For 99% of users, RapidWeaver’s built in publishing feature is the best way to publish your website online (i.e. upload it to your web hosting provider). It’s lightning fast, secure, and convenient!
Some users however have advanced or specific publishing requirements and opt to use a dedicated FTP client (software) to upload their RapidWeaver built website.
Cyberduck is a popular free (donations are accepted though) and open-source FTP client that is available for macOS users which can be used to upload your RapidWeaver built website. Below we will list the steps to do that.
Step 1 - Click Publishing Setup
For users who haven’t saved any publishing settings yet, click on the Publishing Setup button located in the upper right corner of RapidWeaver’s toolbar and proceed to Step 2.
For users who have existing publishing settings saved, click on Publishing in RapidWeaver’s left hand menu, click the Add New Destination button, and select Local Folder from the drop down menu. Proceed to Step 3 .
Step 2 - Select Local Folder
Select Local Folder from the drop down menu.
Step 3 - Add Publishing Destination and Publish
Click the Choose Folder button and select a folder on your Mac you would like to publish your website to. We recommend creating a new folder to house your published site files. For example, you could create a new folder on your Mac called “My New Website”, and select that as your local folder. Also, if you work on multiple project files in RapidWeaver (i.e. multiple websites), you will want to create separate folders to house each of them (e.g. “My New Website 1”, “My Other New Website 2”, etc.)
Once you have selected a folder to house your site files, click on the Publish button in the upper right corner of RapidWeaver’s toolbar.
Step 4 - Open Cyberduck and Enter FTP Details
Open your downloaded Cyberduck App on your Mac and click on Open Connection in Cyberduck’s toolbar.
In the pop-up window, select how you will be uploading your website in the drop down menu. For the majority of users, this will be either FTP, FTPS, or preferably SFTP if your web hosting provider offers it. If you are not sure, ask your web hosting provider. FTP is the most common so we will use that for the proceeding example.
Next, enter the IP Address or Server Hostname for your your web hosting account (the Port field will be auto-filled, however you can change it if your web hosting provider doesn’t use a default port), followed by your FTP, FTPS, or SFTP username and password. If you are not sure of these connection details, please ask your web hosting provider to give them to you (we here at Realmac Software do not have these details).
Once you’ve entered your connection details, click on the Connect button.
Step 5 - Double-click Your Web Directory
If your connection details are correct, you will be connected to your web hosting account. Locate the web directory for your website. This is the directory at your web hosting provider where your website’s files are uploaded to and housed. If your web hosting provider uses the cPanel control panel, your web directory for your main (primary) website is public_html. If your web hosting provider uses a different control panel, then your web directory will likely be named something else. Please ask your web hosting provider if you are not sure the directory you should be uploading your website to.
In this example we will assume you are building your main (primary) website in RapidWeaver and your web hosting provider uses the cPanel control panel, therefore you would upload your site to that public_html directory.
In Cyberduck, locate the public_html directory in the Filename list and double-click it.
Step 6 - Click Upload
Next, confirm the file path in Cyberduck’s drop down menu shows your web directory (again in this example that’s public_html), then click the Action icon in Cyberduck’s toolbar, then select Upload.
Step 7 - Select Website Files to Upload
A pop-up Finder window will appear. From here you will navigate to the local folder on your Mac that you published your site to in Step 3. Once you click on that local folder, you will see a bunch of files and folders within in. Select all these files/folders in the Finder window, then click on the Upload button.
It’s important you select all these individual files/folders within your local folder instead of just selecting the local folder itself. In order for your website to be properly uploaded, you must select all the files/folders within your local folder as in the below screenshot.
If you are connecting to your web hosting account via FTP, you might see a warning message about an unsecured FTP connection. Again, if your web hosting provider offers SFTP (or even FTPS), we recommend using one of those to connect to your web hosting account since those are more secure. If your web hosting provider does not offer SFTP or FTPS, you can proceed using FTP. Click on the “Don’t show again” option and click the Continue button.
Step 8 - Confirm Upload
A new pop-up window will appear showing your FTP transfer status. The FTP upload can take some time depending on the size of your website and your internet connection speed. Please be patient and wait for the FTP transfer to complete. Once the transfer has completed, you will see “Upload complete” in the Transfers window, along with the files and folders that were uploaded in the background window, per the below screenshot.
Close the small Transfers pop-up window and then click anywhere in the white space in the Filename list in order to deselect all the transferred files/folders.
Congratulations! You have now uploaded your RapidWeaver built website using the third party FTP client Cyberduck. Before closing Cyberduck though, there are a couple more steps to make subsequent uploads easier.
Step 9 - Create Bookmark
Now we will add a “Bookmark” in Cyberduck so you don’t have to type in your FTP connection details each time you open the app and want to connect to your web hosting account.
From Cyberduck’s toolbar, click on the Action icon, then select New Bookmark at the very bottom of the menu.
Step 10 - Enter Bookmark Details
You will see a new pop-up window where you can enter in your FTP connection details which will then be saved in Cyberduck so you don’t have to type them in repeatedly.
1) Nickname: - You can give the bookmark any nickname you’d like to make it easier to find.
2) Labels: - Again, you can give the bookmark any labels you’d like to make it easier to find.
3) Server: - This will be the IP address or Server Hostname for your web hosting account.
4) Port: - For FTP connections the port is usually 21. For SFTP connections the port is usually 22. Please ask your web host to confirm this as sometimes they will change the default port number.
5) Username: - Your FTP or SFTP username.
6) Password: - Your FTP or SFTP password.
7) Path: - The path to your web directory at your web hosting provider. This is where your files/folders will be uploaded to by default. It’s also the location Cyberduck will automatically open to when clicking on the bookmark to connect.
8) Web URL: - This is your website address (e.g. https://example.com)
Now you have added a bookmark in Cyberduck. The next time you open Cyberduck to upload your website, you can simply click on the bookmark to be automatically connected to your web hosting account.
Happy Weaving! 