Is there a way to link to a resource on a local machine instead of having the resource inself imbedded into the project? This would be quite helpful as it would limit project size. I can manually type the path to the resource on my machine.
Thank you for any helpful suggestions!
by “local machine” do you mean the websites web server? (You don’t mean your local Mac… do you?)
Yes, I do mean my local Mac. The reason being I do not intend to publish this site on an internet server. This site will be for the use of my family only. Thank you for your help!
The perfect solution for you is MAMP - It’s a free web server that will run on your mac side by side with RW. Install it, configure it, and then publish your site locally to the defined website folder setup in MAMP.
Thank you sir for your reply! I will give that a go on the morrow. I really appreciate the community’s help so my family can make the most of Rapidweaver!
Unfortunately, MAMP is far too advanced for me. I am simply attempting to use Rapidweaver for a website that will be used by my family only. This is why instead of dragging the resource in question into Rapidweaver, I simply need to create links to the resource outside of Rapidweaver. Would the “Stacks” stack enable this?
Hi Rob,
You want to have a website for your family only? Where do you want to host that website?
Publicly or in your network? Still you need a web server for that.
Best regards Jannis
Rob,
What you may not be understanding is that an "“operational website” needs more than just html pages to display. There is more going on than simply displaying html pages in your browser. (php for executing scripts is one example)
Thank you sir for your reply. I now understand there are a lot of variables involved here. I don’t know if I should proceed based upon this new information. While Rapidweaver is a great website builder and can construct a site published to a local folder, having to duplicate the resources either in Rapidweaver or a server stored on local machine is a waste of space for me. It would seem that you can’t create a simple link to a file stored on your local machine without creating a duplicate of said file somewhere. At any rate, I do appreciate your honesty sir. Perhaps it’s time for me to pull the plug on my experimentation with Rapidweaver. It’s been an interesting ride, however. Thank you again!
MAMP is dead easy to use. What it does is run a local webserver on your Mac. I was able to get it working as soon as I installed it, and that is saying something. You install it … the download comes with the free version, MAMP and a more powerful paid version, MAMP Pro. You get a free trial of the Pro version, but you don’t need it for this. After installing, you will have a MAMP folder in Applications, and inside that MAMP folder is a folder called htdocs.
Now set up RapidWeaver to publish to “local folder” and use the path “/Applications/MAMP/htdocs” - you don’t even have to remember the path, just use the “choose” button to navigate to the htdocs folder. Once the website is published, run the MAMP application. You get a gray box with a few options. Click “Start Servers”, the rightmost icon. Don’t worry about any of the other options. After a moment a new tab/browser window will open, with a blue header and a bunch of other info you can ignore for now. The top menu has “My Website” second from left. Click that, and you will see the website you just published. It will work just like any other website. When you want to shut it down, close the browser window, go back to the MAMP application and choose “Stop Servers”, then close MAMP.
I will copy the htdocs folder to htdocs_backup or something, then delete the contents and republish. This way I can try out multiple sites, or variations on the same site from different RW projects, and swap them in and out. This is all you need to do to run a local website - you can ignore all the complex choices for now. Your site will work fine with just the default choices.
If you do decide to publish your site on the internet, you can simply FTP the files in the htdocs folder to the proper location on your web host (ask for their documentation) instead of using RapidWeaver to publish. I use Yummy FTP for that. Faster than RW’s publishing process, and Yummy FTP will synch the folders to save upload/download time and will also remove any “orphan” files left over from an older version.
30 Jan 2018
Hello:
Thank you very much for your reply.
I sincerely appreciate your’s and other community member’s efforts to assist me; that’s what makes RW community so awesome!
I can give your suggestion a go later today. However, the basic problem remains-whether in RW itself or in the htdocs folder, my site still would make a copy of the file I originally linked to-this is what I am trying to avoid. I simply need a local site for my family that doesn’t require file duplication but simple links that point to the resource in question, wherever on my local home network that resource may be. Would a local FTP server be able to accomplish that task?
I do not fault RW; I should have studied the program more prior to my purchase-that’s on me, not RW or anyone else. That having been said, if RW or any add-on plugin/stack/etc is unable to create links to the files themselves but requires the duplication of the file in question, whether inside RW or htdocs/local server, etc, this is a non-starter for me.
Again, my sincere thanks for your efforts; I greatly appreciate them.
Happy Weaving! 
Respectfully,
R. Debusschere
I do not understand your concern about “duplicate files.” Storage is cheap, it doesn’t hurt to have your photo’s in you favorite photo app and the photo again if dropped into RW. Ideally, the one you drop into RW would be resized and optimized for web use anyway and different than the original photo in the original folder.
If you do movie editing you edit the original… you may end up several versions of the same video. Hi res, low res, etc, etc. The same is true for images. You cannot have one image in one location and have it service all apps.
Thank you sir for your reply.
For photos and small file sizes, I agree, dropping them into RW would be great! However, I have various other file types I want my family to be able to access in one convenient place, hence the need for RW. I have taken suggestions from previous posters and installed and configured a server on my local machine. This server, along with RW, is doing exactly what I needed it to do-allowing me to create links to our files without the need to duplicate the file itself. Since I am able to get RW, along with my server, to perform the required tasks, RW will serve our needs admirably.
While I am still in learning mode, I realize that each person’s requirements are unique to their individual needs.
Thank you again sir for your assistance; it’s greatly appreciated.
Thank you
glad things worked out for your needs…
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