I’ve been using RapidWeaver since ver 2.0 but the ver 6.x upgrade causes me some grumbles.
Page Deletions It was only recently that I became aware of the non-Mac like behaviour of RW in deleting pages. As a Mac user since 1984 I have come to expect a certain type of behaviour and when I remove a page in a program I expect that removal to be carried forward. Gary555 raised the problem in Jul15 and ashleykaryl raised it in Aug15. In neither case did I consider the answer reasonable. Given the initial target market of RW I do not expect to have to use 3rd party apps and delve into the murky world of ISP folders and files to delete pages! At the very least we should have an option within RW to fully delete pages from both the RW app and the uploaded files.
Stacks - Over the years Stacks has become the default RW and to have it remain an external 3rd party add-on seems somewhat counter productive. Let me be, not the first, to vote for a proper amalgamation of the two.
3.** Stacks in RW 6** - an unwelcome departure in presenting Stacks. In RW5 Stacks were nicely grouped by author and we had the ability to collapse any less often used set. The new presentation is neither intuitive nor logical.
Help I note that the ‘RW Manual’ option in RW6 and on the RealMac site both return ’ page does not exist’ and the button to return takes me to an add for ZenDesk. The Newsletter sign up button tells me to fill in both fields when only one field is available.
Apologies for incorporating a number of grumbles in the one post but they are somewhat related and I think need to be aired as a group.
Completely agree. I rely on Transmit to delete pages from the hosting site, but it really makes a mockery of the ‘ease of use’ on which Rapidweaver is based. Whatever the rationale for not including the function within Rapidweaver itself, it still rankles.
It doesn’t actually bother me if the two remain separate entities, as long as they are actively working together, to use a well worn phrase, are working on the same page.
Fair comment. I find the new system confusing. I have just assumed that it is my own lack of understanding. My personal Stacks collection can at best be described as a mess. I often forget what exactly I have on my system.
The Help link should have been corrected aeons ago.
I look forward to an official responses from Realmac for 1 and 4 and YourHead for 3. Maybe both just need to reassure us for 3, that they are working together.
Carried forward to where? Your suggestion would mean that anything on an ftp server that was not generated by RapidWeaver would be deleted. I don’t consider this “normal” Mac behaviour.
What about directories of images or other client data that may be in the root folder but are not generated by RapidWeaver? How would it know what to delete?
Simply removing any files that were not part of the current RapidWeaver project would be catastrophic for many users and there is no way to know who or what generated an orphaned file or directory in the past.
The Zendesk links are something we’re working on - with us moving to a dedicated PDF manual for RW7, you’ll have a far better resource. We’re working on it currently, and we’ll be making it available as soon as we can!
We are deliberately cautious with your webspace. We’re looking into ways to improve this in future, however.
You misunderstood my post – my grumble is that RW should be able to ‘take care of its own’ which is all I asked. There was never a suggestion that RW should interfere with any items other than of its own generation. I expect that a well written Mac program is at least capable of that, or doesn’t RW know which files it uploaded?
There’s a tonne of edge cases here, which the simplified “take care of its own” statement doesn’t really cover - the reason we deliberately don’t interfere with files is because users have been known to take files we upload, and re-use them in other pages (sometimes away from RW). Analysing pages to figure out which files are “safe to delete” isn’t an easy (or reliable) thing to do… So we play it safe. Hope you can appreciate that.
I get the feeling the boys and girls at RW are actually being courteous about this. They built this software and if they really wanted to they could code in their own container for dealing with stacks. Issue is, YourHead did that already and they like to charge a fee for it. So RW have remained supportive of the community and left that person their livelihood.
Now, also consider if YourHead or RW even want to collaborate? What could they have to gain and lose, all worth considering.
They also talked about it openly on a podcast a while back and it sounds like it has been discussed (even continues to be discussed) and it just hasn’t been the right timing/fit/logistics/whatever.
If Ben or Dan can recall the actual episode, it’s worth a listen (as the question has come up a few times). And, as I recall myself, I heard the rationale and thought it made complete sense even though I consider Stacks to be an (essentially) mandatory add-on for RW.
I have already expressed my interest in RealMac and YourHead merging and – as a result – both threads I opened in recent weeks have been closed by moderators within just minutes.
I do not want the same to happen to this thread. I am not going to push the topic of Stacks becoming an integral part of RW. My goal never was to push for it. Just to provoke some open-minded thinking and discussion.
In my view, the benefits of such merge could be multiple. Here’s just some of them:
Isiah’s talents and efforts are well known to all of us. However, I think that they could be used in even better, more efficient way, if he was a part of RealMac crew. In no way he would lose his livelihood.
Combined intellectual and financial resources of RMS and YHS would also bring a better productivity.
Combined customer support would make a better user experience.
There would be less confusion on the part of new and prospective buyers of RW. That, in turn, could attract more customers.
Even 3rd party developers would benefit from smoother cooperation with just one company, instead of two.
This is exactly what I have been proposing - RW without Stacks is a very limited website creator. The cost of getting a reasonable piece of software is somewhat hidden as, in my opinion, Stacks and 3rd party themes - or at least a few themes - are critical to making RW even close to being worth the asking price.
At this point, I would also just settle for the old Realmac community website to come back, where you had actual ways to browse for stacks by type and function. Ironically, for website creation software developers, I find the new website hard to use and I can’t see to browse the full list of stacks available out there.
I think just about every stack developer is listed on there. It’s an excellent resource IMO worth bookmarking. Lots of hidden gems to be found! Rob and Marten often write excellent independant reviews about new and updated stacks too and do comparisons of different addons.
We’re in the process of adding some new categorisation options for addons, so that you can find things based on functions - and we’ll be applying these to the full Stacks listings too.
