Then I was told… you gotta get stacks… cuz for some reason without that it’s like using 1/2
ok double the price bought that.
Now i’m looking at either foundry or foundation…
But … Why do I need those too?
I feel like I already paid for the software twice.
I mean it still isn’t fully fuctional yet?
Then… It has add-ons for foundry and foundation after that!!!
BASIC stuff like… BLOGS…
Why aren’t blogs already apart of the first package I bought? Or the 2nd, or 3rd?
Then there is Total CMS? CMS? Like the HTML and CMS thing?
I have to pay extra for that too?
I mean … when is this actually fully fuctional? I feel like i’m getting lost and more and more in debt. And I’ve not even started. And I realize it’s capitalism and we all need money but…
Right on. Yeah, that’s kind of typical of RW new users.
Until you get to know the basic package (which is just RW and nothing else), you should not make any additional purchases.
Rapid Weaver “out of the box” is already a fully functional app. Since it includes some basic themes, you can make fully functional sites with it. Take advantage of this package by learning the software and exercising using it. Once you know what you have at your disposal and how that relates to your needs/wishes, you can make much more interesting and diversified websites if you invest some additional money in Stacks plugin and one of the frameworks.
I recommend the free Source framework which includes many basic stacks (add-ons). There is also a paid suite of more advanced stacks for Source.
Knowing developers that create themes, Stacks, stacks and other add-ons is very important. You can jump right in and make a ton of purchases from developers who will be of little or no help to you after the sale, or you can find reputable developers who will stand 100% behind their products. Getting to know their reputation takes time and some wasted money.
Do not make any purchases, unless you know for a fact that you need that item and what you can achieve with it. Will Woodgate of Stacks4Stacks and ThemeFlood has his excellent products available for download in demo mode. When you are certain that his product does what you want, then you can pay for a license and use its full functionality.
BTW, the basic RW package includes the “blog” plugin (type of a page). Admittedly, it’s not the greatest choice for building a blog, but it exists nevertheless…
I don’t know why Rapidweaver is sold as it is then Stacks was separate. Perhaps it was that Rapidweaver made a great platform for Stacks to exist on.
You can do a lot with Rapidweaver on its own but I believe it really comes to life when you have Stacks.
Now Foundry and Foundation are large collections of stacks built by their developers so that all the stacks contained in each package have similar configuration layouts and interact well with each other. You don’t have to use them although they are the most popular.
There are huge collections of Stacks out there that are free and you can with a bit of searching replicate pretty much everything that Foundry and Foundation have to offer. It’s all down to the ease of use and time and learning curve that can decide on you selecting a package with near everything you need or going out to research those stacks in the big wide world.
I’ll tag to the bottom. What @Rovertek said is very true. Good developers have demos and demo videos to watch and also their own support websites. So many to pick from that just reading these forums is a good way to see what is out there. You have the tools but now need the practise to use them. There is some amazing video out there.