“RealMac Software has released RapidWeaver 3.5, bringing native compatibility for Intel-based Macs to the website building software. A new streamlined interface integrates themes into the main window for easy selection, while a new blog page style features coherent design throughout the archive and category pages to provide improved continuity. RapidWeaver 3.5 offers full perma-link support, as well as Ping support to easily notify websites that a blog has been updated. An enhanced link panel enables users to link directly to blog entries, podcasts, or a particular photo from an album or page resource file. RapidWeaver is priced at $40, and requires Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later,” MacNN reports.
Full article here.
[UPDATE: 12:50pm EDT: RapidWeaver 3.5 is a Public Beta 1 version, not a final release. Thanks, “betaman.”]
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ummm…looks like you din’t investigate this further.
Rapidweaver 3.5 is PUBLIC BETA 1
not a general release at all, but a BETA
How is this different or better than iWeb?
Anybody use RapidWeaver? How do you like it? Is it easy and reliable? I know this is a new version (beta), but how has the previous one worked for you?
The price seems right…
It’s different because it doesn’t make HUGE web pages that don’t load fast and you can do your own html.
For starters.
Purhcased the product when it came out. First couple of releases were quite buggy and clunky. Version 3.2 was last release that worked well. It’s a neat app with more flexibility than iWeb. The forum on their website is a great resource too. The 3.5 release is free for all registered users. Cool. I don’t think you can beat the $40 price tag for what it does.
RPW has been pretty good for what I’ve used it for. Just some basic website development. Can’t wait to get home to try 3.5 out.
I like RapidWeaver a lot. It’s quick and easy to use, generates clean, compact pages. If you like, you can use a program like Dreamweaver in conjunction with RapidWeaver. Although that kind of defeats the purpose of quick and easy.
On the pro side, it comes with some really nice templates, and I nice assortment of page types. I haven’t used the 3.5 release, but it looks very promising as far as improvements.
On the con side, you are tied to editing your files from a particular computer. It does not sync 2-way (like Dreamweaver, Contribute, etc.). So if you edit from two locations there is a very real chance you will overwrite and lose data.
IMO it is a much better solution than iWeb.
i’m curious about this program, too. what if you don’t know HTML? i just want to build a site using drag-and-drop. is this better than iWeb even if you know nothing about HTML?
thanks.
I have RapidWeaver 3.2. I like it a lot. It’s a lot like iWeb but is much smoother and bug-free. Sorry, no posted websites for you to view. I highly recommend it, and I think (but don’t quote me) you get free upgrades forever!
I made mine on rapidweaver
endlesselevation.com
check it out…
RapidWeaver is a great program for creating basic sites. I put my wifes site up in about 20 minutes.
http://www.mypenguins.com
Rapidweaver is the epitome of easy web creation. The sites are slick (as in look the business) efficient (as in don’t create sprawling pages with enormous names) and take virtually no effort put together unless you really want to dig deep into advanced stuff. I thoroughly recommend it. If you go to RealMac Software’s home page they have a gallery where users have posted the site addresses they have made so you can get an idea of what it is capable of.
MW : distance as in RapidWeaver is quite some distance ahead of iWeb
After evaluating iWeb, Sandvox, Contribute, DreamWeaver, and Freeway… Rapid Weaver came out a strong first in a) clean consistent design, b) fast, fast, fast.
I have programing and design skills, but this thing actually makes the process so easy and fail safe… I would recomend the same tool to my grandmother.
Good stable, intuitive code and user interface. Good output. What more are you looking for?
Have been using RapidWeaver for over a year to do daily (sometimes many times daily) updates to my web site for engineering and architectural clients. Fast, simple, clean.
My Intel Mac thanks Realmacsoftware for this release!
I use RW for my site. It reminds me of the whole Mac platform. Keep It Simple Stupid! I do not want to be a webmaster! I just wanted to put up a nice clean, basic brochure site. One that’s fast even for dial-up customers, Get customer inquiry emails, post some misc items for sale and get new customers. Not so much really. I needed something Fast, EASY and cheap! RW was it hands down! $35 in Jan 06. I wanted to try iWeb, But it took the Buffalo,NY Apple store 10 days to get it loaded after MW 06. What’s Up With That??? (I guess the “Geniuses” were too busy nose pickin” N nut scratchin) By then I had already bought, created and got sales from the site I did in RW!! It also seem like IWeb is a little too cumbersome if you are not a .Mac user as well, which I am not.
From my standpoint RW was free! Since I had a domain and hosting, and had not put up a site.( only an “under construction site”) I was wasting $$. RW has more than paid for itself…in sales and time Not spent in nerdland figuring out html.
I like to bread….. I do not grow my own wheat!!!
Just Buy it! WTF are you waiting for??? It’s only $40 for christ sake! That’s less than a tank of gas!!
“I like to bread….. I do not grow my own wheat!!!”
should be
I like bread….. I do not grow my own wheat!!!
I have a PowerMac G5, 1.8 dual – can I use RapidWeaver’s updated software, or am I stuck with a previous version?
How does it compare to Freeway Express or Sandvox? Has anyone used NVU or PageSpinner?
I’m trying to find one to settle on, and it’s been years since I did web design (1994), so I am R-U-S-T-Y. I’m reading up on Ajax now, but I want something that’s going to give me good-looking pages with well-formed HTML that I can play with to add features.
There must be a review site somewhere that’s compared these, but I can’t find one.
Any comments welcome. Thanks!
I’ve tried the Beta on my wife’s G4 iMac (733 MHz) and it seemed quite happy. I won’t be using it on my Dual G5 (2.3 GHz) until they declare it Ready For Prime Time – I’m using 3.2 there and don’t want to mess with it.
RapidWeaver is NOT a WYSIWYG editor. t has three “modes” – Edit, Preview, and Source. Only the Edit mode allows you to modify things – a minor annoyance as I DO know how to code HTML.
Sandvox IS a WYSIWYG editor. Better for the neophyte “Web Designer” but much less suitable for anyone with any skill – and it creates sites that are a bit bloated by comparison.
-=> iWeb is the glitziest and easiest to use – and easiest to recognize and most limited
-=> Sandvox is close to iWeb for glitz but offers some major additional functionality/flexibility
-=> RapidWeaver 3.2 was somewhat “drab”, improved with 3.5, and the most flexible and feature rich. It’s the only one you might consider using for a “serious” site.
The Beta includes a handful of new Themes that look like they were partly inspired by the designs included with Sandvox. Not “copied”, not “stolen”, just “inspired by”. Oh … and that “new blog page” style – they used to have one but removed it for some reason.
Don’t know about AJAX, but RapidWeaver makes use of both JavaScript and CSS – I don’t know if either of the others uses either. You can edit either outside of the program, though this might cause you support problems down the line.
It has been mentioned that sites created by v.3.5 seem significantly smaller than those created by v.3.2 – don’t know how they managed THAT trick.
I used to use Rapidweaver to set up my site for family photos. Whilst it produced pretty good pages for thumbnails and the themes were quite attractive, to me it doesn’t have the same quality as iWeb. Plus the slide show feature in iWeb looks very professional. Both work with dot mac and iphoto but iwebs integration is obviously cleaner. Generally RW produces smaller pages.
In the end iWeb wins for me and as with iPhoto it will get better very quickly.