatively long form with around 40 fields, ideally with the option to split the form across multiple pages, add multiple attachments, use columns, incorporate reCAPTCHA, and redirect to a thank-you page at the end.

But also other things, such as usable, flexible galleries at a reasonable price, and soon a professional photographer’s gallery will also be on the agenda.
And finally, the ability to integrate e-commerce into an Elements page would be a real game-changer.

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There are already several rather good options for eCommerce integration in Elements.

  • PayPal Shopping Cart
  • Stripe Checkout
  • Vibralogix Vibracart Pro
  • Ecwid
  • Cartloom

So the game has already been changed. :grin:

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@binarydog

Check out Fillout | Plans & Pricing for a third-party form solution, it’s free for up to 1,000 responses per month, which seems it would be fine for most..

You can do multi-page forms with conditional logic and answer piping with it so it might work for your needs now.

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I’m really interested to hear what you’re currently using in Classic/Stacks for galleries, and what you think is missing from our Gallery Pro offering in Elements?

As others will attest, we’re very open and responsive to adding the features users need :blush:

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If I could address the Form issue.

I use Machforms for all my website forms and contact pages, might be worth checking out to see if it would meet your needs.

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I would like to have “random” as a setting. Unless it’s already there, and I did not noticed it. In that case … sorry.

In Classic I used Photo Pro, and in this stack it was available.

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Matts I have been using Cartloom for months in Elements and getting regular sales. It’s just a snippet into HTML Component very simple. I take Stripe and PayPal can be used for physical, digital, gift cards, discounts and offers etc. have a look here ezyasabc.co.uk

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Not quite. At least Vibracart works with Rapidweaver. Cartloom used to as well. I’m not sure if it still does. Ecwid also worked with RW and otherwise requires integration via the API. And the others… I’ve no idea whether you can set up a shop within an Elements page using PayPal or Stripe. Do you know any more about this?

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That sounds great! Thanks for the tip! What I haven’t looked into yet is how to integrate these tools into Elements.

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The developer of Cartloom has specifically said it works with Elements. Also @PMUK uses it on his Elements site..

As far as I know, you can still use their Embed script to embed the shopping cart onto the website? No need for any API in that case.. Perhaps something has changed in that regard though?

@jbob Integrated a PayPal shopping cart on his Elements site, perhaps he can give some tips on how to do it. :slightly_smiling_face:

Stripe checkout I haven’t played around with yet, not sure if anybody in the community is using it as a shopping cart solution, but they do offer it same like PayPal.

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As far as I know, there hasn’t been a theme in Classic that has specifically claimed to be designed for professional photographers. However, as I have clients like that and we have to make do with other products, I’m very interested in this. I believe there have already been posts about Gallery Pro discussing what a professional photographer needs in a gallery.
The key features here are definitely ratings and comments. That would be really good!
As I said, Gallery Pro is a lovely component. But to be honest, the price as it stands is very ‘pro’ – you can certainly say that.

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Cartloom does I have been using with Elements for months see ezyasabc.co.uk

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For the form, you’d just embed one line of javascript onto the page where you want the form to appear. Easy peasy. :slightly_smiling_face:

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That looks really interesting too, thanks! And how does it integrate with Elements?

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Hmm, that looks good. I’ll have to take a closer look at that. Thanks for the link.

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After you build your form you just past the JavaScript code into an HTML component in Elements.