Our Bluehost server started having an issue late Wednesday night into Thursday morning. The server was rebooted and services are still being restored. At the moment none of the PHP pages are functioning, which prevents registration, login, and use of contact forms. Bluehost is aware of the problem and working to remedy it. Hopefully it won’t be too much longer before services are restored, and that there will be minimal inconvenience to RapidWeaver Classroom subscribers. Thanks for your support and understanding.

Tags: server issues

Big news was released this week regarding features for RapidWeaver 5.0. This is official news straight from Realmac Software and the full details can be found here. I would love to make some comments of my own regarding the announced features, so I will do so below.

What’s New?

Over a dozen brand new themes, designed by world-renowned designers.
The current offering of built-in themes is severely lacking in flexibility and design that is up-to-par with current trends. While I love 3rd-party themes and the theme development community, I think it’s important that RapidWeaver ship with some high-quality themes in order to be taken seriously as a website design application. There’s no doubt that people demo RapidWeaver and drop it before even realizing there are 3rd-party themes, simply because they are less than impressed with the built-in theme selection. Also, the mention of “world-renowned designers” really raises expectations for these themes, so they had better be great!

Site Resources: we’ve entirely re-worked the ‘Assets’ feature of RapidWeaver to allow folks to add global site resources (now found in the sidebar) that can be linked to from any page.
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!!! RapidWeaver’s ‘Assets’ feature has always been one of the very few poorly implemented features of the software. I am thrilled to see this change to a global setting, and I can only assume that it will be well-executed. This change should make it far less intimidating to work with assets added directly to a RapidWeaver project.

Automatic built-in XML Sitemap generation and All-new, built-in Sitemap page type for creating an HTML sitemap.
This is good news and a feature that I do think needs to be standard with RapidWeaver. In the official news posting it is mentioned that this does overlap with Loghound’s Sitemap plugin, but the Sitemap plugin will still have its place for power-users. John at Loghound does outstanding work and it should be evident from the RapidWeaver Classroom tutorials that I think very highly of his products, so I did have mixed feelings about this news for John’s sake. All-in-all, though, I do think it is important for Sitemap generation to be standard with every website RapidWeaver creates.

CSS consolidation to speed up page loading.
Many users may not see the importance of this feature because it’s something that will occur in the background (I assume), but it is a big deal and I am very excited it will be included. In an attempt at a quick and simple explanation, every theme variation under the Styles tab is tied to a separate CSS file. Each of these CSS files must be uploaded to your server and referenced by the HTML files associated with your webpages. CSS consolidation will take all the code in those individual CSS files and place it all into one file -- this means that only one CSS file will need to be published to your server, and only one CSS document will have to be referenced in your HTML files. This should speed-up your publishing time, the load times of your webpages, and create cleaner HTML code in your pages.

FTP bookmarks
While I wouldn’t consider this a major feature, it is a welcome convenience for the large majority who publish their sites with RapidWeaver. FTP bookmarks would allow you to save multiple instances of publishing settings, so that you wouldn’t have to clear the fields and re-enter your information in the Publishing Settings whenever you want to change where your site is being published. In the RapidWeaver Classroom tutorials I recommend publishing your website to a test directory before publishing it live -- typically the first time you publish and then when you make major updates. In this scenario, you could have an FTP bookmark for the test directory on your server, as well as a bookmark for the root folder. This feature will save time and the hassle of looking up usernames and passwords for publishing.

What’s Missing?

Inevitably, there will be features that are hoped for but not included in an update to any software application. There are some widely requested features, and others that are more specific to a niche and ultimately not useful to the regular user. I’m sure that Realmac Software chooses to focus its efforts on features that will affect the widest range of users, and I am certainly excited by the features announced so far. For the sake of discussion, though, here are just a few requests that have been tossed around somewhat frequently, and don’t appear to have made the cut.

Updates to built-in page types
This is a very general request, but aside from the addition of a Sitemap page, there hasn’t been any mention of updates to any of the page-types. The File-Sharing, Movie Album, QuickTime, and Photo Album pages are a few that could benefit from some kind of refresh. I think this could be done without any major impact to existing 3rd-party plugins as well.

Improvement in functionality of the Master Styles feature
Working with Master Styles for your theme can be maddening at times, and in my opinion it is neck-and-neck with Page Assets for the poorest implemented feature. At this point there doesn’t appear to be any improvement coming for this feature.

A built-in ExtraContent-like feature
ExtraContent is a brilliant enhancement to 3rd-party themes, but official, built-in support for a feature that accomplishes the same goal has been widely requested for some time. It is confirmed that we won’t be seeing this type of feature in the version 5.0 release.

Content Management System (CMS)
Version 5.0 of RapidWeaver will not include any native support for a CMS. I certainly understand why this is a widely requested feature, but I am torn in my opinion on it because I don’t want to see RapidWeaver become too complex. If CMS support is ever added to RapidWeaver, then it needs to be very well-executed, resulting in an intuitive, easy-to-use solution. I have no expectations for this in terms of if and when, but for now there are certainly other ways of integrating a CMS if needed.

When is the Release Date?

The official details state “mid-2010” for the 5.0 release. This will be a paid upgrade, and by the time version 5.0 is available it will have been about 3 years since a paid upgrade was released. I am certainly looking forward to the new features announced this week, and whatever other surprises that might be in store. In the meantime, we will be seeing a version 4.4 release in the very near future, so that will have to tide us over for the time being.

Tags: RapidWeaver 5.0

I will be away beginning Tuesday, April 27th and will return on Wednesday, May 5th. I will have very limited access to email during that time, so I will reply to any support issues once I return. Note that our FAQ provides a lot of information, so please have a look through those topics if you have a question. If you have a general RapidWeaver-related issue, remember that the RealMac Software Support Forum is an excellent resource and wealth of knowledge from the RapidWeaver community of users.

Our series on CMS will continue with new tutorials shortly after my return.

Tags: support

I have been without Internet access at home/work for the past 7 days. After calls to my ISP over the course of the week, technicians have been called out and they have been working on the issue today. As I write this I am hopeful that service will be restored before the weekend begins, and that I’ll be able to publish this post I am writing now. It’s really been a perfect storm of issues that has caused this long outage, and when I lost service last week I never would have imagined that I would be disconnected this long. Needless to say I can’t wait to be back online!

So what’s the point of blogging about this? As I put the loss of Internet service in perspective, I considered what it has cost me, and what it hasn’t. I’ve certainly lost quite a bit of productivity over the course of the week, but at the same time I haven’t actually lost any work. My computer didn’t crash, my hard drive didn’t fail, and my web server didn’t go down or lose my website files. But what if one of those things did happen?

Let’s consider the chance of a major issue with your hosting server -- where all of your website files are published. Your hosting provider has an issue with the server, which takes your website offline, and the end result is actual data loss. Your website files have been permanently lost due to a hardware failure. This is bad news, but the goods news is that you built your website with RapidWeaver, and since RapidWeaver is a desktop application, your project file serves as a backup of your entire website. As soon as your hosting provider gets the server back up and running, you simply re-publish your website and things are back to normal.

This is a rarely considered strength of using RapidWeaver over an online CMS such as Wordpress. Your work is done and saved locally on your computer, so you don’t have to depend on the reliability of a machine somewhere else to keep your files safe. So you are secure with a backup of your website on your own computer, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be making back-ups yourself. If your project file(s) only exist on one hard drive, you should have an additional drive to backup to, or at the very least a USB flash drive. Ideally you have a second drive with Time Machine configured to make regular backups automatically. The outstanding PlusKit plugin also has a backup feature that you can use to make backups of your project file as you work. You can never be too careful, and so a combination of automatic and manual methods might be a good idea.

Finally, if you manage assets of your website directly via FTP (a.k.a. warehousing), then you will want to make manual backups of those files and folders by downloading them to your computer. Since you are managing these outside of RapidWeaver, you don’t have the safety of them being included in your project file. You likely have the files locally on your computer anyway, but in case of emergency it would be helpful to have all of those files together in a folder that is an exact duplicate of the folder of assets you had published on your server.

Tags: RapidWeaver 4, Backups

I am currently researching and learning various Content Management Systems and why they may or may not be good solutions for use with RapidWeaver. Allowing for user-editable content outside of RapidWeaver has always been difficult to solve, as RapidWeaver wasn’t created with that feature. Various plugin-ins and stacks have been released over time that address this issue, but how you know which one to choose and how to use it? This is a deep topic and one that I have wanted to address for a long time, and I think we’re at the point now where enough solid options are available to where I can make recommendations and explore all of the available options to some degree.

My research and testing will result in a new series that covers different types of content management -- not exclusively limited to online CMS systems. Video tutorials will be produced over the next weeks, culminating in a comprehensive resource. Here is a list of what I have been working with so far:

• Google Docs and PlusKit
• RapidBlog
• CushyCMS
• SurrealCMS
• WebYep
• Pulse
• PageLime
• Unify
• Dynamic Content Stacks from Blueball Design
• CMS/CSS Stacks from Joe Workman

If you have experience with any of these, or with something else altogether, please comment on this post and I might contact you personally for more information. As I mentioned, this is a deep subject and everyone can benefit more from feedback based on your own experiences.

Tags: RapidWeaver 4, CMS, Content Management Systems, dynamic content, screencasts

I am excited to announce that Joe Workman has joined seyDesign, Elixir Graphics and NCD Themes in offering a discount to RapidWeaver Classroom subscribers! All subscribers receive a coupon code good for 10% off any Joe Workman product. You can find the coupon code in the Members’ Area after you login. Thanks to Joe for his outstanding products and for this offer!

Tags: RapidWeaver 4, Joe Workman Stacks, discounts

Last week saw the introduction of the new Lime Theme from Elixir Graphics and the Gyro Stack from Joe Workman. Adam and Joe asked me to create a walk-through screencast to demonstrate the new theme and stack, and you can find that video below. Both are outstanding products, as Lime has amazing design and offers 3 ExtraContent areas, and the Gyro Stack executes a fantastic feature for your website -- you’ll have to check-out the video below to see it in action.

I will give Gyro the full RapidWeaver Classroom treatment with a dedicated tutorial in the near future, so be on the lookout for that. My thanks to Adam and Joe for including me in the release of these great RapidWeaver add-ons!

Tags: RapidWeaver 4, Lime Theme, Gyro Stack, Elixir Graphics, Joe Workman Stacks, screencasts

Nick at NCD Themes has extended a new discount to all RapidWeaver Classroom subscribers: 10% off ALL themes. Nick is an extremely talented RapidWeaver theme developer, and his latest release, Omega, is off-the-charts awesome! Thanks to Nick for this generous offer -- yet another reason to join us here at RapidWeaver Classroom!

Tags: RapidWeaver 4, NCD Themes, discounts

I am excited to announce a new discussion forum as an additional resource for RapidWeaver Classroom students! The forum is a place to provide website announcements and receive feedback and requests, as well as a place for students to connect with each other to talk about tutorials and RapidWeaver stuff in general. The forum is not intended to be a replacement for the Realmac Software Support Forum, as that forum is a wealth of knowledge and support that cannot be replaced.

All existing RapidWeaver Classroom students have immediate access to the forum, which can be accessed through the members’ area. You will not need to register a separate account through the forum itself, as your current account details are linked and so you should already be logged-in when you access the forum. New RapidWeaver Classroom subscribers will automatically be added to the forum membership as well.

On a side note, watch for new additions to the Complete Design Demonstration series tomorrow!

Tags: RapidWeaver Classroom Discussion Forum

An announcement was made this week that the Haloscan service is shutting down for good on February 19th. Haloscan is the commenting system that RapidWeaver’s blog page has used for the past several years. The newest version of RapidWeaver integrates commenting with JS-KIT, but long-time users of RW who have comment-enabled blogs will likely be using Haloscan accounts, and so this announcement affects those users, myself included. Below is the email that all Haloscan account owners should have received this week:

Haloscan is being shut down on: Feb 19, 2010
The Haloscan hardware and software is physically failing and we have no choice but to discontinue the service.

Two Options: Switch to Echo or Export your comments FREE.
Although we can't rescue Haloscan, we are trying our best to limit the negative impact on users. To do this, we have worked hard to provide 2 options for Haloscan sites.

View the Haloscan Upgrade FAQ

Realmac Software has made a statement that it is looking into integrating a different commenting system in a future release of RapidWeaver. No definitive timeline has been set for this update. You can view the official response here.

For those with Haloscan commenting who wish to keep their comments, an upgrade to JS-KIT is likely your best option. For others who are fine with losing their comments and do not wish to pay a fee for JS-KIT commenting, and do not want to wait for an update to RapidWeaver, an alternative worth considering would be the RapidBlog plugin from Loghound, which provides others options for blog comments. RapidWeaver Classroom does provide video tutorials covering the RapidBlog plugin.

Tags: RapidWeaver 4, Blog Commenting, Haloscan

So many amazing things have happened in the RapidWeaver community in 2009, and in 2010 I promise to continue sharing the latest information that you need to continue with your projects. There are some great things in the works that will make RapidWeaver Classroom even better, and in addition to those there will of course be new video tutorials published regularly. As a preview, you can be sure that many more Joe Workman Stacks will be covered, and CartLoom from yabdab will be coming out of beta soon, so there will be a lot to share on that incredible e-commerce solution. RapidWeaver Classroom will celebrate its 2nd birthday in 2010, and with a lot of changes and updates coming it promises to be the biggest year so far.

I hope all of you are able to take some time off during the holidays to be with family and celebrate Christmas and the new year. I appreciate all of you so much and wish you all the best as this year comes to a close. I will be away myself until January 4th, 2010 -- and then you can expect a whole slew of updates to appear soon thereafter. Thanks again, and have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!

RapidWeaver Classroom has been on Facebook and Twitter for a while now, but I haven't really promoted it and so I thought it would be worth blogging about. If you are an avid Facebook and/or Twitter user, then become a fan or follow RapidWeaver Classroom to stay updated with the latest tutorial releases and other news. I've also added some widgets to the blog sidebar, for quick access to the Twitter and Facebook pages. You never know, there might even be the occassional promotion especially for our Twitter followers and Facebook fans!

Tags: RapidWeaver video tutorials, screencasts, Twitter, Facebook, social networking

Did you know that RapidWeaver Classroom students receive discounts on some of the greatest 3rd-party RapidWeaver themes available?! RapidWeaver Classroom has partnered with the talented guys from Elixir Graphics, seyDesign and Rapid Refills to bring theme discounts to RapidWeaver Classroom subscribers. You can receive up to 50% off on themes available from these three talented developers. Students will find these coupon codes in the members' area and in the sign-up email that is generated following registration.

                     

If you are on the fence about whether or not to subscribe, and our testimonials haven't done enough to convince you, then hopefully these theme discounts will make your mind up for you! What are you waiting for? Register Now

Tags: RapidWeaver themes, discounts, Coupon codes, Elixir Graphics, seydesign, Rapid Refills

As you've probably noticed, RapidWeaver Classroom has been completely redesigned, resulting in a dramatic improvement over the original design and layout. I have utilized some of the latest RapidWeaver has to offer with this update: an ExtraContent theme, Stacks, Collage 2 and PayLoom. My hope is that everyone will find it to be better-organized and more functional than before.

Purchase RapidWeaver Classroom on DVD

That's right, RapidWeaver Classroom's video tutorials can now be purchased on DVD for viewing on your computer or portable device without an internet connection. 87 of the tutorials found on the website are included on the DVD. This is perfect for those with inconsistent internet connections, or for those who are on the road a lot and don't always have internet access.

What's next?

There is certainly much more to come by way of screencasts. So many of the available plugins are covered, but there are a few more that need to be addressed, and the Continuing Education section will be seeing a lot of activity in the coming months. Expect to see weekly releases of new video tutorials!

Thanks

What a great time to say "thank you" to all our supporters. RapidWeaver Classroom is nearly a year old, and it's been an awesome first year. I've heard great things from so many of you these past months, and I've posted some samples on the Testimonials page. I love the feedback, so keep it up!

A special thanks goes out to Adam Merrifield at seyDesign for being very generous with his time to help customize this new theme for RapidWeaver Classroom. It's no secret that I love his themes and the ExtraContent feature that he has helped bring to the community, so show him some love and stop by his site to look at (and possibly purchase) his amazing themes!

Tags: RapidWeaver video tutorials

Back in January I made an informal announcement here on the blog that RapidWeaver Classroom had surpassed the milestone of 100 video tutorials. Well, an official announcement and special offer has been posted over at the RealMac Software Support Forum, and to spoil the surprise a bit I will tell you that there is a discount involved! So jump over to the announcement thread, leave a comment and take advantage of this limited-time special!

Tags: RapidWeaver 3.6, RapidWeaver 4, RapidWeaver training, RapidWeaver video tutorials, screencasts

At some point in recent weeks RapidWeaver Classroom passed a major milestone of over 100 RapidWeaver screencasts! There is now over 14 hours of RapidWeaver video tutorials available! Still, there is much left to be done and 2009 promises to be HUGE as there are plans to produce another 100 screencasts by the end of the year, and hopefully much more.

So as always, drop by the blog here once a week or so to stay updated with the latest, or check out the Curriculum page to see what’s new!

Tags: RapidWeaver 3.6, RapidWeaver 4, RapidWeaver training, RapidWeaver video tutorials

Hello and Happy Thanksgiving to all our U.S. RapidWeaver Classroom students! I have been busy updating things behind-the-scenes to improve the experience for our subscribers. All of the video tutorials are now hosted on a faster server, so download times should be even faster now. In addition, the flash video player has been replaced with the QuickTime player, which provides even better performance and video clarity.

A note for users viewing the screencasts on a laptop (or low resolution monitor) -- the high-resolution of the videos might cause scrollbars to appear around the edges of the video. This mainly removes the QuickTime control bar from view, but I have a trick to remove the scrollbars. If you are viewing the screencasts in Safari, simply go to the View menu in Safari and choose Hide Toolbar. This should free-up enough vertical space to remove the scrollbars from around the video. You can go back to View and Show Toolbar when you are done viewing the tutorials.

Firefox users have it even easier -- simply click the pill-shaped button in the top right corner of your browser to temporarily remove the toolbar and create more vertical space.

IE users, why are you using IE?!?! Obviously you are a Mac user or you wouldn’t be subscribing to this website, but if you need to view the screencasts from a PC then get the PC version of Firefox!

Now that all the upgrades are done we can get back to producing screencasts, and we have a whole lot in-store, so watch for new releases starting next week!

There’s a new section of the website online dedicated to showcasing the RapidWeaver websites that Classroom students have created. The Student Projects section will display images of these websites along with links to them. Submission of these websites has just become available and RapidWeaver Classroom students can submit them through the Submit Your Site link in the Student Control Panel.

All RapidWeaver Classroom students are encouraged to submit their website. The only requirements for inclusion on the Student Projects page is that the submission is from a RapidWeaver Classroom student and that the content of the website is not explicit in any way.

I look forward to seeing and displaying the work that students have created, so submit your sites!

The server issues causing the slow-down RapidWeaver Classroom was experiencing earlier today have been resolved and everything is back to normal. For any of you who were affected by this, thank you for your patience while the matter was resolved!

Tomorrow will bring at least the first two Blocks video tutorials, and the curriculum has been updated to reflect the videos that I am planning to make available. As always, you will find the latest information on updates here.

Tags: RapidWeaver video tutorials

Some of you might currently experience slow performance on the website. I’ve spoken with the hosting provider -- they are aware of the issue and working to fix it as quickly as possible. I apologize to any subscribers who are experiencing slow performance when viewing the video tutorials, and I will post another update as soon as things are back to normal.

Better news is that Blocks tutorials are currently under production and those will be made available over the course of this week!

Tags: RapidWeaver video tutorials

Now that the RapidWeaver 3.6 and 4.0 video tutorials are complete, I am looking for feedback from subscribers and potential future RapidWeaver Classroom students. For subscribers, you will notice a new link entitled “Provide Feedback” in the Control Panel of the members’ section -- I would greatly appreciate getting your responses to a short list of questions there.

If you are thinking about subscribing but waiting for tutorials on specific 3rd-party plugins, then visit this thread in the RealMac Support Forums and cast your vote for one of the six plugins listed there. Of course it’s not an all-inclusive list of options, but it’s a start.

Thanks to everyone who provides feedback, and check back soon for info on the coming 3rd-party plugin tutorials!

Tags: RapidWeaver video tutorials

I have updated the Curriculum page with the RapidWeaver 4.0 video tutorials that I will be making available in the coming days. A majority of the updates to RapidWeaver 4.0 are user interface improvements and changes to the underlying architecture of the software -- meaning that there isn’t much change in terms of functionality. The current RapidWeaver 3.6 tutorials are not outdated with the release of 4.0, so RapidWeaver 4.0 users will be able to view Lessons 2-7 of the 3.6 tutorials to learn the software.

On account of the user interface changes, I will be redoing all of Lesson 1 for version 4.0, in addition to several more tutorials that detail other changes in the update. Expect these tutorials to appear in the coming days.

Tags: RapidWeaver 4, RapidWeaver video tutorials

It's an exciting day in the RapidWeaver Community as RapidWeaver 4.0 has been released! I'll be working hard to produce brand-new RapidWeaver 4.0 video tutorials for all of our subscribers who are upgrading. RapidWeaver 4.0 introduces an entirely redesigned user interface, and the majority of the new videos will focus on getting you acquainted with this redesign. There are also some new features that will be covered as well.

All that being said, a majority of the existing RapidWeaver video tutorials are full of information that is relevant to the new version as well. Since version 4.0 is Leopard-only, it's important to me to support both 3.6 and 4.0 users with the tutorials, so be on the look-out for new 4.0 tutorials coming soon!

Tags: RapidWeaver 4, RapidWeaver video tutorials

If you haven't already noticed, the RapidWeaver 4 countdown has begun. RapidWeaver 4 will be available to Leopard users in less than 24 hours from now, and RapidWeaver Classroom will be producing all-new RapidWeaver 4 video tutorials for those who will be upgrading to version 4.0. All of the changes that have taken place with this version will be covered and these tutorials will start to appear within the first week of the release. Lesson 6 is still the priority at this point and will be available to subscribers by Friday.

It's an exciting time for the RapidWeaver community and I look forward to providing these tutorials for both RapidWeaver 3.6.x and RapidWeaver 4 users! Stay tuned for more soon!

Tags: RapidWeaver video tutorials, RapidWeaver 4

I will be away on a short vacation starting Tuesday, May 20th, and I will return at the end of the week. I should be able to check emails but I may not respond immediately as I normally would. Next week you should expect to see Lessons 5 and 6 available to finish-off the "core lessons," and that will bring the 60-day promotion to an end.

As always, check-out the RapidWeaver Support Forum for questions that may come up as you work with RapidWeaver!

The MacBook has spent most of its day re-encoding all of the videos presently available to subscribers. The web server is now receiving all 750MB of that data, and late tonight the video tutorials will be made available at a new 960x600 resolution.

There will be a small amount of time when the video tutorials are unavailable, and that time will be between 11pm-12am CST. The down-time shouldn't last more than 10 or 15 minutes, but it's important that I communicate that in advance. Enjoy the new high-resolution tutorials!

Tags: RapidWeaver video tutorials

It's coming up on two weeks since RapidWeaver Classroom launched, and I've been listening to the feedback I've received from subscribers and others who have visited the site. The response has been overwhelmingly positive, and for that I'm greatly appreciative because it lets me know I'm doing some things right. Of course I'm not going to do everything right initially, so I must be prepared to make changes if I'm convinced they are in the best interest of the site and its subscribers.

So, with that being said, I am currently making one change and considering two others. The change I'm currently working on is the resolution of the video tutorials. Right now they are at a resolution of 512x320 and I will be increasing that to 960x600. I will be re-encoding the existing videos this week and posting the new ones in this higher-resolution format. At nearly double the resolution the file sizes will also double, but it looks like a majority of my traffic is on high-bandwidth connections, and with Fast Start enabled for internet streaming the videos can be started before the entire clip has downloaded. I hope this is a welcome improvement and I'd appreciate your comments on this change.

Another area I'm researching is the handling of payments. PayPal is currently set to handle payments and subscriptions, and my experience with PayPal has always been great. That doesn't necessarily mean that better options don't exist, so I've been looking at other options to see how they compare with the system currently in place. Once I have made a decision to stay with PayPal or switch to a different payment processor I will be adding two more subscription types: 6-month and 1-year options.

Again, I really do appreciate the feedback I receive, so please take a moment to comment on this post with your views. Thanks to everyone for your support!

Tags: RapidWeaver video tutorials

I've updated the Supplies page to include links to resources that complement RapidWeaver. Recommended web hosting, theme and plugin developers can be found there. I've also included a link to digitaLife productions, my business website, where I have a page with information about RapidWeaver consulting and training that I offer. So if you are wanting some one-one-one training or consulting to go along with the RapidWeaver screencasts here, then contact me through that website and we'll get something setup!

New video tutorials should arrive tomorrow, so check back to stay updated.

Tags: RapidWeaver consulting, RapidWeaver training

I've added a Frequently Asked Questions section to RapidWeaver Classroom. This will hopefully address most of the common questions that may arise, and it's available through the Questions? page and in the members' area as well.

It's always funny doing FAQ's because the general idea is to have the answers to the questions ready before they are asked. So it requires thinking from an outside perspective, which is something that's needed when it comes to website design. Since you are generally creating a website for strangers to see, it's important to develop the navigation and content in a way that is best for them. It can be easy to leave out important information because of your own familiarity with the subject, while a new visitor might be completely lost because of the lack of details.

If you can't quite get the outside perspective personally, then it's a great idea to have friends or family unfamiliar with the site and its content to look things over just before making the website public. They'll generally be able to point out what is missing or inadequate.

So yeah, there's a new FAQ, and there's a little nugget of information to go along with it.

A big hello to the RapidWeaver Community! After over 2 years of building websites with this great application, growing my knowledge in the Forums and contributing there over the past year, I've finally found a new way to contribute with this comprehensive resource of video tutorials. I'm really excited to provide this as a resource for new RapidWeaver users, and even for the ones with some experience who are wanting to go a bit more in-depth.

I'll be launching this site at the same time I'm producing the first set of videos, and with that will be a special offer for those who register early. If you didn't notice on the homepage already, those who "pre-register" will have access to the video tutorials for 60 days opposed to the 30 days that will eventually be standard. I'll be publishing videos very frequently for these next 3-4 weeks, and then consistently after that and I doubt I'll ever really stop. The plan is to have around 50 videos available by the end of May. Here's to hoping my web host is ready with the bandwidth!

If you'd like to keep-up with the release of new content here then be sure to subscribe to the site's RSS Feed. There are many, many plans for video tutorials beyond the ones currently listed on the Curriculum page, so stay-tuned to this blog for more information!

Tags: RapidWeaver video tutorials