So I have a wordpress site that uses the coaching theme by thimpress. This is very powerful and does everything I need however it’s a pain to use and when there are problems (which is all the time) I have a real issues getting them resolved. I have to say I prefer rapid weaver. So I’m thinking of migrating my site. I’ve done a number of sites using RW however this is far more complex than anything I’ve tried before.
So what I’m looking for is to be able to run paid and free video courses probably through a membership or similar. I might need a storefront down the line, blog and the all the regular contact pages, info pages etc. Obviously I need it to be mobile friendly and have fast loading speeds. My current videos are hosted on youtube and are all free to view, however my next project will be a paid video based course with download questions and projects.
In RW I’ve only used themes which are great but a bit limited. Is foundation the way to go? Will I need foundation plus other stacks?
There are other free form themes out there, you can search the forums for them, and I am sure people will also mention them here. Why I use Foundation is obviously biased, since I work for Joe, but I think it is the best one out there. Gives you TONS of options (like warehousing for one, some of the other free form themes/stacks do not). Joe has a thriving community and is very active there as well helping people where he can. The theme and stacks are always getting better as when people find bugs, Joe gets them fixed.
You can also see some great reviews and all of the likes Foundation gets at the RapidWeaver Community Page: https://rapidweavercommunity.com/addons/themes/foundation
At one point they listed the total number of likes and it was the most liked product on the community page.
Hopefully others who use it can tell you why they like to use it.
No, none of the Free Form themes would include that. My suggestion would to look at a product called Sitlok https://www.vibralogix.com/sitelokpw/
Joe makes stacks for that as well, but they are not needed, just make things easier.
If what makes this project “far more complex” is the paid and free video, memberships, storefront and a blog, then Foundation, Foundry or common theme won’t make much difference.
The framework themes like Foundation and Foundry are RW adaptations of popular Website frameworks. They start you out with a blank stacks page. You design the entire page layout from navigation, headers, columns, and footers.
They give you complete freedom of your page layout, but don’t help you with things like membership, storefronts, and blogs. Those would be add-ons that could also be added to a conventional theme.