So is it safe to start using RW8 for existing RW7 sites?
I think the default answer to this is: no. There is always someone, somewhere, having problems with some version of any software.
This might be helpful, though, from the Realmac FAQ:
If you open an existing RapidWeaver 7 project in RapidWeaver 8 it will create a copy of the project and save it as a new document. This prevents RapidWeaver 8 overwriting you [sic] old RapidWeaver 7 projects.
In that case, human mankind would not be allowed to use any kind of software, correct?
With saying that: As RW8 is now sandboxed, you might have to go through a phase of re-linking your resource files (I never had to do this). After that, you will be fine.
Do backups of everything, and your are good to go.
Cheers, Jannis from inStacks Software
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The only people who can answer this question are RealMac and I think it would be great if they could.
Experience suggests that for every person who’s having problems and publishes something here on the forum, there are many more for whom RW8 works just fine. Unfortunately, you tend to hear the complaints of poor or buggy performance over the silence of a satisfied user.
FWIW, I’m still on 7.5
Upgrading from 6 to 7 was a lengthy and time-consuming experience for me (I have between 30 and 40 sites) - RW, the OS, plugins, stacks etc. - so I’m setting aside some time next month to start the process with 8.
I’ll make copies of all my projects and only work on those.
I’ll make sure all my plugins and themes are up to date
I’ll use it as an opportunity to prune stacks and themes I don’t use
And I’ll run the new versions of each site for - probably - a year before I remove the old versions. (I think I still have a couple of RW6 sites knocking about somewhere).
Hopefully it’ll go OK.
Rob
That’s always “best practice”, way to many users don’t have a regular backup plan like TimeMachine running all the time.
It’s not an all or nothing update, you can run both RW7 and RW8 on the same Mac. It copies the plugins and project files over, so you can migrate over a project at a time.
I’ve started using 8.1.6 for new projects (about five since downloading 8.1.6 last week) no issues at all with new projects.
I’ve converted a few recently built projects to 8.1.6 from 8.0.3, most would have been built in 8.0.3 or latter versions of 7. No issues.
I’ve tested some older projects, built in early version of 7 and latter version 6, had issues with resources linked etc. Which is odd as I’ve never used resources, so not entirely sure why I was getting error messages. One one project in particular which dates back 4+ years i even got resource warnings for elements that have been long since removed from the project, so that was REALLY odd!
I’ve decided to use this as the prompt to remove support for the older sites and tell the clients they need to pay me to rebuild them using newer technology, or just not request changes.
Hi James,
that’s an interesting approach. I’ve got maybe two or three clients that have sites built with older versions of RW and it’s not occurred to me before that I should charge to re-build or refuse (politely with an explanation) to do updates and changes.
I’d be interested to know how you phrase it!
Rob
No. The point I was trying to make is that it isn’t very useful to ask a broad statement like that. In all the years of RW, and even its most stable releases, you can still find someone that has a problem with something like publishing. It’s just the nature of the beast.
Secondly, I was pointing out that in the FAQ it shows you can run the two versions side-by-side, and the new version creates entirely separate projects. I’d say that is about as safe as you can get.
I just explain that the technology used to create websites and the conventions to which they must conform to maintain good SEO is constantly changing and being update. Therefore, it’s neither cost effective or advisable to maintain an old site for long.
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