I am using RapidWeaver since version 4. And I loved it. I created a lot of websites over the years and there are still a lot of them online. Now I tried the basic line of elements. My assesement for the handling of Elements is very negative. I tried to import websites form Classic to Elements. The basic information were imported. But it is incredible difficult and complex to create the same side as in Classic - I couldn´t get it right. I tried to rebuild the same websites which I created with Classic in Elements - it was simply not possible. A lot of features are missing. For example the alignment for objects is completely missing - in any case I didn´t find it. The only way is to work with margins and paddings. The individual settings are so complex that it is very easy to loose the track. Also the design options for the menus are also more than sparse. There are the possibilities in Foundation in combination with stacks from BigWitheDuck almost immeasurable.
So I tried to create one of my websites as a new project in Elements. (no import from Classic), I failed in every case. It was not possible, over hours, to create the identical side in Elements. And i have no disere to watch hours of YouTube videos.
Elements could be getting a good tool to create websites in the future, but in my opinion, Elements is still a long way from the design options and possibilities in Classics.
If there are no fundamental changes in Elements, I will have to say goodby to Elements and continue working with Classics or Stacks or something similar.
I agree! Elements has a long ways to go in order to meet the needs of longtime, Classic users. There are so many stacks built to perform specific usages. For instance, I have a stack that randomly calls up a different picture from a very large library of pictures each time the page is re-opened. Also, a variety of special effects I desire are not available yet in Elements. I heard a version of Stack Pro is in development for the transition. Until then, I’ll stick with Classic. I just hope third party stack developers can hang in there and still have a voice. So sorry to see you go, Elixir!
Once you get used to the way elements works, going back to classic and stacks is unimaginable. Like going back in time 100 years. And whilst there sure might be things you can’t do with elements out of the box, you sure can do a lot of things that you’d need stacks for in classic. Lots of things!
But to each his own. Glad there are options to choose from to make webdesign work for everyone.
Yes, Classic has had years of people building stacks. Given what I’ve seen, I don’t think it will take as many years to build out the things that are still missing from Elements, as it already starts with quite a bit of what people were buying stacks for.
To me, Realmac should have two really pressing priorities right now: (1) deliver the CMS fully; and (2) finalize how developers add (stack-like) add-ons. Adding a music player wasn’t the same priority, in my mind. I can’t do live sites until #1 is done and I’d like to see how #2 will help me not have to do everything from scratch.
However, I also don’t think Classic or the Stacks Pro attempt are the right answer. Long term, they’re on the wrong base doing the wrong things. Wrapping CSS in stacks or wrapping it on top of foundations that are not gaining users is not the future of the Internet, unfortunately. We’re in the middle of about the third major disruption in how Web sites are created and maintained.
I started programming in assembly, then FORTRAN, then C, then C++, then Objective C, and on and on. Things change. If you want to be on top of those changes, you have to change, too.
FWIW, any Elements developer paying attention just wrote a note “create a DevPack for ‘random photo from collection’”. That shouldn’t be all that difficult to create.
Those of us old enough to remember how WordPerfect 5.1 and Lotus 1-2-3 users struggled to get to grips with the what-you-see-is-what-you-get methods in later version of those same apps, will see parallels in switching from RapidWeaver to Elements.
The main problem is that it’s hard to let go of your way of thinking. Stop thinking in the way you were thinking in Stacks, and treat Elements like a new tool with a new way of working.
For example, in Stacks you would use various positioning stacks to get content to appear on a certain spot on the page. Stacks like the dozens of “floats”, or premium stacks like Bento or Flux.
In Elements, you can do that by altering the settings of the component itself, specifically in the “Layout” section in the settings, or by giving it a class in the “Advanced“ section and positioning it using CSS.
The same goes for effects - in Stacks, separate effect stacks would be used that “held” your content (usually in the form of another stack), and applied the effect to them. In Elements, you can simply add the desired effect in that page element’s settings.
So, instead of dropping elements into elements, and into elements again to get a certain kind of effect or position everything just right - you do it by altering the element itself or applying a CSS class.
To extend the parallel with WordPerfect 5.1: there you would enter mark up code in the underwater section of the app to get text to appear centered, bold and with a highlighted background once you hit “print”, but the later WYSIWYG version simply had buttons for you to click on that gave you the same result.
Let go of the Stack layer-upon-layer way of thinking, and I assure you it will become clear.
Change isn’t necessarily going to be easy, but it’s usually worthwhile.
Those having difficulty with the change should consider how many hours they’ve invested in Classic and compare it to how many hours they’ve invested in Elements.
Yes, it’s different, but the general consensus seems to be it’s far superior. Just because you’re experienced in Classic doesn’t mean you’ll be an advanced user of Elements after a few hours. It’s a different paradigm and you have to be willing to change your way of thinking. Being locked into the concepts of Classic and Stacks is a recipe for failure.
The problem wth Classic + Stacks is that you indeed would need to use a stack to do something like calling up a random picture from a folder.
In Elements, you won’t find a basic function to do that, but here’s the thing: you can easily add it yourself, without paying a dime.
There are oodles of existing Tailwind snippets out there, and there probably is one that does exactly that. You can simply paste those into Elements and they work.
And if that specific thing you need hasn’t been thought up by anyone, there is always AI to help you to generate it yourself. Just tell it the end use case is for Tailwind, and it will adapt the code to fit in Tailwind’s data structure.
Don’t get me wrong; I’m a Stacks user myself (and invested heavily in stacks for the platform, including Foundry 2 + 3, Alloy, TotalCMS, Flux, SEO Helper and a whole bunch of others, sometimes quite pricey stacks, in order to fullfill my clients’ needs. For its time, Stacks was amazing, and it really sped up web development. And I still use it, even for new project.
But the code it generates is HUGE, and it’s quite hard to get a 100% score in PageSpeed using a Stacks page for example (not impossible, but hard). And even then, SEO is severely hindered by some desicions in Stacks. Like how images by default do not keep their descriptive file names you gave them before dragging them into your project, but instead some random name assigned by Stacks during page generation. Or how an image file that’s used on multiple pages in your project still ends up as multiple files on your server, which hinders both PageSpeed and SEO performance. Or that every page you generate most of the time comes with a LOT of unused code, that sometimes even gets loaded by your visitor’s browser (and then never used).
Maybe you are all right. Then please try to built this website with Elements:
Sent me your results!
I have also a view websites using Microsoft forms and the Armadillo stack. I couldn´t find a way to built these websites with elements. Another aspect is, when I change the design of an website basicly, i need the permission from my customers.
I support 21 websites from companies, organisations and clubs. That is a lot of work to rebuild these websites in Elements in the agreed design.
Why would you want to recreate them with Elements. Stay with RW Classic for existing clients and the changes for these sites and use Elements for new clients only…
I don´t want to rebuild this website in Elements. I tried it, but I failed. Some users claim that the possibilities in Elements are equivalent to those in Classics by using Tailwind or similar.
I see - I think this will be the case in the future, and this future scope is why I support Elements and will go away from Stack, Blocs, Sitely and other WebDesign options.
EVENTUALLY YES Who knows when? 10 years? 20 Years? XYZ Years?
They have said they were going to support it… relax
I made the leap to Elements after seeing Dan redo my site in episode 92.
I have very simple sites - about fifteen - It took 2-3 Weeks to do them all from scratch.
For ME:
Create a master page with globals (Takes the most time)
Then duplicate and copy and paste content from old sites
Who knows when? 10 years? 20 Years? XYZ Years?