I used to hand-code websites decades ago. Stopped when work / life took me in another direction. Last used Adobe GoLive v8 extensively, with loads of hand coded CSS, add-ons, plugins, etc.

A bit rusty and out-of-touch now, so was looking at either a desktop based replacement for GoLive or some of the new fangled on-line only CMS systems out there.

GoLive still works on my Mac, but is dead and v9 quite complex to use without proper documentation or support. It gives me stress just to fire it up and look at all the code I used to know so well, but now can't remember a thing about how it all works!!

The main purpose for me is to have a simple web front-end for a collection of interactive 360 degree panoramic images and tours I create for pleasure. That's a whole different world which takes a lot of expertise and time to do right and stay current. So the web-side of things has to be really simple for me! (As there is only me)

Came across RapidWeaver and liked what I saw. Easy to get up and running, I like how I can create linked pages so simply, yet with a quick change of style, the look of the whole site can change too. It's also seems very extensible if I need that in the future.

Uploading my panoramas also creates some issues. They used to be a single QTVR .mov file, but that format isn't so well supported these days. So the preferred method now is to use HTML 5 exclusively (no flash or plugins at all!). Works across all platforms, but you have to upload a folder stuffed full of small files. Not so easy with database based CMS, relatively painless with old-school FTP upload. Though even with RapidWeaver I have to link to these folders manually with external, full-path links in the RapidWeaver code.

I don't need to be able to update the site remotely, which is the one advantage of web-based cloudy CMS systems as far as I can see. This is because creating my spherical HDR panoramas still needs the heavy lifting power of the desktop. So I'm always at home when creating my main content and adding a new panorama to the site is a few minutes work at the end of the whole process. Yet I can always bolt-on a CMS / bloggy interface later if I want to.

Most importantly... RapidWeaver seems to be really well supported by 3rd party developers and community. This I feel is vital, and why I am going with it!! Though it didn't save GoLive, things may be different here!?