Hello!
If you’re new to RapidWeaver (or maybe you’ve been lurking on the forum for a while) why not introduce yourself below and let others know how you found RapidWeaver and why you’re using it.
If you need help or would like to ask a question, please start a new topic in the main forum.
Welcome to the community, Happy Weaving!
Do you mean introduce yourself as a reply to this your message, or to start a new topic to introduce yourself? In case you mean as a reply to this your message, here, then I’ll do so, I’m not shy…
My name is Das Goravani, but that’s a made up, or rather, a Bengali India name… as I was heavily involved in Hindu thought for my whole life since 19 and I’m now 60. I was born long before computers, and remember life without them very well.
So I got into Hinduism at age 19, left college to become a monk, went to India four times, travelled the world as a monk, a lot of it anyways, especially Europe and SE Asia. Learned SO much from traveling.
Later, due to the above, I got into Hindu Astrology, which is similar to but slightly different from Western or Greek Astrology. I got into it when it was new to computers, and I was a programmer, so I took up writing a Hindu Astrology Software. That’s what I still do. My site is for that, for selling my software.
I’ve ignored my website for many years, leaving it alone, to rot, it was written in iWeb and the one that’s still up is that iWeb one. The URL is
That’s an iWeb site. iWeb is as dead as door nails. It’s completely non responsive. I’m amazed I still show up at all in Google rankings, but I’m second page on searches related to my subject. I got to get back to first page, near the top, as income has dropped way low for years now.
I realized I had time coming up, so I took to the web to find a new program for making my website over again. At first I took up DreamWeaver, GULP, knowing full well that it was going to be a steep learning curve. I hate Rental Ware, and it is that, I hate coding, though I’m a programmer I have a steadfast determination to NOT learn HTML and CSS and the like. I knew I wanted a program that did it for you, and DreamWeaver just doesn’t, you work with code too much in DW. Plus it keeps costing you, on and on, in their rental ware scheme.
So I looked again, and somehow found RapidWeaver, though I don’t remember how. I don’t remember how I got sold on it, or even downloaded a trial, or whatever, I can’t remember darn it.
But I do know I bought it, and Stacks and Foundry all at once, after doing some research. Maybe I should have got Foundations… I still don’t know which of the two ends up feeling and being better, maybe I don’t care. Who knows.
I submitted my present site to Google recently, and was informed they were going to crawl it with “Mobile First Crawling”… this was the first I’d heard of mobile first. I am an oldie and don’t use my mobile iPhone at all except as a clock and as an occasional phone. Don’t do apps and all that, not a mobile savvy guy. I like my laptop… MacBook Pro, they’re great, don’t know how to write mobile apps… not about to… so I was taken aback by this “mobile first” business, at first.
Then I thought about it and realized the TIMES ARE WHAT THEY ARE and mobiles are FIRST in usage now… I live with MOBILE CONVERTS… two woman who use mobiles for EVERYTHING… I’m amazed at what they can do on their iPhones… so I realized that’s what time it is… then I realized I needed to make my new redone website responsive, learned what that term meant, had heard it, now I get it.
At first I hated the blockish feeling of RW with Stacks… seemed so angular, and blockish, limiting, was used to the free form ways of iWeb, which again, is non responsive, as a price tag… allows you to do WHATEVER, drag things to any location, stack them, it’s like a page layout program, easy to use as could be, lots of visual gizmos, but non responsive, that’s basically like saying it’s cool but useless TODAY.
So I’ve been working in RW for about 2 weeks. Making my website. I find it is hard to get things to be where I want them to be when I have lists of items, or want things side by side… it’s great for straight down the middle of the page, but side by side is hard… you have to use columns or grids, and the spacing of those is hard, not easy… but that’s responsive web design, I realize this… there has to be rules for how to breakdown as you go down in width of pixels.
As I’ve progressed, I needed help. I found it here on this forum. One thing is that they use Discourse, which Google indexes, whereas some forum softwares do not. This one does, so you can Google for answers and this forums threads come up, that is so helpful. VERY HELPFUL. Some of the folks on here are tirelessly helpful, quick, and good. I have received scads of free tech support here, this forum rocks.
I am finding I am able to create a cool site in RW, albeit I do miss the freedom of iWeb, you can get TOTALLY ARTSY in it… you can do what BLOCKS the Stack from YourHead does… I have Blocks, and like it in that way, but it’s not responsive, so there you go again… what do you want… your website on phones, OR NOT. That’s something we all just have to bite. |
I am an artist, very visual, my RW site does not reflect this part of me much, it’s not possible. To be responsive you have to follow blockish guidelines, or it simply doesn’t know where to do breakpoints, or it doesn’t do them at all, HTML that is… iWeb that is… I have to eat this new reality, of phones, and what they cause in Web design. Websites have SO CHANGED from years ago to now. Now they are straight down the middle, long pages, big fonts, big buttons… they used to be way more cramped and tight, but they weren’t responsive. Times have changed.
I’ve got my site done for the most part, but now I am going through and doing the SEO aspects… filling out all the titles and alt tags, typing the same stuff over and over… slightly altered… going to add my writings to boost content, which is a big factor in search rankings.
I find RW now, now that I’m used to it, I find it nice, clear, well done, good Mac software, as WYSIWYG as it can be given the realities of responsive web design, Stacks, all that it has to deal with… it’s as good as it gets… totally beats DW in WYSIWYG design… I would say RW is object oriented, so at least you can see and directly edit your objects, in order, down the page… then test with preview, works out fine, great, once you get used to it.
I would recommend RW to anybody. It’s not hard, it’s rather easy to use, it’s almost as easy as iWeb was. I really want to stress, as a 30 year long Mac guy, that RW is really from “Real Mac Software”, in design, layout, operation, appearance, everything, it’s good Mac software. I hate windows, I love Mac. I have to release my software on Windows, so I run Fusion and Windows 10 on a virtual machine on my Mac. In fact I’m working RW in Catalina in a virtual machine… I was afraid to upgrade to Catalina as my main OS just yet… though I’m finding Catalina to be just fine. I couldn’t get RW to work on my Mojave… stacks were coming up as dots, not lines, couldn’t get it to work, period, so I switched to Catalina, and the latest RW works great there… I’m glad everyone has done the dance to be on Catalina, Stacks, Foundry, RW, glad… because it’s all working for me on Catalina. Yay.
Although it’s not done, and there’s glaring things I need to fix, if you want to see my new site, it’s at
that will bring it up, the main area is the features link… that shows lots of screen shots of my software…
That’s my spiel folks, sorry if it was too long. Maybe I’m a story teller and don’t know it.
Let’s remember, when I was a kid, cassettes were not yet invented. I was in my thirties when CD’s were invented. Now I’m on a laptop with 4 USBC ports only, no CD drive, never thought these would fly, but they are… at first I thought the keyboard touch was too gentle, but it’s not… damn apple has a way of getting things in advance.
Peace to you, happy trails and happy weaving, one who grew up in the SF Bay Area, in the hippie days… when Vietnam was THE issue… I remember the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated… clearly… I was 3. Man we are in different times now.
Das Goravani
born Richard Wurst
das@Goravani.com
I was going to introduce myself but there is no more room on the Internet now… Hahaha
Greetings from the Land Downunder where women roar and men thunder…(as the song goes)
This is from my current “About me” on my profile:
I’ve recently semi-retired after being in IT continuously since the late 70’s.
I’ve worked for a number of Multi-Nationals before a 20 year stint with a business partner in my own ERP Software company.
I’ve done a broad spectrum of Business and IT related roles over my career and have now semi-retired to St Helens the home of the beautiful Bay of Fires in Tasmania, Australia.
I still like to keep my hand in with software development and web site design and development.
I’ve dabbled in RapidWeaver since it’s very first release and now that I have some more time on my hands getting back into it seriously.
With Rapidweaver 8, Stacks 4 and Foundation 6 (plus many excellent add-ons, stacks and themes from the RW community) I can save hours of time over my normal hand coding approaches.
I’m pleased to see it is still a vibrant community (even though some have dropped by the wayside) and look forward to becoming an active member again.
Live Longer and Prosper!
I started at a printing company as an apprentice in the early 90s. Still do for a living – graphic work, order calculation, filemaker development & webdesign. Bought my first Mac in 1990-1991.
I developed companys own website back in the 90s. Played around with Claris Home Page, Adobe PageMill and settled with GoLive CyberStudio, that Adobe later acquired – and then killed – after acquisition of Macromedia and their WYSIWYG Dreamweaver. Great regret!
The internet connection was a modem (more like a slow’dem). The top browser was Netscape.
I first met RapidWeaver around version 2.5-2.7 and jumped aboard at version 3.2 (I think it was).
Then came the Stacks Plugin by YourHead Software. I was a little late on that and first started using it at version 2.
The Stacks plugin made it possible for developers to create their own code-snippets with ‘HUD’ input (Stacks). Though I was not a developer, I had learned the basics of html, css and javascript along the way. I took a couple days off work, nerded 24 hours for four days and learned the basics of creating a Stack.
With the help of some of the other developers – Will Woodgate (tutorials) – Joe Workman (stacks update routine), a few other – and a very enthusiastic and helpful community – I created defligra.com (at first named denflinkegrafiker.dk) which means ’the nice graphic artist’ in danish… which I mostly am, especially after the first cup of coffee around 9-10 am.
And here I am – a Rapid Weaver.
During the 5 versions of RapidWeaver I have survived so far (couple of mac’s and girl friends as well) – the internet has changed. I remember Windows Explorer 6 [scary face icon] and then suddenly the whole world went responsive!
I still have all my teeth.
Best,
DeFliGra
What a great idea Dan.
So, my name is Richard Nicholls and primarily I’m a Hypno-Psychotherapist in the UK, although I’m also a podcaster and author.
When I first became self employed in the late 90s, I learnt a bit about html as it was obvious that I’d need a web presence in order to be found as the yellow pages was losing favour rapidly.
I tried my hand at upgrading my site with css and js as the years went by, but by 2010 it was soon going over my head and I’d just bought my first MacBook Pro.
After trying out iWeb, I felt it wasn’t quite as good as I wanted it to be and so turned to RW and fell in love with Stacks.
Being able to create websites so easily, compared to hand coding, was a lot of fun and I helped many colleagues and friends to have sites that they probably would never be able to.
Being able to edit my site so easily with RW even lead me to have the confidence to create a podcast, originally called Motivate Yourself, to spread the word about personal development, which spawned a book deal and encouraged a big-headed rebrand of the podcast, it’s now called The Richard Nicholls Podcast richardnicholls.net and my book 15 Minutes to Happiness has been translated into multiple languages and is available all over the world.
Rapidweaver, Stacks and the support of all of the people on this forum have been a big part of making all that happen and I’m genuinely hugely grateful.
Thanks folks.
Hi,
my name is Pete. I am a sound designer based in the UK. Essentially my work involves getting to know music synthesisers and creating new sounds for them. Although there is arguably more variety in software plugin synthesisers I am unashamadely a hardware synth addict. It is a good time to be alive - lots of new gear is being made.
I am setting up a website to demonstrate and sell my synth patches. They will be delivered as digital files.
I am completely new to RM and web design. Currently just trying to work out which hosting to use.
Hello, my name’s Max and I’m going to introduce my self from Italy. I’m 60 yo cardiac surgeon who likes astrophotography. I have a personal non professional observatory and a old web site to share my astrophotos (see www.mernardi.it). I used iWeb and am totally unable about HTML, but now I’m looking for something to give a more modern appearence to my web site and got RW without any usage before. So I hope you will have patient to answer my (probably) many questions about RW.
Best regards.
Max
Just got a new Mac and thus had to update my old version 4 to Rapidweaver 8 and added Stacks
A few days spent updating my websites for our Bed and Breakfast and one I do for our Community Cinema and i am getting the hang of it all fairly easily Sure I will need this forum as i progress Cheers alla
Hello Everyone!
I am new to RapidWeaver having been a long time Adobe user. I cannot afford their subscription model so here I am!
I have just started a new project. My wife is a Cancer Specialist Nurse and is one the founders of a new charity aimed at supporting cancer patients and their families in Zimbabwe.
I want to build them a new website and I want to use RapidWeaver as the platform.
Can anyone recommend a good template (preferably free or cheap) which is suitable for a medical charity?
Thanks in anticipation and best wishes!
David
Hi David and welcome to the forum.
This post is really just to introduce yourself.
You really should create a new topic in the forum and ask that question. It’s a great question and I am sure that you’ll get a bunch of input from the forum members.
Also, try to be specific as you can as to the requirements you are looking to achieve.
Thanks Doug. I shall do that …
Hi. My name is Doug. I’ve been around the forum for a little while, so I thought I’d introduce myself.
For the past 30 or so years, I’ve been working as a professional programmer; mostly Java. And honestly, though I like the problem solving parts of it, I find myself more and more drawn to the design and implementation of web sites. And honestly (again), I’m not that good at the graphic/ui part of it. So I’ve picked up Rapidweaver as a learning tool, and I’ve gotten a little involved with this community. The people here are very helpful, and I’ve been inspired by what you can do with the tool. I’ve also seen some really cool work done by people who have come here looking for RapidWeaver help, and many of them already have the design part well in hand.
In any case…looking forward to producing better work, and understanding the platform better. And thanks to all the people who have helped me, and all the people I have learned from.
Doug
Hi Dan, Hi All
Newbie-but-reasonably-computer-literate here.
Self-taught on a number of dtp, image manipulation and drawing programs; making all the mistakes as I go along - and trying to learn from them as I do. Small, self-employed UK-based copywriter who has evolved into a web designer. Small but growing client base.
RW (7, now 8) user for a few years. Still making mistakes - still learning. Tried RW when I became fed up with the EverWeb business model, just as responsive design became de rigueur.
Lurked awhile and struck by the amazing levels of consideration, courtesy and helpfulness within the community. Hence this. And yes, I do have a problem making Joe’s Easy CMS behave itself, but will try to solve it myself before displaying my naivete for all to see…
Thanks for reading…
Michael
Hello
I am new to rapidweaver but find it very easy to use. I have over the years maked my own sites but i am not good to follow up on them. I like this way to create a site on. For the time being I am helping a little group people with an event page with an event signup formular connected to MailChimp. There is a limited number access. How can I manage to set a tag for those who have got a ticket and give a tag let those there will be sat on a waitlist so I can give them a seperate email. I need also to collect them for future contacts. We operate in EU so we also need to secure that we use gdpr correct.
Happy to be a part of this forum KimA
Hola,
I’m Derek Peterson, and have been a fledgling user of RapidWeaver for the past 9 years. (I migrated from DreamWeaver in 2010 because it was too difficult for me to use.)
I enjoy technology, yet I am a youth worker and small business owner, and have never had any formal training in Tech. (My first computer was a Tandy 1000, while I was in graduate school in 1986.)
I can follow a template, and post a simple website, and I am interested in deepening my knowledge of RapidWeaver, Foundation, and Stacks.
Derek
Hi, Planetary Paul here.
I have only ever used iWeb and a little simple hand coding for specialty astronomy projects. I still have a languishing site that was made in iWeb that still works but I want to replace it, start over and see where it goes. I don’t expect to ever find the ease of iWeb again, but from what I have heard from friends RW is a fair contender and up to date with current internet requirements. So I’ll have a go at RW.
Tried to enable two-factor authentication for this forum, but I had no clue about what I was looking at, could have been aliens trying to communicate. So I’ll forego that for now.
Hey, I am Andy from Nottingham in the UK.
Closet geek and tech enthusiast, had RapidWeaver for ages but really not done anything but personal projects. Decided to get stuck back into building websites again and RW is my weapon of choice : )
Have a load of projects in mind and am becoming a quick fan of @joeworkman TotalCMS and Foundation6.
Who know’s where the fun will take me but that’s half the fun right?!?!
Here Connecting Media from The Netherlands. We produce websites since the 1998 and past 6 years we started to use Rapidweaver besides the hard coding of some productions. We used templates at first but since last 2 years we use @joeworkman Foundation and TotalCMS which gives of more space to make it how we want. But also setting up email newsletters for Mailchimp for some big clients. We try to work together with some talent here on the forum, because some get amazing results with the RW solutions.
We hope the community grow’s and together we can make RW bigger en better.
René
