I am considering buying Foundations, but really unsure. I know the theme itself is free, but the stack bundle is $100.00. Considering the cost, I have some questions.
Is it as complicated as it seems? I’ve watched Joe’s video on it and it looks daunting.
How friendly is Foundation with other developers’ stacks and plugins?
Are there any templates available to get started? Suggestions are very welcomed
Does Foundations provide the design freedom it promises? (I imagine I’m going to want to have that freedom once I get used to working with it.)
Any helpful hints, tips, suggestions, and links to resources are very much appreciated.
I was sort of in your boat as well and bought it mostly on the hype of other users. I’ve found it to be worth the purchase price though
It has a bit of learning curve, but once you get it, it’s actually quite intuitive. Part of the learning curve is that there is a lot of stacks included.
I’ve found it quite friendly. Also, other developers make stuff for foundation. Big White Duck, for example, has lots of foundation-specific things. It’s popular enough that I think it’s in other dev’s best interest to make them compatible. Joe seems pretty responsive as well to support his product alongside others
Hipster Weaver just started making foundation specific projects that do all of the set up for you. There’s another one launching from Webdeersign. Aside from that there’s lots of projects in the gallery. Foundation comes with a demo project too.
I’d say it is as free as you’d get in the Rapidweaver world, imho.
Having said all that, i don’t have experience with some of the other ‘freestyle’ suites (like blueball and pure) but I’ve been happy with Foundation and think it’s worth the investment.
If you have been using ready-made RW themes and find them too restricting for your design ideas then the Foundation package is just for you.
It allows you to start with a blank canvas and have total control over every aspect of your design. I’m in the process of redesigning eight commercial sites using Foundation and highly recommend it.
As to the learning curve, if like many of us you’ve been CSS hacking themes to make them work for you, you’ll love the flexibility of the Foundation stacks - no hacking needed! There’s plenty of friendly help on the dedicated Foundation forums.
Lastly take a look at the excellent Foundation stacks provided gratis by Big White Duck - they take design control to a new level.
Foundation is the single best purchase I’ve made since I first purchased Rapidweaver in 2009! It is easy to use. It’s reliable and just keeps getting better and better. Everything Joe Workman puts out just works. I highly recommend purchasing it! And for sure get all the Big Whit Duck stacks too. Andrew’s stuff is awesome as well.
I will probably never purchase another theme ever! I can do anything I want with Rapidweaver and Foundation!!
Should you invest in Foundation? Only if you want to be totally unrestricted in the web sites you build and gain access to the the most complete set of building blocks with support network available. Joe’s new support forum and all of the support sub forums will get your questions answered quickly. And just to confirm what others have said, when you do get Foundation head over to Big White Duck and download Tav’s complete set of Foundation Plus free stacks that take Foundation to an even higher level. The support network itself is work the investment in Foundation.
I am just about to release our first Foundation Project in a matter of days and there will videos that will show how they work, how they can be used to help new users new to Foundation and also demonstrate some of the features that you can make use of. Keep an eye on www.webdeersign.com or sign up to the newsletter for advance notification of exactly when the first will be ready.
Using our Projects, you can be up and running in minutes and then for example, edit sections, remove and add sections, reorder, add CMS, animations, video, etc. This is a great way to learn and will save you many hours. There will be full documentation within each module together with additional support documentation. The Projects will include warehouse ready folders of optimised and sized images, icons, custom background images as well as web fonts already prepared and ready to use.
When you do jump to Foundation, you will never consider using a theme again.
Edit. One more thing. Joe’s documentation for Foundation is second to none but should you find you need to go under the hood, you also have access to the Zurb Foundation documentation in addition to the Zurb support forums, all of which are free, of course.
I hesitated buying it as well. Joe had a sale for black Friday so I bought it. I kicked myself for not buying it earlier. You can make just about any modern website with it. Anything your imagination can come up with. As far as a learning curve, there is a ton of support from Joe Workman and the community here and on his forum, Weaver.space.
You don’t have to buy all of the stacks at once, just get the starter stacks and try it out. Also, bigwhiteduck has several free stacks that he has developed for Foundation.
I bought it the first day it was out. My thinking was 'If i buy 3 other themes, i am going to spend the same amount of money. But Foundation is amazing. I build websites now exclusively in Foundation. Al stacks that i own are compatible (excluding some old ones i never use ). And about the learning curve… It’s so much simpler than jumping back and forward to the info panel and back. With Site Styles you could see al the color seeing right in top of your page! Don’t forget to check the dedicated stack from @big_white_duck (@tav). The are just amazing!
Thank you everyone for the responses. It looks like I’m going to give Foundations a shot. I’ve already been to BigWhiteDuck and downloaded all their stacks. I guess I will be quite busy in the coming days/weeks, learning the ropes. I have a new client, a law firm, and he wants very specific things…things I can’t accomplish with RW themes. Right now, the site is acceptable, but I want to give him everything he wants and it looks like Foundation is the way to go. Thanks again for all your help.
Hi Devin, if you are creating a web site for someone else such as a law firm. Then using Foundation is an absolute no brainer IMHO. Humans, customers and particularly law firms, do not think within the confines of fixed structure themes and never understand why they can’t have what they want. For sure you might get away with a theme, but the customer will almost certainly ask to move the title or add a new section that a conventional RW theme will not allow and you will end up looking embarrassed having to explain that the theme doesn’t allow what they want. You then have to abandon and completely rebuild that theme based site.
With Foundation, you are completely unrestricted to create whatever they want.
In Site Styles, there’s an option for ‘Foundation - Site Background’. There you can select an image (or color, for example), and there’s an option to have the background fixed.
Thanks so much for the quick response. I was hoping to do it for individual sections of the page, with different images for different sections. I have it set up the way you suggested now, but would like the opportunity to have more variety.
Checkout sections stack http://www.bigwhiteduck.com/stacks/sections/
For that matter checkout all of big white duck stacks. Most are made for foundation and are free (just donate if you like them).
Yep you can do it section by section too. You could try a Panel and then at the top of the stack settings, choose an image as a background. Then put a column within the Panel to house your content.
Better yet, as teefers says, download the free Section stack from Big White Duck and check out his examples. Section is a super functional stack and is made for Foundation.
). And about the learning curve… It’s so much simpler than jumping back and forward to the info panel and back. With Site Styles you could see al the color seeing right in top of your page! Don’t forget to check the dedicated stack from 