Totally newbie needs help with Stacks

RapidWeaver Classic Stacks
1

Hello everyone,

this is my first post, so let me start by introducing myself. I am a father of two little girls (4 and 2) plus a puppy dog, puppy cat and some fish. I work in IT but not Web Design.

Back in the old days I used to fiddle with web design (back when it wasn’t Adobe but Shockwave (I think…)…but I am getting old and lazy.

My wife is now in the process of starting her own business and wants me to create the web page for her.

I have purchased RapidWeaver 7 and a theme and am pretty happy so far, but would like to make some amendments and am struggling…

Here are the two things I need guidance on, even just a hint on where to look.

  1. I would like a footer that contains more text, maybe even some more links, with a specific background color and so on

  2. I wanted to adjust the menu bar and got the following two stacks: Header Pro and Slide Up. They are installed and showing in the addon manager, but I have no clue how to use them and am having a hard time finding a video that may help me.
    I don’t even find that library button…

Can you please help me?

Thanks in advance for taking the time and making the effort.

Cheers from snowy Germany,

Olli

2

Hi Olli and welcome.

What theme are you using? You may be able to adjust things using the theme’s settings but it depends.

Rob

3

Hello @starson,

first of all, if you haven’t noticed it yet, there is also a german subform within this forum. You can reach it by clicking here. (There I could answer your questions in german :sweat_smile:)

And now to your questions:

  1. To use stacks you need to purchase the Stacks Plugin by YourHead Software, as the whole ‘stacks-thing’ is not a built-in feature of RapidWeaver. This Plugin is required to use stacks and also contains the library-button you’re looking for.

  2. Changing the color of the footer (and other sections) can be done in the ‘Master Style’ section.

    Bildschirmfoto 2017-01-14 um 11.06.22.png2560×1600 1000 KB
    If your theme doesn’t support this, you need to change the color using css overwrites.

  3. To modify your footer-section you need to ‘beam’ content to this place. This is possible in different ways, depending on the theme your using. So please tell me which theme you want to use.

The first possibility is to put some code into RapidWeaver’s Footer Text input field in the general settings.

Bildschirmfoto 2017-01-14 um 10.50.51.png2560×1600 404 KB

Second: Some themes provide an ‘Extra Content’ Area within the Footer section. Extra Content ares specific areas within a theme where you can place content, which would not be accessible by using the default content area or the sidebar. To place content in this EC-Ares you can use this stack. On this website you will find some deeper information about EC-Areas and the ways to use them.

The third possibility is to use a stack, which allows you to place every content (such texts, links and so on) at every place you want it. Such stacks are:

Those stacks can access EC-Areas, the Footer- & Sidebar-Area as well as specific div containers.

Happy weaving,
~N

2 Likes
4

Hello Olli,

Welcome to the RW community. Considering myself an advanced beginner, I can’t give you in depth tips and tricks, but I’ll try to explain the basics.

RW has a number of built-in plugins, that allows you to create several page types like Styled Text, HTML Code, Photo Album and Sitemap.
Other developers also offer plugins that extend functionality. The one that nowadays almost is a must, is Stacks (with capital S) from http://yourhead.com/

After installing Stacks you will see the Library button and you can start using stacks (with lowercase s). Stacks comes standard with a number of stacks, but you can expand your library by purchasing (paid and free) stacks from other developers.

RapidWeaverSchermSnapz001.jpg675×587 66.3 KB

You already have 2 of them from https://www.bigwhiteduck.com/
Some other developers:
https://stacks4stacks.com/
http://onelittledesigner.com
https://www.doobox.co.uk/

More (stacks, themes, plugins) can be found at http://rapidweavercommunity.com/

Themes are great when you are happy with the way they work. You can have your website up in a jiffy.
Using Stacks pages offers creating more versatile pages, but when you want to customise things, themes can be restrictive.
It depends on the settings, the developer has built in, how far you can go. Otherwise you have to use code snippets to get some things the way you want.

Frameworks offer much more freedom, but may take some time to get familiar with.
Several are available, but all have one thing in common. They need Stacks and come with a number of stacks to create the most common page types and more.

Here’s a list of the ones I know are in active development:
Foundry http://foundry.elixirgraphics.com/
Foundation https://foundation.joeworkman.net/
uikit Archetypon

Other frameworks (might not be in active development):
Pure http://pure4rw.com/
Freestack https://www.blueballdesign.com/rwthemes/freestack/index.html
Bootsnap http://www.yabdab.com/stacks/bootsnap

In my opinion Stacks is well worth the investment.
If you feel restricted by the themes in terms of layout, get yourself a framework.

1 Like
5

First of all: THANK YOU!

For not sending me over to the search. For making such an effort to help. It is really appreciated and already things are clearer.

I am using Strata from Nick Cates Design.
Although it is not really covering what the wife would like…

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6

OK. So now I purchased the foundry stack and it’s all coming along much better.

Two new questions have arisen:

  1. Is there a way to make a change I do on one stack page (say for example change the width of a divider) “automatically” also be made on all other pages?
  2. I have 5 main pages (welcome, person, offerings, sicknesses and contact) and two have them have 5 subpages each. Now when I click on welcome or person or contact it takes me directly to that page. for the other two in the menu i can only click on the submenu pages. is there a way to make the top page clickable as well?

Once again: Thanks in advance.

Cheers,

Olli

7
  1. Watch this video on Partials
    http://yourhead.com/partials
2 Likes
8

I’m using Foundry too, and had the same question a few days ago.

The video that @zeebe mentioned above was excellent, now I’m using partials all over the place.

2 Likes
9

Partials were a fantastic idea…the page is slowly coming along.

I have another conundrum…
I have selected Roboto (Google Font) as the default font.

I have some parts with text and other parts with foundry bulleted lists. I have tried to make the text look alike across the page and whilst it looks perfect on Safari with the Mac. The text is off on Safari on iPad and iPhone.

Any ideas what I am missing?

10

Hey @starson,

Just FYI, there’s a forum for Foundry users which might help you to find some answers if others have had a similar issue.

I’m not saying you won’t get some help here, but I found it useful.

1 Like