Upgrading from 7 to 8 - bit of help?

I’m finally encouraged to take the plunge but can’t find the latest advice on how to proceed. I’m resigned to upgrading my 30 sites one at a time but want to get the installation right, as I remember problems upgrading in the past.

So, can anyone direct me to:

  1. The most stable version of RW8 to download?
  2. The process for carrying out the upgrade (the RW8 software, stacks and plugins)

I’ve looked at the support docs on the RealMac site and can’t find anything that clearly answers these specific questions.

Many thanks!

Rob

In my case, all stacks and plugins where imported from the Version 7 to Version 8. Very nice upgrade process. I think I had to reenter one or two license numbers in the new RW8 plugins. But anything else, no problem at all. For the site-upgrades, I tested this with a demo-project of mine. Opened a copy of a RW7-file and saved it as RW8-file. I did some testing and saw no problems so far. Only problems with font awesome in menus, but this was already fixed, I think. I still work with RW7. Testing only for the new Version. (Just for information: Demosite-file was about 300MB and contained 400+ pages with many many stacks, sitelok and some pulse5 integration)

PS: My RW7 contained more than 500 stacks & plugins

I hope this helps a little.

Thanks Michael. So one simply downloads the latest stable version - which is? - and then the upgrade process does the rest - assuming I follow the prompts.

Rob

Exactly, it worked like a charm. Just for the project websites, I would make a copy of the project and open that with the new RW8. Well, better save than sorry. But I had no big problems. The only one I had was fixed later.

@robbeattie I’m currently using the latest beta and experiencing no problems. There were some betas that were “tricky” however. Specifically I’m on Version 8.1 (20541b)

Inital upgrade process was the easiest ever to a major version. I know some folks had problems, but most found it very simple.

Since you still have a version 7 project file when you upgrade there’s really no immediate practical problem if things go awry. I suppose it’s useful to first upgrade your “simplest” website first just to see how things go.

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Thanks Michael. Having upgraded from 6 to 7 (I’ve only just completed this process with all my sites) I’m happy to take things slowly and - if it’s stable enough - use RW8 for all new work. I just want to get the initial process right.

In a way it’s a shame because RW7 is the most stable version of RW I’ve ever used!

Rob

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Thanks Matthew. I’ll make a note of the version number.

I upgraded from 7 to 8 a couple of weeks ago. Like you I was cautious worrying things may break but can happily report Rapidweaver 8 works great for my sites & I like the new refined interface and features.

I’m using 8.0.3 and the upgrade process was simple, paid for the download, had to enter the license number and all my stacks & plugins transferred automatically as part of the process.

Can you recall if they transferred Jamie or if they were copied? I’d still like to run RW7 in parallel.

Hi Rob, you can have more versions of RW on your hard disk side by side. On installation of RW8 it looks at your RW7 installation and copies your plug-ins and stacks. Very nice proces indeed. If something does not work: keep the old version of RW and take time to search an solution.
Buying new stacks and want to use them in both? Keep the zip (don’t throw it in the bin) and control-click on the stack to be installed and choose RW8 or RW7 and repeat. There are different folders for application support. So try it out.
I still have RW54 for a website that uses a plug in that was not RW6 ready. So you can use more versions. Opening older files with older version is best done with control-click.
greeting dirk

Cheers Dirk, nice and clear explanation that includes the key word for me ‘copies’.

I’ve got a decision to make now. My instinct says to upgrade to Mojave first and then do RW but I’ve got another program that’s 32-bit which I use a lot and I’m pretty sure won’t work with Mojave. So I need to find a repalcement for that first.

Thanks all.

try virtualbox with an older MacOS. You can build that on your current OS. And import the Vmachine after rhe upgrade. gr. dirk

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