RapidWeaver Version 5
06 12, 12 Filed in: Macintosh Software
RapidWeaver's latest upgrade to version 5 is solid and offers some welcome enhancements. - by David R. Beebe
I have utilized RealMac Software's RapidWeaver since version 3 to create and manage the main structure of our website, b2gallery.com. As with the upgrade to version 4, the paid upgrade to version 5 is well worth the money. I have always managed individual albums of photos with separate software as RapidWeaver's photo albums seems incapable of including the copyright statement as a footer on the individual photo pages. Unfortunately, this has not changed with the newest release.
What has been gained is the ability to export the entire RapidWeaver managed site without erasing the site first. Previously, any change had to be managed by exporting a single page at a time to prevent RapidWeaver from deleting the albums it did not manage. A sitemap.xml file is also generated automatically which helps with Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
Migration to version 5 was seamless although the internal structure of the project file has changed again so if you save it from version 5, it will no longer work with version 4. Otherwise, it is not a problem to have both versions installed and running on your Mac. All aspects of the version 4 project file imported without issue. One small exception was the exotic destination photo album index page, the default font was small and nearly unreadable but I was able to add a font tag to remedy that. I continue to use the built-in theme Ideal and avoid implementing flash or java on the site to make it compatible across all devices.
What has been gained is the ability to export the entire RapidWeaver managed site without erasing the site first. Previously, any change had to be managed by exporting a single page at a time to prevent RapidWeaver from deleting the albums it did not manage. A sitemap.xml file is also generated automatically which helps with Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
Migration to version 5 was seamless although the internal structure of the project file has changed again so if you save it from version 5, it will no longer work with version 4. Otherwise, it is not a problem to have both versions installed and running on your Mac. All aspects of the version 4 project file imported without issue. One small exception was the exotic destination photo album index page, the default font was small and nearly unreadable but I was able to add a font tag to remedy that. I continue to use the built-in theme Ideal and avoid implementing flash or java on the site to make it compatible across all devices.