Professionals using RapidWeaver who have never learnt to code?

Hi,
I am just wondering if people use Rapid Weaver to create websites for clients, but have not ever learnt to code, but instead use RW as a way to create sites for clients?

I have had some HTML and CSS training, but bought RW, as I find hand coding boring, I intend on making a personal site with it, learning it at the moment, my next step is to buy Stacks 3.

But I was wondering if anyone like me, who does not enjoy code, freelances with RW for a income, part time or full time?

Looking forward to hearing from people on this topic.

Many thanks in advance.

Iā€™d say many, many users (if not most) though those active on these forums are more likely fairly code-able.

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Thatā€™s what I was thinking.

I would be interested after my learning curve, as I am new to RW, to build sites for others.

My background is in fitness as a personal trainer, so thinking of using my background knowledge based in my field to build sites for other personal trainers, so web sites for personal trainers would be my niche.

Itā€™s just an idea at the moment, as my aim is for a business that I can operate from anywhere and be none location dependent, so that clients for this business model could be anywhere, rather than personal training clients, who are all based local to where I live.

Just an idea at the moment. First off I need to use RW to build my own, then maybe a few other fitness sites, a blog etc and see where it goes.

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Me for example :slight_smile: See https://einfach-gute-Seiten.de

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Thatā€™s very good Fuellemann.
Danke vielmals

I have had no code training at all and come from a print design background.

I have followed RW from version 3 and learned everything by posting, talking to developers and forum members.

Stacks 3 is a must as far as I am concerned.

You can see I have built a full website and only use a bit of code here and there, which usually comes from someone in the forum, or the developer of a stack.

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I work as a freelancer and get tons of work (too much, sometimes!)ā€¦and Iā€™ve never learned to code :slight_smile:

(and thanks to all of the coders on this forum who have shared their knowledge of code and sharing their code snippets with me!)

When youā€™re using RW, I think being a designer at heart is more important than knowing how to code

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That gives me confidence and a goal that this is possible.

I may learn some more code on th side, so that I have a better understanding of whatā€™s going on in the background.

My dream is to have a online business, and this could be one way to achieve it. I will buy Stacks 3 tomorrow, so I can start using it. So far I ya e just played around this some of the themes, watched some of the videos about how to do certain things work.

I can see later I might want to look at Foundations or Foundry, but I donā€™t want to run before I can walk, so Stacks 3 first and learn that add on.

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This will help:https://www.w3schools.com/ When I first started, Iā€™d google for code and this site came up. I started with a theme from themeflood.com, then moved to Foundation.

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If reading is your thing (or even if it is not), I would suggest getting the HTML and CSS: Design and Build Websites book.

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I know very little code. Iā€™ve gotten to the point where I can maybe understand or edit bits of code that someone has supplied (as well as make use of the Developor / Inspector Tools) but I consider myself mostly incapable of creating code from scratch.

My website business is mostly just a side hobby, though - just some ā€˜walking around moneyā€™, not a dependable source of income.

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Yes, start slowly, learning by doing, and you will success. Here in the forum are some very helpful people always listening.

Cheers, Jannis
inStacks Software

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Exactly what Jannis said. There are some tremendously helpful people on the site. One of the best things about Rapidweaver to be honest!

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Break lots of stuff, ask loads of questions, generally make a nuisance of yourself. That is the best way to learn! :sunglasses:

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@willwood is one of my mentors and developer of many amazing stacks and themes :slight_smile:

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Will is exactly the kind of guy I was thinking about earlier. Buy his stuff so he sticks around :wink:

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Recently jumped on board as well. Welcome! :slight_smile:

I do. See boraydesigns. The design of websites for me is made so easy by the developers of the stacks and the frameworks (foundry/foundation and others). I wish you success with your plans and donā€™t hesitate to use the forum if ever you need help.

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Using RW combined with the Stacks plugin completely negates the requirement for coding. By changing Parameters in various stacks, designed in plain english is effectively carrying out any coding you may want to dabble with. In very early versions of RW, lots of us tweaked our sites using inline css for example - but with the continuous output of new stacks its been a long time now since I did any coding, despite RW including the the functionality to do so with ease.

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I came to RW (starting I think with RW 3) from Adobeā€™s Dreamweaver (and before Dreamweaver NetObjections Fusion) .I switched from NOF when an acquaintance told me that NOF uses proprietary code which makes it difficult for anyone else to resolve problems. Acquaintance also told me that Dreamweaver was the industry standard. I bought books and did some evening classes to learn more about Dreamweaver and wouldā€™ve remained with D had D not steered towards coders.

Although Iā€™d changed my office computers from PC to Apple, it was a wrench switching my website to RW: I felt I was letting myself down by giving up on D, also Iā€™m not a fan of having my ideas curbed/limited by others and their add-ons. Generally, people find it easier to copy, whereas i find it easier to originate. Having spent a small fortune on third-party themes, stacks, etc (as one does!), most of which I donā€™t use (ditto!), I finally managed to achieve the style of website I wanted by asking Will Woodgate to customise one of his themes to my requirements. Asking Will to advise on and assist with other matters has led to the creation of a specialist stack for my own use whilst on my site, also for free use by others in my target market and the service provided by the stack is now quite possibly the only service of its type on-line.

Although occasionally I hanker after thinking whether things would have been different for my website had I learned to code, I have over the years come to accept that what is far more important, at least for me, is what is more important for visitors and that is the ease of navigation and quality of content.

The only RW website I have done for others was for a civic society/ registered charity which is one of the larger civic societies in UK, having more than 400 members and owning 2 heritage buildings. Much praise was heaped on the society for the presentation and style of the site. As a proprietary app, RW is not portable which mean that when it came to my resigning as the societyā€™s website administrator, my successor either had to buy RW (also have a Mac) or change platforms. The latter choice was made and even if i say so myself the current site is not a patch on mine, or rather not patch on RW!

I agree with kpryce1 - except that I could never have tweaked any of my sites using inline ccs had it not been for RW and third-party developers supplying the code for me to copy and paste.

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