RapidWeaver Classic 10 Beta 1 Now Available

Announcements
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1

Hey Weavers,

As promised, we’re continuing to support and update RapidWeaver Classic for those of you who haven’t yet made the move to Elements.

We’ve been busy getting Classic ready for the latest versions of macOS. This has included a substantial UI refresh, helping it feel more at home with Apple’s refined Liquid Glass design in Golden Gate. We’ve also added some new features, fixed plenty of bugs, and made a number of performance improvements.

If you’re already running Golden Gate, you’ll probably have noticed that the current RapidWeaver icon is stuck in “Squircle Jail”. The good news is that we’re working with a third-party design agency (named after a bird) to create a brand-new icon for Classic. It will make its debut in the public release of RapidWeaver Classic 10 later this year.

Let’s dive into what’s new in the first beta of RapidWeaver Classic 10 below…

What’s new in Classic 10.0 Beta 1

RapidWeaver Classic 10.0 requires macOS 12 or later.

Interface

  • Settings, preferences, and the built-in plugins have been updated for current versions of macOS, including macOS 27.

Publishing

The publishing engine has been updated, bringing better connection diagnostics, improved stability, and more reliable handling of FTP and Amazon S3 destinations.

  • Limit upload speeds. Publishing preferences now include a “Limit uploads to” option, which caps the combined upload speed of all active connections in KB/s. It is off by default and does not apply when publishing to a local folder.
  • Better connection diagnostics. Connection tests now show DNS lookup and TCP connection times, making firewall, routing, and latency problems easier to identify.
  • FTPES naming. Explicit FTPS is now labelled FTPES to match the terminology used by most hosting providers. This is a naming change only; the connection method is unchanged.
  • Amazon S3 regions. Publishing now uses the selected bucket’s own region.
  • Improved FTP stability. Fixed a crash that could occur when several FTP connections were active at the same time.

Editing and Preview

  • Preview export errors now appear on the affected document instead of in an app-wide alert that could cause a crash.
  • Dragging items in the project outline no longer causes a crash.
  • Fixed a crash when clicking a site resource on macOS 27.
  • Fixed a crash caused by folders inside Site Resources when activating a site.
  • Choosing Cancel or pressing Escape when removing blog entries no longer deletes them.

Contact Form

  • Authenticated SMTP. Contact Forms can now send through an authenticated SMTP server, including Elements Hosting. Existing sites continue using PHP mail() unless SMTP is enabled.
  • Built-in spam protection. A hidden honeypot field rejects automated submissions before an email is sent.
  • Improved PHP 8 compatibility. Messages sent through PHP mail() remain intact and no longer expose the raw MIME boundary.
  • Safer SMTP port handling. Clearing the port field no longer causes a crash. When left empty, the port defaults to 587.
  • Password handling. SMTP passwords remain saved with the original document but are omitted when a page is copied or duplicated.

Photo Album

  • Thumbnails now remain visible when an image cannot be read.
  • Clearing a numeric setting no longer causes a crash.

Pricing and Beta Availability

This is a free update for everyone with an active Classic licence. To get beta access, open the Preferences window, go to the Updates tab and enable the “Check for Beta updates” option.

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Ongoing Support for Classic

We know many of you have built your workflow around RapidWeaver Classic, and we want to reassure you: Classic isn’t going anywhere. We’re continuing to maintain and update it with important improvements, fixes, and optimisations to keep things running smoothly!

Give us your Feedback

As this is a beta please let us know if you run into any issues, or if there are any other long-standing issues you’d like to see fixed and we’ll do out best to get them into the next beta.

Happy Weaving!

2

Is it strange to go back to classic for development?

It is so different from elements…

Very nice to continue classic….

3

Classic is a much simpler app, so in some ways it’s easier to update than Elements. But anyway, it’s nice to be back providing updates to everyone still using and relying on it :blush:

Viva-la-classic-weaver!

4

Hi Dan thank you this is such good news. I did accidentally update to golden gate the other day but found no problem publishing. I hope also that third party companies will also make sure we get updates if only in regard to Mac OS. I shall wait until the official classic update gets released.

5

Awesome, glad to hear it :smiley:

6

Glad to hear you are still supporting Classic. I purchased Elements but my site is massive - there’s no way I could have migrated it.

I’ve let my Classic sub lapse because there would have been very poor value in just letting it renew automatically each year.

BUT if you are making some updates and changes of value then I am happy to re-purchase.

I’m not a beta tester though so it will be as soon as the latest update is well and truly tested.

7

No problem, we just want to make sure all our users and customers are supported :blush:

8

Thank you for keeping users of the original version in mind.

After trying several other applications and platforms, I’m now considering coming back to RapidWeaver. I’m currently using RapidWeaver 8, and I have several existing websites that I would need to migrate.

I’d appreciate some advice from the community: would it make more sense to upgrade to RapidWeaver 10 first and then migrate my sites, or should I move directly to Elements?

I’d especially appreciate hearing from users who have made a similar transition, particularly those who have migrated multiple existing sites. Any advice on the best approach would be greatly appreciated.

9

Hey Dan,

My Rapidweaver Classic 9.6.8. says it is up to date.
So, what does Classic 10.0 Beta 1 means? That is not for me?

Kind regards,
Willem Boogman

10

Love classic, and very happy with the new beta, all my work is on it, and I did not find elements something easy to work with. All my investment for years was on classic so I will still use it for many years to come, I really hope so.

11

I understand… I was the same way…

if you want to try elements again - there’s a lot of people here to help you…

12

It’s good to see that the Realmac team is still providing support and updates for Classic.

@techlizzard

For new projects, however, I’d definitely recommend taking a look at Elements, if you haven’t already, and considering using it for your future projects.

One of the main reasons is that Elements uses a much more modern and capable framework. Many things that previously required third-party Stacks can now be built directly in Elements without needing additional plugins.

It’s definitely worth giving it a try, especially for new projects.

13

Thanks for the advice! That’s actually what I was hoping to hear. I’m definitely planning to give Elements a try, especially for new projects.

The fact that so many things can now be done directly in Elements without relying on a bunch of third-party Stacks is really appealing. I just need to spend some time playing around with it and getting familiar with the new workflow before I dive in

14

hey Dan no luck downloading Beta 10 - suggestions?

15

Has RSS output gotten any programming love in the Classic era? When I’ve run my feed URL’s through W3C and other validators - every site has always had at least some (usually minor) flags of non-compliance.

Is all of RSS output generated at the app level - or does it also require the Theme developer to do certain things in their implementation? I ask this because the XML handling flags are not consistent on my various sites, and I’m wondering if the inconsistencies are happening at the theme level - or maybe conflicts in my Page Header/Scripts code???:thinking:

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MacGizmoGuy : 20+year RW Veteran Since v3 in 2005!