The all-new RapidWeaver Community website Public Beta is now live

realmac · January 22, 2021, 2:46pm

We have some exciting news, today we’re introducing the all-new RapidWeaver Community website.

Our lead web developer @ben has been working on a complete rewrite of the community site for sometime now, and today is the day it’s finally gone live

The old community site was a little long in the tooth, and hard to update. This modern rewrite will allow us to easily add new features going forward. It will also allow us to more closely integrate it with RapidWeaver… more on that later in the year

Right now the site is a Public Beta so there will be bugs and things missing, but we’ll be working on these small issues over the coming weeks and months. As well as this we’ll been adding some new features and new RapidWeaver tutorials.

It’s been a huge amount of work to get it finished and live, but his is just the beginning of the new RapidWeaver Community site. We hope you dig it.

You can sign-up for a free account, and join a paid plan to get access to all the advanced tutorials and show your support.

If you find an issue (and I’m sure you will), please reply to this post and @ben will get it fixed up as soon as he can.

Have a great weekend, and keep on weaving!

Cheers,
Team Realmac (Dan, Ben, Tom, and Aaron)

habitualshaker · January 22, 2021, 3:18pm

Unless I am somehow not seeing it there doesn’t seem to be a search function. That’s pretty critical for people finding stacks etc. Hopefully that is one of the things that is getting added soon? @realmac @ben

Elixir · January 22, 2021, 3:20pm

Should we drop bug reports in this thread @realmac?

ben · January 22, 2021, 3:31pm

No search yet. I am working on a unified search for everything that’ll be listed on the new site.

You can do, or email me directly

Fuellemann · January 22, 2021, 3:38pm

@realmac @ben One thing that I would love to the see is a block called “First steps with RapidWaever” and the videos inside this block. The reason is that many customers/first time customers are getting the link via Google or via Realmac after purchase. If they see this right away, this might lead to less support calls and better introduction of the product.

Elixir · January 22, 2021, 3:39pm

I’ll note things as I see them. Some things that immediately jump out to me…

In the Developer Admin area I can’t seem to add a new version to an addon. You can fill out all of the required content, but the Save button cannot be clicked:

As @habitualshaker pointed out, no search functionality, which seems to be an oversight.
Addons from developers who are no longer a part of the community, and their products are no longer supported, still seem to be listed. This developer is an example:

Special categories like the “Online Editing” (seen below) don’t seem to pick up addons with the proper categories. Alloy for instance has the Blogging and CMS categories but does not show in this section:

CleanShot 2021-01-22 at 10.24.21

I’m guessing these are manually curated collections? If not, then there’s definitely a bug.

Large images in product view are no longer light boxed, making any text on them hard, or impossible to read:

A product’s original release date is show on the individual product page(s), but the latest update date for that product is not displayed:

CleanShot 2021-01-22 at 10.28.03

Products with no reviews show the slider controls and label:

When clicking the “Read More” link for reviews you’re given only an extra line or two, and there’s no indication you can scroll to see more of the review, it just appears to the visitor that it is cut off and does not continue:

CleanShot 2021-01-22 at 10.30.49

CleanShot 2021-01-22 at 10.30.38

Markdown headers are not being parsed:

This is the case with the product descriptions as well as release notes. In release notes no Markdown or HTML is being rendered, where as previously it was:

Developer Advertisements are not being displayed anywhere.
The “All Collections” link from the home page is not linked anywhere:

Something seems to be missing from the page design. Featured addons, advertisements, etc. Feels plain. This might just be a design choice though:

I have to step away for a bit, but will continue looking over the site when I get back to my desk.

Elixir · January 22, 2021, 3:55pm

OK, here’s another batch of observations, bugs, etc. Sorry to drop all of these on you. Just getting to see this for the first time:

The “Support” link in the navigation does not lead to a support page, but instead back to the main Community site page:

Clicking on the Stacks product, here does not take you to its product page, but instead the Stacks category page:

Products with < 4 reviews still have slider arrows. This too might just be a design decision or personal preference and not a bug:

Screenshot slider arrows sometimes load behind the images. Can’t seem to replicate an exact way to make it happen 100% of the time:

Even though a developer has products on the site, the individual developer page indicates they have nothing on the site and shows no products:

This does not seem to be the case for all developers though:

Speaking of the individual developer pages – what is the sort order for these pages? Is there a way to allow the visitor to sort them? Newest, Most Popular, Recently Updated, etc?

ben · January 22, 2021, 4:08pm

thanks for the feedback @Elixir - this is all new and in beta, so most of the things you’ve mentioned will get fixed over the coming days/weeks

Elixir · January 22, 2021, 4:12pm

Awesome! Totally understand! Just want to point out anything I see. And if I do it here maybe you don’t get multiple reports of the same things again and again in your inbox.

Here’s another I just saw:

Free products show with $0.00 next to them. I’d suspect you want it to read “FREE” instead:

CleanShot 2021-01-22 at 11.09.05

I’ll try adding some new products on the backend later as a test after lunch.

realmac · January 22, 2021, 4:23pm

Thanks @Elixir, indeed, do keep the feedback coming. It’s appreciated and gives us a nice list to work through

Cheers!

pmjd · January 22, 2021, 4:38pm

Just a thought but would a “Public Beta” banner or similar be a good idea for this new site in it’s current form?

A new user coming to the site who isn’t on this forum or sees any tweets etc. and doesn’t know it’s a public beta isn’t going to get a good impression coming to a site that has a good few issues, especially with links to products/devs that are no longer current, or incorrect pricing etc.

Elixir · January 22, 2021, 5:56pm

Tried to add a new stack as a test and received this error upon clicking save:

Due to the error I couldn’t test further on the admin side of things.

nemens · January 22, 2021, 6:21pm

For someone like me who checks on new stack releases almost daily, the new design looks great! I’m glad the sidebar is gone and more stacks/addons are displayed on one page without it looking cluttered.

teefers · January 22, 2021, 9:32pm

Is there any plan to “clean up” some of the old stuff?

Example RWtuts has 43 RapidWeaver addons, RWtuts discontinued service some time back (years ago).

realmac · January 22, 2021, 9:55pm

@teefers yes, this is high on the list, first we wanted to migrate all the date and make sure it was working. Next we’ll tidy it up. We’ll be removing old unsupported addons, along with developers that are no longer active. We’ll be rewarding those developers that are active on the Community and keep their products and details updated. (cc @ben)

Elixir · January 22, 2021, 10:22pm

Link to the Realmac Software blog in the footer links to the old blog, not the new one here: https://www.realmacsoftware.com/blog/

Link to the FAQs goes to a 404 page:

There doesn’t seem to be a way for visitors to submit a site for the site Gallery:

None of these filter buttons returns any results when clicked:

Clicking the “See More >” links on the Tutorials page…

… returns this blank page:

Fuellemann · January 23, 2021, 6:11am

@realmac It might be worthwhile pinging all developers automatically once every 6 months or so to confirm that they are still offering their products and that the products are up-to-date. If they do not log in and confirm after three reminders their listings will not appear any longer.

jojaeger · January 23, 2021, 11:38am

Main complain - I really miss Search function, which is quite essential. Especially now when I was looking for at function to lazy load a image, called Loading. A feature that Google is very fund off.
In previous version there was a list of categories to the right to choose among - nice
Collections - hmm - not quite a collection, but more 4-5 stacks to show, if any
I was very happy before this Beta, so why just change it without any warning, at least you could have kept the “old” and if I would like to test Beta, then make a link to Beta - like a A/B test.
All that said I’m still a big fan of RapidWeaver - but this - hmm a bit disappointed. Still wish you a nice Weekend

Fuellemann · January 23, 2021, 2:02pm

They are working on a unified search for everything that’ll be listed on the new site.

ben · January 23, 2021, 3:41pm

Thanks for all the feedback here, much appreciated

I will get the search back on the site ASAP. I know it’s an important feature, however I had to put a deadline on getting this new version of the site online, and had to cut a lot of features I have planned - I am now working my way through these features, so you can expect constant updates and improvements.

If you have anything else you think should be added, or would like to see, please let me know here

Happy weaving,
Ben