RapidWeaver Classroom

RapidCart 3 Series of Tutorials Now Available

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2012-02-24T02:02:20-06:00

I have released a new series of video tutorials on the RapidCart 3 plugin from Omnidea. RapidCart 3 is a great e-commerce solution for RapidWeaver, and this latest version of the plugin brings about a number of improvements and enhanced functionality. This 45-minute series of video tutorials details every part of the plugin so that you will know exactly what it has to offer. These tutorials are available to subscribers now, under the Plugins section of the RapidWeaver Classroom curriculum.

There is a companion plugin to RapidCart 3 called RapidLink, which lets you offer digital downloads for purchase through RapidCart 3. I will be producing tutorials for the RapidLink plugin next week, so check back for details on that release.

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37 Doobox Stacks Overviews Available

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2012-02-14T17:34:04-06:00

The RapidWeaver Classroom curriculum has been updated to include overviews of all stacks currently available from Doobox. These 37 videos will provide a quick overview of each stack’s functionality and features. The range of functionality across all of these stacks is tremendous, and most anyone is likely to discover at least a few that they would consider “must-have” add-ons for their Stacks library.

If you haven’t noticed already, the immense popularity of the Stacks and Stacks 2 plugins has led to a massive increase in the frequency that new stacks are released. In order to stay as up-to-date as possible, I will continue to release these short overview tutorials for Stacks add-ons. Many of the stacks are so simple that a quick overview will provide enough information. Others will benefit from full-length tutorials, and I will produce those following the release of an overview.

While Stacks and its add-ons have made a very important impact on website development with RapidWeaver, I don’t want that to be the only focus of the training provided by RapidWeaver Classroom. I will be releasing some other plugin tutorials in the coming weeks, along with some other topics to be announced in the near future. Check back soon for more details!

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Doobox Overview Videos

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2012-01-23T14:07:59-06:00

Doobox has commissioned RapidWeaver Classroom to produce quick overviews for use on the Doobox website, and I have made them available as part of the RapidWeaver Classroom curriculum as well.

These overviews are 2 minutes or less in length. Some of these stacks are so simple to use that the quick overview will provide all the necessary information. Others will benefit from more detailed instruction, and so full-length tutorials will be produced for those stacks in the coming weeks.

Doobox has created some outstanding stacks for Stacks 2, so be sure to check out these quick overviews to see them in action!

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Stacks 2 Goes Final -- Tutorial Updated

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2011-12-15T15:55:47-06:00

Stacks 2 exited its public beta stage this week and is now available in its final form. If any of you have been waiting, now is the time to grab Stacks 2 and see what all the excitement is about!

One major change that occurred during the beta period is how Stacks handles images. Initially, images were not saved directly into the RapidWeaver project file, but they are now. The “Stacks Media Library” tutorial found in the Stacks 2 series has been updated to reflect this change. This basically means that a portion of the tutorial was eliminated, as that information is no longer valid.

Now that Stacks 2 is officially released, you can expect to see future Stacks add-ons tutorials produced using Stacks 2! Stay tuned for more updates.

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2 More Stacks 2 Tutorials Available

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2011-12-06T23:56:04-06:00

I have added two more Stacks 2 tutorials to the RapidWeaver Classroom curriculum. The first of these details the Stacks Media Library, and contains some very important information on using images in Stacks 2. The other tutorial discusses some miscellaneous information, and includes details on the updating of 3rd-party stacks in Stacks 2. Let’s just say that Stacks 2 has delivered a huge improvement in how it updates stacks add-ons!

Stacks 2 is currently still in beta and it can be downloaded here. I can speak from experience though and say that it is very stable, and I have already published updates to RapidWeaver Classroom using Stacks 2!

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Stacks 2 Public Beta and Tutorials Available

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2011-11-28T11:29:40-06:00

It is a very exciting day as the Public Beta release of Stacks 2 has been released! Stacks was a “game-changing” plugin for the RapidWeaver community, and Stacks 2 promises to take things to a new level with some very exciting new features.

Along with the Public Beta release of Stacks 2, I have published Stacks 2 tutorials to the curriculum here at RapidWeaver Classroom. There are currently 5 tutorials available, running just under an hour in length, and there will be at least 2 more tutorials published later this week.

Also, for this week only, these tutorials are available for free to the public, along with a contest to win a FREE Stacks 2 license. You can find more information here:
Free Stacks 2 Tutorials and Contest

Finally, please keep in mind that this release of Stacks 2 is a beta, so please take precautionary steps and back-up any projects that you will be using with Stacks 2. Check back here soon for more details and important information regarding Stacks 2!

Lockdown Plugin Tutorials Now Available

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2011-11-10T16:20:31-06:00

I have updated the RapidWeaver Classroom curriculum with a new series of video tutorials on the Lockdown Plugin from Loghound. Lockdown makes it easy to password-protect pages on your website. Protected pages will prompt for a username and password in order to view them, and you create these credentials with user accounts in the plugin. You can add multiple user accounts and have each one access specific pages, or even have multiple accounts all access the same content if you wish.

Lockdown is a great solution for password-protecting content for clients. A photographer can password-protect clients’ photo galleries, or a web developer can provide previews of a website in progress that is viewable by the client with a username and password. These are just a couple of examples of how Lockdown can be used.

This series contains 5 video tutorials for a total runtime of just under 30 minutes. Check back soon for updated tutorials on RapidCart 3!

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Hunter and Hippo Stacks from Doobox

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2011-10-19T23:41:51-05:00

I’ve updated the RapidWeaver Classroom curriculum with two new tutorials covering the Hunter and Hippo stacks from Doobox. The Hunter Stack is an awesome solution for filtering content on a page by category, and the Hippo stack creates a styled content area with buttons that load new content when selected. Both stacks provide a lot of functionality and flexibility, so check them out to see if they might be a helpful solution in your project!

You can expect to see many more updates on Doobox stacks in the next several weeks, so check back soon for more details!

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Page Lime CMS Series Completed

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2011-09-23T23:26:20-05:00

I have completed the series of tutorials on the Page Lime CMS and those tutorials are now available to RapidWeaver Classroom subscribers. This 45-minute series details how to use the Page Lime CMS, along with Joe Workman’s Page Lime Stacks, to create content that can be editable through a web browser using the Page Lime service. Even better, content edited through Page Lime is not overwritten when changes are published through RapidWeaver!

A total of 7 tutorials are now available. If you got a head-start and began viewing these tutorials during the past couple of weeks, you will want to revisit the 4th tutorial “Setup and Configuration” -- that specific tutorial has been updated with more important information.

The coming weeks will consist of new tutorials on more Stacks add-ons, along with some plugin updates as well, so check back soon for more!

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New Series on Page Lime CMS Stacks

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2011-09-02T01:21:43-05:00

I am very excited to announce the addition of a new series of tutorials covering the Page Lime CMS Stacks from Joe Workman. Page Lime is a content management system that integrates with RapidWeaver using Joe’s Page Lime Stacks. Content created with these stacks can be edited with a web browser via the Page Lime CMS. Even better, content edited with Page Lime will not be overwritten by RapidWeaver if the page is re-published!

This is an excellent solution for editing content without needing RapidWeaver. If you design sites for clients, then you can integrate Page Lime to allow your client to make changes themselves!

This new series is available in both the Joe Workman Stacks section and in the CMS section of tutorials. There are currently 4 tutorials available and more will be added in the next several weeks. Once the series is completed, it will be a very comprehensive resource for training on both the Page Lime system and the Page Lime Stacks.

Check back soon for more news on the Page Lime series!

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PunBB Forum Series and X-Ray Stack Tutorial

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2011-08-15T15:17:34-05:00

I am excited to announce the addition of a series of tutorials on installing and customizing a PunBB discussion forum and integrating it with your RapidWeaver website. This new series of tutorials is now available as part of the Grad School curriculum, as the steps involved require some knowledge of HTML and CSS, which is covered in Section 101 of that curriculum. The PunBB tutorials walk you through every step of installing the forum software, customizing it to match the look of your RapidWeaver website, integrating it with your RapidWeaver project file, and administrating the forum.

I’ve also published a tutorial on Joe Workman’s X-Ray Stack to the regular RapidWeaver Classroom curriculum, and this week I will be starting a series on Joe’s PageLime stacks for use with the PageLime content management system. This will be an exciting series to demonstrate the potential uses of PageLime for remotely editing website content without the use of RapidWeaver, so check back soon for more information on these tutorials!

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New RSS Stacks Tutorial Available

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2011-08-02T02:29:45-05:00

I’ve released a new tutorial for RapidWeaver Classroom subscribers on the RSS Stacks from Joe Workman. There are actually 7 RSS Stack varieties, and all of them are covered in this new tutorial. If your website has a blog then I highly recommend viewing this tutorial, as it is likely that you will find a good use for one of these RSS stacks on your website.

More Joe Workman tutorials are coming soon, along with a new update to the Grad School curriculum as well. Check back soon for more details!

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Lion is here! What this means for RapidWeaver.

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2011-07-22T01:27:40-05:00

This week brought the long-awaited release of Mac OS X Lion, version 10.7 of the Mac’s operating system. Realmac Software has released RapidWeaver 5.2.1 as the official Lion-compatible release of RapidWeaver. It is available directly through Realmac’s website, and in the Mac App Store. If you are already a RapidWeaver 5 user, then you won’t notice any big differences in this release of RapidWeaver, it is simply an update for compatibility with Lion. However, Lion brings about a couple of features/changes that might impact how you use RapidWeaver. These are outlined briefly below.

Resume

Lion includes a new feature called Resume, which reopens your apps “right where you left off.” This means that if you quit RapidWeaver with a project file open, Lion will re-open that project file the next time you open RapidWeaver. If you don’t want this to occur, simply close the project window before quitting RapidWeaver. Another option is to completely disable Lion’s Resume feature, though this will affect the feature for ALL apps on your Mac. You can adjust this setting in the General tab of the System Preferences panel, as shown below.

Manage Themes and Plugins

Lion hides the Library folder in the Finder, which prevents you from browsing to the Application Support > RapidWeaver folder to manage your 3rd-party add-ons. You can still reveal the contents of a theme by right-clicking on the theme in RapidWeaver’s Theme Drawer, but if you want to access other add-ons such as plugins or stacks, then you can do so through the “Manage Themes and Plugins” option in the RapidWeaver menu. Simply click on RapidWeaver in the menu, and you will see the option there.

If you want to access your add-ons outside of RapidWeaver entirely, you can still do so using the following steps.

1. Click on Go from the Finder menu

2. Select Go to Folder

3. Enter ~/Library and click the Go button

This will take you into your Library folder, where you can then browse to Application Support > RapidWeaver. For quick access in the future, simply drag the RapidWeaver folder into the Finder’s left sidebar to permanently bookmark it.

Auto Save, Versions and Full-Screen Apps

These are 3 new Lion features that RapidWeaver 5.2.1 doesn’t currently support, and while there’s no official word one way or another, I wouldn’t be surprised if we see them implemented in a future RapidWeaver release.

Are you currently “on the fence” about upgrading to Lion? I know the feeling. :) Personally, any time there is a major OS X release, I wait about 2 months before upgrading my “production” machine. This gives Apple and software developers time to address any issues that might be a “show-stopper.” I have installed Lion and RapidWeaver 5.2.1 on a non-critical machine, and everything has run smoothly so far. Regardless of your decision to upgrade, please be sure to always check for updates to your 3rd-party RapidWeaver plugins, as staying up-to-date will significantly decrease your chances of crashes and other performance problems.

CartLoom Update and More from Joe Workman

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2011-07-22T01:07:29-05:00

This week brings several updates to the RapidWeaver Classroom curriculum. I have added 2 new tutorials to the CartLoom e-commerce series: “Selling Physical Products” and “Shipping Rule for non-U.S. Sellers.” This unofficially concludes the series on CartLoom -- I say “unofficially” because there is always a chance of future additions once I receive your feedback on these tutorials. The total run-time for this series is just under 90 minutes, so rest assured that there is a lot of detail covered in these video tutorials.

Joe Workman released the Liftoff Stack this week, and a new tutorial for that stack is now available to RapidWeaver Classroom subscribers as well. Liftoff creates a very cool countdown clock that is great for product launches or other big announcements for your website, so check out this latest stack from Joe! More great Joe Workman stacks tutorials will be available next week as well, so check back soon for more details as the list of Joe Workman tutorials continues growing.

If you’re not a subscriber to RapidWeaver Classroom and want to view these and 100’s of other video tutorials, sign-up here!

3 New Tutorials on Joe Workman Stacks

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2011-07-15T15:21:46-05:00

This week brings 3 new tutorials on Joe Workman Stacks to RapidWeaver Classroom subscribers. I’ve added tutorials for Comment Stacks, the Scroll Stack and the Tumblr Stack. Each of these stacks offer some pretty awesome functionality for your website.

If you are a photographer or artist, or have a need to feature images on your website, then I encourage you to check out the Scroll Stack. Joe’s Comment Stacks make it easy to add commenting to any page -- not just a blog -- so you can give customers the ability to review or comment on your products, or simply create an informal discussion board on any page of your site. Finally, the Tumblr Stack is a powerful stack that offers a completely new option for blogging in RapidWeaver. Personally, I’m quite tempted to switch this blog over to Tumblr after having played with Joe’s Tumblr Stack! :)

Joe continues to develop awesome stacks for our RapidWeaver toolbox, and I will continue bringing tutorials on his products to RapidWeaver Classroom subscribers. Next week I will be expanding the CartLoom series with tutorials that detail the process of selling physical products with CartLoom. Among other things, these tutorials will address tax and shipping calculations for physical products being sold online. Check this blog next week for more information, or you can subscribe to the blog feed at the top of the blog sidebar to the right.

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CartLoom E-Commerce Series Underway

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2011-06-29T00:27:50-05:00

I’ve published the first 6 video tutorials of the new CartLoom series here at RapidWeaver Classroom. CartLoom is a web-based e-commerce solution that offers a lot of flexibility in selling both physical and digital products through your RapidWeaver website. CartLoom has a ton of features and can integrate with RapidWeaver through either a plugin or a stack.

This series of tutorials will detail how to utilize the CartLoom service and how to integrate its shopping cart with your website in RapidWeaver. These first 6 tutorials provide a good overview of the CartLoom backend and both the plugin and stack, but more tutorials will be added to this series over the next several weeks in an attempt to thoroughly cover different scenarios for how the service might be utilized.

4 More Joe Workman Stacks Tutorials

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2011-06-22T02:50:02-05:00

I've updated the RapidWeaver Classroom curriculum with 4 new tutorials on Joe Workman Stacks. Two of the tutorials are brand new: HTML5 Video and RSS Feed Stacks. The other two, Lightbox and MovingBox, were previously available but I have refreshed them as the versions of those stacks have changed significantly since the original tutorials were created.

The HTML5 Video Stack is a great solution for presenting video on your website while maintaining compatibility with iOS devices. I actually use this stack in the header above to present the “2-minute Overview.” The RSS Feed stack is free and allows you to make RSS feeds available on any page, through the address bar of Safari. The Lightbox and MovingBox stacks have received some great updates, and Lightbox is easier to use than it has ever been before, so I highly recommend you take a look!

I will be working on more of Joe's stacks this week, along with the first tutorials for a new series on CartLoom.

3 New Tutorials Now Available

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2011-06-10T02:57:02-05:00

This week’s update to the RapidWeaver Classroom curriculum includes 3 new tutorials. The first of these, “The Resources Macro” can be found in Lesson 6 of the RapidWeaver 5 curriculum. This is a slightly advanced, but important element of RapidWeaver’s Resources feature, and I would highly encourage everyone to become familiar with it, especially if you are using Stacks add-ons in your project. In the case of certain Stacks add-ons, the Resources macro is used to reference the location of your file in the stack’s HUD, so it is pretty important to understand how the macro is used.

The other two tutorials released this week are the Power Grid and Like It stacks from Joe Workman. Power Grid is a great solution for creating tables on your website, and Like It makes it very easy to add social networking widgets to your pages.

Next week will bring more Joe Workman stacks, so stay tuned!

3 More Joe Workman Tutorials Available

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2011-06-03T01:29:09-05:00

We continue with new Joe Workman Stacks tutorials this week, as the RapidWeaver Classroom curriculum has been updated with tutorials covering the Cycler Stack, Mask Stack and Totem Stack. Cycler and Totem create awesome content sliders, and Mask makes it easy to create rollover/mouseover effects for images, or to hide and reveal content.

More Joe Workman Stacks tutorials will be made available next week, as I continue to produce content covering all of Joe’s available stacks.

4 New Tutorials on Joe Workman Stacks

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2011-05-27T02:46:40-05:00

Now that the redesign of RapidWeaver Classroom is complete, a lot of work is underway to produce and publish new content for the curriculums, and we start this week with 4 new tutorials on Joe Workman Stacks. The stacks covered in this update are Flash Embed, Google Maps, Image Safe and HTML5 Audio. These are some exciting new stacks from Joe Workman, and over the next several weeks you will become acquainted with all of Joe’s offerings, as the RapidWeaver Classroom curriculum gets updated with every Joe Workman stack available!

Welcome to the New RapidWeaver Classroom!

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2011-05-13T00:50:37-05:00

As you’ve probably noticed, RapidWeaver Classroom looks quite a bit different! I am very excited about this new design and how it will benefit visitors to the site as well as subscribers. Everything has been re-built from the ground-up, and was a 3-4 month process from start to finish. A very special thanks goes out to Adam at Elixir Graphics for his help with the theme design, and if you like the design then you should check-out his latest Prism theme!

RapidWeaver Classroom members will notice that the membership areas not only look different, but are completely re-organized as well. The entire listing of tutorials on a single page has been removed, in favor of separate pages dedicated to specific lessons or topics. This format allows for the addition of a written overview for each lesson, as well as links to 3rd-party sites and other resources later down the road. All-in-all, this format offers a lot of flexibility for the addition of features and improvements in the future, whereas the previous layout was busy and limiting. I hope you will find that the new layout is functional, accessible and an improvement over the prior version.

Another improvement to the membership area is the use of a new “lightbox” for displaying the video tutorials. This new javascript box allows you to navigate between tutorials without having to close the window and click on a new link, and it includes a full-screen button as well. This is another great improvement in usability that I am excited about.

Finally, another major improvement that is a bit more behind-the-scenes is the move to Amazon S3 for hosting of the video content. This change brings these great benefits:

720p HD Video: Higher-resolution videos means everything is clearer, especially with full-screen viewing.

iPad Compatibility: Every video tutorial in both curriculums is completely compatible with the iPad.

Faster download speeds: Amazon’s servers are super-fast, and its CloudFront technology replicates the video content to servers across the world, so subscribers in other countries will experience faster downloads.

Awesome reliability: Extremely high uptime percentages means that the chances of unavailable content is extremely low.

Apart from all these exciting changes, this month marks the 3-year birthday of RapidWeaver Classroom! A lot has happened in the past 3 years -- to think that the site began with one curriculum of just 50 videos, and now offers over 300 videos spread across two curriculums! One thing that hasn’t changed though is my commitment to RapidWeaver and to you, and doing all I can to educate and empower you to build great websites. Thanks for all of your support these past 3 years! I am excited about these new changes, and many more great additions that are already in the works!

New ExtraContent Series Now Available

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2011-03-10T16:32:06-06:00

I have published a new series of screencasts on the ExtraContent feature found in some 3rd-party themes. ExtraContent has become more popular in 3rd-party theme development, and the feature offers increased flexibility in how your content is displayed inside the layout of a RapidWeaver theme.

Some tutorials discussing ExtraContent in specific themes have been available here in the RapidWeaver Classroom curriculum, but I felt it was necessary to cover the topic in a more linear way, as is the norm for series of tutorials here at RapidWeaver Classroom. This new ExtraContent series will take you through the different methods of utilizing this feature, and each video tutorial works with a different ExtraContent-enabled theme, so you will be able to see a number of different examples of how ExtraContent is enabled in these 3rd-party themes.

There are currently 4 new tutorials that take you through the ExtraContent feature, and at least one more will be added to the series in the near future.

For more information about ExtraContent, or to see walk-through videos I have created for specific ExtraContent-enabled themes, please visit ExtraContent.info.

2 New Screencasts Now Available

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2011-02-11T01:25:07-06:00

I have updated the RapidWeaver Classroom curriculum with two new tutorials. The first is in response to a common question I receive, that until now was not addressed in the curriculum. This question involves the use of a RapidWeaver website to build an email mailing list, and whether or not RapidWeaver is capable of creating HTML emails to send to a mailing list. This new “HTML Email Newsletters” tutorial addresses these questions, and can be found in Lesson 8 of the Section 101 curriculum. I discuss a couple of different solutions, including the one I use for RapidWeaver Classroom.

The other tutorial discusses how to create a splash page in RapidWeaver, and involves a special theme and a few customizations to make it perfect for this purpose. This “Create a Splash Page” tutorial can be found in the “How to...” lesson under Section 301 of the curriculum.

New Lesson Added to Core Curriculum

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2011-01-21T22:26:40-06:00

I have added an 8th lesson to the core RapidWeaver 5 curriculum. Lesson 8 under Section 101 discusses a variety of subjects that are important for anyone designing a website. This lesson starts with 4 new tutorials: Measuring Space, Resizing Images, Finding Images, and Setting Up Web Hosting. These are all important topics to supplement the prior lessons, and I will be considering more topics to include in this lesson, so please leave a comment here if you have any requests!

Lesson 7 Updated for RapidWeaver 5

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2010-12-16T22:27:44-06:00

Lesson 7 of the RapidWeaver 5 curriculum in Section 101 has been updated with new tutorials using RapidWeaver 5. These tutorials are primarily targeted at advanced users, or those familiar with HTML and CSS code, as they deal with theme modification. These tutorials provide an overview of the structure of a RapidWeaver theme and the specific files that are involved with making modifications. If you are interested in the information provided in these screencasts, but are not familiar with HTML and CSS code, then you might find the Grad School curriculum useful.

The updating of Lesson 7 marks the completion of the original RapidWeaver Classroom curriculum, using RapidWeaver 5. At least one additional lesson will be added to the “core curriculum” in the coming weeks, detailing many additional topics that any website developer should be familiar with. Not every topic will be directly related to RapidWeaver, but knowledge of these topics is important and should be very helpful when building and publishing any website.

Thanks for your continued support! :)

Nearly 50 New Tutorials on RapidWeaver 5.0!

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2010-12-01T06:23:52-06:00

That’s right! RapidWeaver 5.0 is here at last, and RapidWeaver Classroom is ready! I am very excited about the release of RapidWeaver 5.0, and also very excited to announce that nearly 50 new video tutorials have been created to cover the latest version. Section 101 has been almost entirely refreshed with brand new screencasts on RapidWeaver 5.0 The very, very few original tutorials that remain will soon be replaced as well.

So what’s new with RapidWeaver 5.0? As part of the Section 101 curriculum, I have created a special section with the specific videos that cover the major new features to version 5.0 -- Resources, Stats, the Sitemap page, CSS consolidation and some new themes! If you want a quick overview of what’s new, then check out those tutorials first.

If you are still using RapidWeaver 3.6 or 4.0, I have kept those original tutorials available as part of an archived curriculum, so if you add everything together, there are over 200 unique video tutorials available to RapidWeaver Classroom subscribers!

As mentioned above, there are some very select tutorials in Section 101 that have yet to be updated. Those will all be replaced with version 5.0 tutorials very soon. Additionally, I will be creating completely new lessons that discuss other important aspects of developing websites in RapidWeaver, so stay tuned for those in the coming weeks!

New Tutorial on the Styled Stack

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2010-11-24T22:03:08-06:00

I’ve released a new screencast on the Styled Stack from Joe Workman. This is an awesome stack that very well may replace the plain Text Stack that is bundled with the Stacks plugin. The Styled Stack creates a content container for your text that can be styled in a number of ways -- rounded corners, drop shadows and background images are all available to this stack. Joe has done an awesome job of addressing some common requests all in one stack! Check out the tutorial under Section 202 of the curriculum, in the Joe Workman section.

On another note, Happy Thanksgiving to all of our U.S. students! I hope you all enjoy the holiday and are able to spend good time with family. Don’t stay away too long though, as some very exciting things are right around the corner, so stay tuned! :)

New Tutorial on the El Sexy-o Stack

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2010-11-23T22:06:49-06:00

Last week I released a new video tutorial on the El Sexy-o Stack from El Stacko, but I mistakenly forgot to update the blog here with that information. Nevertheless, the El Sexy-o Stack screencast can be found in Section 202, under the section for El Stacko stacks. El Sexy-o is used to create a unique lightbox-effect for image galleries and other types of content on your website. It has some cool features and flexibility that makes it unique, so check out the screencast for more information!

Tutorials on Dispatch Stacks and Link Inspector

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2010-10-29T14:52:30-05:00

Two new video tutorials have been released to RapidWeaver Classroom subscribers. One tutorial covers Joe Workman's Dispatch Stacks -- these stacks provide an upload feature on your website, so that visitors/customers can upload files to you via Dropbox, Amazon S3, MobileMe or your web hosting server. The other screencast covers Link Inspector from CosCulture -- this plugin checks for broken links on your website and is especially useful for larger sites and those with many external links.

The Dispatch Stacks tutorial can be found in Section 202 under the Joe Workman section, and the Link Inspector tutorial is located in Section 201 under "Miscellaneous Plugins."

Check back next week for new stacks add-ons tutorials!

New Tutorials on the Gyro and Tabulous Stacks

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2010-10-22T23:50:34-05:00

Two more Joe Workman Stacks, Gyro and Tabulous, have been added to the section of Stacks Add-ons in the RapidWeaver Classroom curriculum. Both stacks offer outstanding features and eye-candy for your RapidWeaver website.

Look for many more Stacks screencasts to appear in Section 202 of the curriculum over the next several weeks.

New Tutorial on the Valet Plugin Manager

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2010-09-29T16:44:56-05:00

A new video tutorial has been released to subscribers, covering the Valet Plugin Manager. This is a unique add-on that lets you enable and disable the 3rd-party plugins you have installed for RapidWeaver. This is great for troubleshooting purposes and for improving the performance and stability of RapidWeaver, and I consider it an important tool for all RapidWeaver users -- especially those who work on multiple projects.

7 New Tutorials on Stacks Add-Ons

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2010-09-02T01:17:58-05:00

7 new screencasts have been released that cover stacks from ElStacko and CosCulture. These screencasts have been added to a new section of the RapidWeaver Classroom curriculum: Section 202: Stacks Add-Ons. This new section will be exclusive to 3rd-party stacks that are released for the Stacks plugin.

The following 7 screencasts are now available to RapidWeaver Classroom subscribers:

ElStacko: El Book-o Stack
ElStacko: El CallBox-o Stack
ElStacko: Exposer Pro Stack
ElStacko: Sidewinder Stack
CosCulture: DragZone Stack
CosCulture: Image Roundabout Stack
CosCulture: Notifications Stack

RapidWeaver Classroom has also partnered with ElStacko and CosCulture, who have both begun offering exclusive discounts to RapidWeaver Classroom subscribers! Current subscribers will receive more information on these discounts soon.

Grad School is in Session!

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2010-08-11T01:57:12-05:00

I am very excited to announce the launch of RapidWeaver Classroom Grad School, an advanced curriculum that explores modification of RapidWeaver themes using HTML and CSS. Grad School steps you through the basics of HTML and CSS, so that you have a firm foundation as we begin working inside the contents of RapidWeaver themes, customizing them the way we want. This curriculum eliminates the intimidation associated with HTML and CSS, giving you the confidence to tweak your website to look exactly the way you want.

The Grad School curriculum begins with 54 tutorials, covering the subjects mentioned above, as well as a series on setting up and using the aMember membership system. RapidWeaver Classroom uses aMember, and it is a great solution for subscription websites. The aMember series takes you through a real-life membership website under development, using both aMember and RapidWeaver.

This curriculum will be dynamic, with new tutorials released regularly. What does this mean for the RapidWeaver Classroom curriculum? Nothing changes! The RapidWeaver Classroom curriculum will continue to cover the latest RapidWeaver updates, plugin releases and other related topics.

Learn More or Register Now!

2 New Video Tutorials Now Available

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2010-07-16T16:19:40-05:00

Two new screencasts have been released to RapidWeaver Classroom subscribers today. The first covers the symTune Image Slider plugin from SymfoniP, which replicates the look and feel of the image slider in the iTunes Music Store. It’s provides a great way of featuring content on your website, and offers a really slick presentation of images.

The second tutorial release is located under the “How to...” lesson in Section 301, and it walks-through the process of splitting a RapidWeaver website into multiple project files. This is great to understand when building large, or media-intensive websites.

These tutorials are now available to RapidWeaver Classroom subscribers. Not a subscriber? Register now or learn more about RapidWeaver Classroom!

New Tutorial on the Speech Bubbles Stack

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2010-06-18T13:30:54-05:00

A new tutorial covering the Speech Bubbles Stack from Joe Workman is now available to RapidWeaver Classroom subscribers. This is a pretty awesome stack that creates speech bubbles with rounded corners for your content. It’s very easy to use and accomplishes something that was once more complex to achieve -- I know from personal experience, having added speech bubbles to RapidWeaver Classroom, and trust me when I say that it wasn’t nearly this easy! Thanks to Joe for another great stack, and I’m sure most of us can find good use for it in our projects.

New Tutorials on DooBox Stacks

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2010-06-04T19:57:41-05:00

Two new tutorials are now available that cover the Doo-Daily and Doo-Spin stacks from DooBox. Both of these stacks allow you to add dynamic content to your pages, either by having different content load randomly with each visit, or by having content set to appear depending on the day of the week. These new tutorials are available now to RapidWeaver Classroom subscribers.

New Tutorial on the symMedia5 Plugin

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2010-05-28T01:06:03-05:00

A new tutorial is now available covering the symMedia5 plugin from SymfoniP. This is an outstanding plugin that allows you to add both video and audio files to a single page, and have them play in a single player, with a nice scroll bar to navigate through and play the added media. In addition, this plugin supports HTML5 video playback, and if you aren’t familiar with the significance of HTML5 video then you will learn a bit about that as well in this tutorial.

This is the first tutorial on a plugin from SymfoniP here at RapidWeaver Classroom, though there is a FlowBox Stack tutorial available. SymfoniP has been producing some great RapidWeaver plugins for mixed media (photo, audio, and video) -- so they all will be covered in the coming weeks.

Two New ExtraContent Theme Walk-Throughs

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2010-05-21T15:20:12-05:00

In the past week I have produced a couple of walk-throughs for new RapidWeaver themes. Flame, from Elixir Graphics, and Havnit, from seyDesign are both ExtraContent-enabled themes with some phenomenal design and flexibility. These walk-through videos are available in both the members’ area and on the Curriculum page, under the ExtraContent section. I have also re-worked that ExtraContent section to include all the tutorials I’ve produced for ExtraContent themes -- currently there are 3 each for both seyDesign and Elixir Graphics.

In other news, production of tutorials for the symMedia5 plugin from SymfoniP are almost complete, so look for those additions to the members’ area early next week.

4th Tutorial Added to CMS Series

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2010-05-14T13:02:42-05:00

The 4th tutorial in our CMS series is now available online to RapidWeaver Classroom subscribers. This CMS solution involves Pulse CMS, which is the first full-blown Content Management System to be covered. I have chosen to start with Pulse CMS because you host it on your own server alongside your website, which is a great advantage because all of your content exists on one server, opposed to some of it existing on another server that you have no control over.

In advance of viewing this Pulse CMS tutorial, I recommend viewing the “Working With an FTP Application” lesson, which can be found under Section 301 of the tutorials. This lesson will get you comfortable with publishing files to your server via FTP, which is required to install Pulse.

More CMS solutions will be covered in the weeks to come, alongside a variety of custom stacks and even a few new RapidWeaver plugins.

Server Issues Preventing Login

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2010-05-13T03:53:49-05:00

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.

RapidWeaver 5.0 Details Emerge

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2010-05-05T17:09:28-05:00

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!!! :D 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. :)

Support Interruption

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2010-04-26T22:21:05-05:00

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.

New Tutorials on DooBox Stacks Now Available

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2010-04-26T22:14:01-05:00

I have released 3 new tutorials on stacks available from DooBox. Each of the following stacks is covered:

Doo-Corners - Easily add rounded corners to your content in Stacks
Doo-Columns - Create up to 4 columns with increased design flexibility
Doo-Code - Add a feature that allows code (or other text) to be copied with the simple click of a button

These screencasts are now available to RapidWeaver Classroom subscribers. Not a member yet? Join now!

Be on the lookout for future tutorials on more great stacks from DooBox!

New Series on Choosing a RapidWeaver Theme

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2010-04-22T17:18:46-05:00

I am happy to announce the release of a new tutorial series called “Choosing a RapidWeaver Theme.” This series is comprised of 5 screencasts that total about 45 minutes -- discussing how to find themes, along with tips and strategies to use when looking for the best theme for your project. With the release of this series I have re-organized the curriculum listing a bit, placing these tutorials just below the lessons for RapidWeaver, along with the ExtraContent and BlocksBox tutorials, since these are all theme-related screencasts.

Subscribers to RapidWeaver Classroom can now view this new series. Additionally, several more screencasts have already been produced on another topic, so another new release is coming very, very soon!

A Note on Backups

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2010-04-09T16:41:28-05:00

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.

New Series on Content Management Systems

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2010-04-01T17:03:17-05:00

I am happy to announce the launch of a new series of tutorials on Content Management Systems! As mentioned in my previous blog entry, I have been researching different CMS solutions and I have now begun to produce screencasts on the subject. The launch of this series begins with 3 video tutorials, which are now available to RapidWeaver Classroom subscribers. More tutorials will be released in the coming weeks, with the goal of providing the most comprehensive coverage of options available to RapidWeaver users.

Once again, if you have any experience using a CMS with RapidWeaver, please comment here and let me know your thoughts. I have developed a list of solutions (see previous blog entry), but am open to other options and I am interested in personal experience with any of them.

Not a RapidWeaver Classroom subscriber? Register now for access to these, and 170+ other RapidWeaver video tutorials!

In Progress: CMS Solutions

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2010-03-25T16:58:17-05:00

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.

Joe Workman Discount for Subscribers

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2010-03-15T17:45:11-05:00

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!

Say "Hello" to Lime and Gyro

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2010-03-15T17:38:51-05:00

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!

6th Tutorial Added to the CDD Series

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2010-03-08T23:35:40-06:00

I have published the 6th screencast to the Complete Design Demonstration series -- this tutorial demonstrates how the Learn More page was created. The most unique part to this page is the use of a free Table Stack created by Phil Warrender.

There are still a couple of screencasts left to go in this series, and I am working on quite a few new tutorials for custom stacks as well, so check back soon for more!

Students Receive 10% Off from NCD Themes

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2010-03-01T15:03:29-06:00

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!

5th Tutorial Added to the CDD Series

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2010-02-26T17:12:05-06:00

A 5th tutorial has been added to the Complete Design Demonstration series. This video demonstrates the creation of some features of the members' page. Specifically:

Adding 5 columns of images and text to an ExtraContent area
creating anchors
linking text to video that displays in a Lightbox

This tutorial demonstrates the use of snippets for ExtraContent and the Lightbox stacks from Joe Workman. It is a lengthy 18-minute video with a lot of information packed-in! Look for more tutorials in this series to appear next week.

Discussion Forum Now Available for Students

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2010-02-25T16:57:45-06:00

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! :D

A New Series on Designing a Complete Website

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2010-02-19T15:35:08-06:00

I am very excited to begin offering a new series that incorporates much of what is taught here at RapidWeaver Classroom. The Complete Design Demonstration series takes you through the process of designing a website from start to finish, using many of the different 3rd-party plugins and theme features such as ExtraContent. In this first C.D.D. series, you will see how many of the pages here at RapidWeaver Classroom were developed, using 3rd-party plugins such as Stacks, PlusKit, Carousel, Accordion, and EasyTube Gallery.

This series is best viewed after you have made your way through all of the RapidWeaver and 3rd-party plugin tutorials, so that you are familiar with the interface of the different plugins. The purpose of this series is to demonstrate the usage of plugins and other features in a real-world scenario, and to break-down designs that are seemingly complex into something much more simple.

I have published the first 4 videos (45 minutes) of this series to start, and more screencasts will be added in the coming weeks as I demonstrate how to build a majority of the pages found here at RapidWeaver Classroom. You may also notice that I titled the series with a number 1, as my intention is to create multiple series over time that demonstrate the usage of different plugins and strategies.

I hope you enjoy this new series and find it helpful as you explore how different plugins can be used in your own projects. There will be more to come soon!

Blog Commenting with Haloscan is Ending

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2010-02-05T13:49:39-06:00

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.

2 New Joe Workman Stacks Screencasts

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2010-02-05T14:45:26-06:00

2 new tutorials on Joe Workman Stacks have been released today. Tutorials on the MovingBox Stack and Link & Anchor Stacks are now available. Joe has been generous enough to offer the Link & Anchor Stacks for free, so visit his website to download the stacks and view his other incredible offerings.

5 New Tutorials on Troubleshooting

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2010-01-22T17:06:35-06:00

I have published 5 new screencasts on troubleshooting RapidWeaver issues. This is an important series because RapidWeaver, like most software, can have issues that result in lost work and/or great frustration. I may add additional troubleshooting tutorials in the future, so if you have any tips that I’ve left out then please let me know.

Next week will see new custom stacks tutorials from Joe Workman, so stay tuned!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2009-12-24T01:12:58-06:00

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!!!

New Tutorials on Joe Workman Stacks

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2009-12-18T01:30:08-06:00

I am happy to announce the release of 3 new tutorials on Joe Workman Stacks. Joe Workman has been developing for the Stacks plugin for some time now, and a couple of months ago I produced a tutorial on 13 Video Stacks that were developed by Joe. Today’s release adds 3 more stacks to the curriculum, and I have separated Joe’s stacks into their own section, whereas before all custom stacks tutorials were located under the Stacks plugin listing.

The following tutorials are now available:

Lightbox Stack - Easily add a Lightbox effect that displays any type of content.

Translate Stack - Allows visitors to read your website in any language.

Curtain Call Stack - Provide your visitors with a unique presentation of content -- especially great for video or special promotions.

Of course you can expect to see coverage of many more Joe Workman Stacks in the future!

New Tutorial on the FlowBox Stack

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2009-12-11T16:17:39-06:00

A new video tutorial covering the FlowBox Stack has been released to subscribers of RapidWeaver Classroom. This is an outstanding stack that provides a lightbox-type overlay for displaying video, images, and even other webpages. It is quite flexible and so the 18-minute video goes into detail of all the different ways content can be presented inside the FlowBox.

This is the first screencast on a SymfoniP stack, and you can bet that there will be more to come!

FaqMaker Tutorial Now Available

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2009-11-24T00:35:04-06:00

I recently published a new video tutorial on the FaqMaker plugin from Loghound. This plugin has actually been around for quite a while, but I have recently rediscovered it myself and made it a part of my toolset. FaqMaker provides some great flexibility in creating a highly functional -- and even creative -- FAQ for your website. FaqMaker can utilize anchors or even a Lightbox to provide information to your visitors. Most websites need an FAQ of some kind, so FaqMaker is a great solution for this purpose.

This screencast is available to RapidWeaver Classroom subscribers and can be found underneath the section of Loghound plugins. Enjoy!

PayLoom 2 Tutorials Now Available

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2009-11-12T02:11:40-06:00

yabdab software has releaed an upgrade to its popular PayLoom plugin, now available as version 2.0, and RapidWeaver Classroom covers this latest release with 2 new video tutorials. This upgrade brings some major enhancements to the plugin, including an on-page shopping cart and unlimited product options that include price overrides.

With this release, the previous version of PayLoom is no longer available, but those tutorials will remain available for anyone who owns that version of the plugin.

New weaverPix Tutorial Released

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2009-11-12T02:07:46-06:00

I have added another tutorial to the weaverPix plugin section. This tutorial demonstrates how to customize weaverPix to produce a really nice-looking slideshow. You will see how it pays-off to take some time tweaking settings to get things just right. In this example, a slideshow is created that mimics the feature found on the Home page of the iTunes Store. weaverPix has a lot of flexibility and you will see another example of that in this latest screencast.

Why RapidWeaver is Like the iPhone

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2009-11-03T01:08:27-06:00

Later this month will mark the 4-year anniversary of when I joined the RapidWeaver community and adopted the application as my website design tool. This has had me reflecting on my experiences over the past 4 years, and reaffirming my position on RapidWeaver as the best solution for web design. Couple that with the current obsession over my new iPhone, and the idea that results is this: RapidWeaver is like the iPhone.

Background Story

Recently, after coming to the end of my contract with a competing cellular provider, I made the switch to AT&T for the sole purpose of owning an iPhone. I've waited a long time to experience the iPhone -- I can remember the first iPhone release, and going into an Apple store that following weekend to demo a product I wouldn't be able to own for quite a while longer. As much as I wanted an iPhone, I couldn't justify breaking an existing contract and tossing a few hundred dollars to make the switch early, so after a very patient wait the time has finally come.

I've had my iPhone for a couple of weeks now, and it wasn't long after getting it that I started creating comparisons between the iPhone and RapidWeaver. Now granted, RapidWeaver does dominate my thoughts for many hours every day, but the more I thought about it I determined that it wasn't a stretch at all to draw that comparison. So follow with me here for a few minutes and let's explore this idea a bit.

It Starts With Function

There's no doubt that Apple created a brilliant product in the iPhone. It worked the way people wanted a smart phone to work -- it was intuitive and well-designed. Of course the loyal Apple followers would adopt it regardless, but the massive success of the iPhone can be credited to the fact that its just a great product.

RapidWeaver is a great product foremost because it is functional. An intimidating or poorly designed product is going to struggle to be successful, and RapidWeaver succeeds because it makes a very intimidating idea quite simple. Website design is intimidating. As a young, creative, techie person I was still intimidated by the thought of designing websites when I first started exploring the idea. If a piece of software is done well enough to clear that first hurdle, then that's a big deal.

Based on my experience working with RapidWeaver users, RapidWeaver's demographic is Mac users, and that's it. As far as I can tell, there is no specific age or gender that the software appeals to most. That's a statement to how functional and intuitive this software is. One RapidWeaver user is a college kid wanting to create websites as a source of income to get through school, while another user is a recently retired woman who wants to sell homemade creations online as a hobby. RapidWeaver works the way people want a website design application to work.

Its Strength is Its Development Community

At some point in Apple's marketing campaign for the iPhone, the television commercials stopped talking about what the iPhone could do "out of the box," and started talking about what it could do with the available 3rd-party apps. The iPhone can certainly do a lot out of the box -- it is a phone after all, and so it makes phone calls, receives voice mails and does a nice job of organizing your contacts. There are some solid apps that come with the iPhone as well, expanding its usefulness so you can know the temperature outside, jot down some notes, or get directions to your destination.

I certainly appreciated what the iPhone could do out of the box, but it wasn't long before I was browsing the app store and downloading some apps to demo. Of course I ended up purchasing the ones I loved, and I'm always looking for others that will add new functionality, or that maybe even improve on the functionality of an app I already own.

I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this. RapidWeaver's 3rd-party development community is its greatest strength. Some might say that its community of users is the greatest strength, but I would argue that the community wouldn't be as large and devoted if a 3rd-party development community didn't exist first. The themes and plugins available for RapidWeaver take a great app to the next level, by adding features and functionality to extend the usefulness of the application.

The iPhone is a great phone without additional apps, and RapidWeaver is a great web design program out of the box, but both benefit tremendously from the add-ons that are available to them.

More Love for the Developers

I began using RapidWeaver when there was just a very small number of 3rd-party developers on the scene. RapidWeaver was good enough on its own to where I committed to it without understanding what was to come, but when Yourhead released the Blocks plugin and Loghound created PlusKit, it was as if I was using an entirely new product for the first time, and I began to see so much more potential with the improved flexibilty these plugins offered.

Jump forward to today, and the 3rd-party developer community has exploded. I remember when RapidWeaver users wanted an e-commerce solution, and now there are multiple e-commerce plugins, from multiple developers! Of course I have some favorite plugins, including some that I would define as "must-haves" -- but even a past must-have in Blocks has been almost completely replaced in my workflow with Stacks. Major props to YourHead for one-upping itself! As I now do my part with RapidWeaver Classroom, I am regularly having to keep myself updated with the steady influx of new plugin offerings from new developers. Where I could once list the developers and their plugins by memory, I now refer to one of the many great resource websites that stays updated with this information.

Last I heard there were over 80,000 apps available for the iPhone. With a number like that, what can the iPhone not do? The RapidWeaver plugin library doesn't boast a number quite like that, but the potential is there and I feel that I can already ask "what can RapidWeaver not do?" and have it be a legitimate question.

RapidWeaver is Like the iPhone

Convinced? Regardless of your answer to that question, it's tough not to be convinced that RapidWeaver is an incredible web design application, and that with infinite possibilites brought to reality by its development community, a very strong future is certainly to be expected.

-Ryan Smith
RapidWeaver Classroom

New RapidWeaver Classroom DVD Available

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2009-10-27T01:36:13-05:00

You can now own all the available RapidWeaver Classroom tutorials as part of the "RapidWeaver Classroom: The Complete Library" DVD. This DVD is created on-demand, so all of the tutorials available at the time of purchase will be included on the DVD. These are the same high-resolution videos available with a RapidWeaver Classroom membership. The previous DVD offering still remains and is now called "The Essentials" -- and includes just over 100 of the RapidWeaver Classroom tutorials.

The RapidWeaver Classroom DVD is a great option for those who have limited internet access or travel often, or those with ISP bandwidth restrictions. Of course, for those who want access to the latest RapidWeaver Classroom screencasts, then a subscription is the best choice.

New Tutorials on the weaverPix Plugin

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2009-10-22T01:20:31-05:00

I am happy to announce that RapidWeaver Classroom is now covering plugin releases from another fantastic RapidWeaver plugin developer, Greg Barchard. Our first tutorial release covers the weaverPix plugin, which provides a very flexible Flash slideshow feature to your RapidWeaver projects. There are two tutorials on the plugin and you will surely be impressed with the options it provides over the Photo Album plugin's Flash slideshow feature.

Be on the lookout for more screencasts on Greg's projects in the future!

Stay Updated: Join Us on Twitter and Facebook

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2009-10-22T01:10:53-05:00

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!

New Tutorial on Table Stacks

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2009-10-16T15:05:08-05:00

I have released a new tutorial today that covers the excellent Table Stacks from Phil Warrender. There are two table stacks, available for free, and these really provide great flexibility in presenting content on your website. This screencast is available to RapidWeaver Classroom subscribers, and can be found under both the Stacks and "Working with Tables" sections.

RapidCart 2 Video Tutorials Added

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2009-10-02T18:50:14-05:00

I am happy to announce the release of 3 new video tutorials covering the excellent RapidCart 2 plugin. This is an update to the RapidCart plugin that has already received the RapidWeaver Classroom treatment. RapidCart 2 adds a ton of enhancements that really makes it stand-out as an exceptional e-commerce plugin for RapidWeaver. You can enable multiple payment processors, such as PayPal and Google Checkout, and there is a lot of flexibility and customization options for your e-commerce page in RapidCart 2.

These new screencasts are available to subscribing RapidWeaver Classroom students. Enjoy!

New Screencasts on Integrating Video

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2009-09-15T00:26:39-05:00

Two new screencasts have been produced and both involve ways to add video to your RapidWeaver website. The first screencast covers the new EasyTube Gallery plugin, which provides a great way of displaying videos from YouTube. The second screencast covers a bundle of Video Stacks, to be used in conjunction with the Stacks plugin. There are 13 stacks in all that can be used to embed video from YouTube, Viddler, Flickr, Vimeo, QuickTime and Twitter-related video services. These two screencasts are now available to RapidWeaver Classroom subscribers.

While on the subject of add-ons for the Stacks plugin, these add-ons or “custom stacks” have really taken off over the last couple of months. I’m really excited about this as these stacks are providing all kinds of functionality that is very easy to implement. As a result I will be producing more screencasts on what I consider to be the best of these custom stacks, so expect to see more tutorials in this area very soon!

How to... Create Anchors Tutorial

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2009-08-21T17:05:58-05:00

I have released a new tutorial in the “How to...” lesson. The tutorials covers the creation of anchors. An anchor is used to link text or an image to another location on the same webpage. It’s great for an FAQ, or for a long page divided into sections. This tutorial is specific to RapidWeaver 4.0, which allows you to add custom attributes in the Add Link panel. It’s very simple to do and can be very handy!

DVD Now Available Worldwide!

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2009-08-18T15:51:20-05:00

I am happy to announce that the RapidWeaver Classroom DVD is now available for shipping worldwide! The DVD is a great option for those who are traveling often, or for those with inconsistent or slow internet access. For everyone else, I would still recommend the subscription, as it gets you unlimited access to all of the tutorials, for as long as you hold an active subscription.

How to Accept Registration and Payment

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2009-08-07T16:22:10-05:00

Today I’ve added a new free RapidWeaver tutorial on how to accept registration and payment through your website. Using the right combination of plugins, you can provide a process by which a visitor completes a registration form and then is presented with a method for paying. This is a great solution for events that require registration and payment, such as conferences, classes, etc. The tutorial presents several different methods of accomplishing this, from using the basic Contact Form page with a PayPal button, to a FormLoom page that redirects to a PayLoom page. See the video embedded below, or visit the Curriculum page for this and other free tutorials. Enjoy!

New "How to..." Lesson of Tutorials Added

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2009-07-17T17:24:59-05:00

Today marks the release of a new lesson of “How to...” tutorials at RapidWeaver Classroom. These tutorials are found under Section 301 in the RapidWeaver Curriculum, and it’s an area that will be added to very consistently in the future. I love teaching new 3rd-party plugins as they are released, but it’s important to cover different methods of accomplishing needs, and so that’s what I hope to address with the “How to...” lesson. Three new tutorials have been produced to kick-start the lesson, and these cover:

customizing a header
creating a sign-up form
accepting payment or donations through your website

For quite a while I have been accepting feedback from RapidWeaver Classroom students, and as part of the feedback I ask what types of tutorials they would like to see in the future. This is one area where these types of requests may be fulfilled, so I’m excited to hear what all of you are wanting to learn and I will do my best to satisfy as many request as possible!

New TabLoom Tutorials Now Available

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2009-06-12T20:04:22-05:00

It’s been a busy week that has culminated in the release of video tutorials on 3 separate RapidWeaver plugins. Yesterday saw the release of tutorials covering GoogaLoom and RapidCart, and now there are new tutorials available for the TabLoom plugin -- YabDab Software’s latest offering. TabLoom provides a great method for organizing a lot of content on a single page, by breaking the content into separate sections inside of a nice, tabbed interface. A total of 3 videos are available on TabLoom -- combine those with the 3 others released yesterday and that’s a total of 6 new screencasts this week totaling close to an hour of new training!

With the TabLoom and GoogaLoom tutorials now available, RapidWeaver Classroom is up-to-date on all the current offerings from YabDab Software. The goal of covering all major RapidWeaver plugins at RapidWeaver Classroom is getting very close to completion, so check back often for announcements on more new tutorials coming soon!

New Screencasts on E-Commerce Plugins

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2009-06-12T00:26:48-05:00

Several new screencasts have been published on the GoogaLoom and RapidCart plugins. Both plugins provide e-commerce solutions for RapidWeaver. GoogaLoom comes from Yabdab Software, maker of the “Loom” plugins, including PayLoom and FormLoom which are already covered here at RapidWeaver Classroom. GoogaLoom differs from PayLoom in a few ways, the most obvious being that it utilizes the Google Checkout system instead of PayPal. Another unique benefit to GoogaLoom is that it supports digital products for download.

RapidCart is another e-commerce plugin for RapidWeaver, and it is from omnidea. RapidCart utilizes PayPal as well, but it also boasts some really nice eye-candy, in the way of animations and a built-in shopping cart feature that keeps visitors on your page until they go to checkout. It’s a very nice implementation with a unique style, and I’m happy to have it included here as a part of RapidWeaver Classroom.

More screencasts are on their way very soon, as in less than 24 hours, so stay tuned for another announcement!

Get Discounts on RapidWeaver Themes

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2009-06-05T16:58:15-05:00

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

RapidWeaver Classroom DVDs: Now Shipping

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2009-05-28T01:25:33-05:00

It's been several weeks now since the RapidWeaver Classroom DVD has been made available, but I haven't actually given it much mention here. The DVD contains about 90 of the video tutorials, including all of the mandatory lessons on RapidWeaver itself. I consider it to be an especially attractive option for those with inconsistent or unreliable Internet access, or for those who have bandwidth capping imposed by their ISP. Of course it's available to everyone, regardless of whether you have an active subscription to the website.

Thanks to those of you who have already purchased the DVD! I've just added an option for USPS Priority shipping which expedites the delivery to 2-3 days. Please note that the DVD is only available to residents of North America, on account of the expensive cost to ship overseas. Then again, if the additional expense doesn't matter to you then you're welcome to contact me about shipping rates to your part of the world.

New Stacks Tutorials Now Available

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2009-05-28T01:19:08-05:00

Last week I updated the RapidWeaver video training library with all-new Stacks screencasts. Now you may be confused because there were already Stacks screencasts there before, but those were ones created by YourHead, and now that they have received the RapidWeaver Classroom treatment, I have replaced the YourHead versions with my own. So you will now receive the detail and explanation for Stacks that you are used to getting with the other plugin tutorials! Thanks to Isaiah at YourHead for letting me post his video tutorials until I had completed them myself.

Speaking of Stacks, did I mention that it is the greatest plugin I've ever used?! Now that's completely my opinion, but I absolutely LOVE this plugin! As an aside, this new RapidWeaver Classroom design is done almost entirely with Stacks. So what are you waiting for? Go watch the new tutorials on this awesome plugin!

SEO Tutorials are Free for Everyone!

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2009-05-15T14:57:02-05:00

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a topic of such frequent discussion that I felt the new SEO tutorials here at RapidWeaver Classroom should be available for free for everyone to view. The SEO tutorials are now available for viewing in both the subscribers' area and for free on the Curriculum page (scroll to the bottom of the page). Note that the free videos are hosted by Vimeo in HD, but enrolled students should watch them in the subscribers' area to view them in a bit better quality.

Feel free to leave comments here on these videos, and let me know what kinds of questions I did not address. SEO is such a huge topic that it could certainly warrant more video instruction in the future.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Tutorials

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2009-05-14T16:07:48-05:00

I have added a new set of tutorials covering Search Engine Optimization (SEO) with RapidWeaver. There are a total of 7 tutorials covering many different aspects of SEO, and this is an important topic for anyone building a website. It's also a controversial topic, with many conflicting thoughts and opinions on how to best optimize your website for search engines. Part of this is because SEO is a constantly changing science, with search engines becoming smarter and modifying their algorithms in order to produce more accurate and valid results.

I have attempted to cover all of the major, valid SEO strategies and make a point to explain the strategies that are most valuable, in addition to including ones that may or may not have great impact. It's certainly an interesting aspect of website design, but it's also very important and so I encourage everyone to go through these new tutorials and execute some of the strategies yourself!

SiteMap Screencasts Added

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2009-05-07T14:06:23-05:00

New video tutorials covering the SiteMap plugin are now available to RapidWeaver Classroom subscribers. There are 5 tutorials on the subject, and I have gone into great detail to cover all aspects of the plugin. In addition, viewers will learn how to submit the generated sitemap to Google and Yahoo! in order to improve SEO. Sitemaps are important and I recommend all websites have them regardless of the overall size of the site. The SiteMap plugin makes creating a sitemap a breeze, so check out the tutorials to learn more!

Welcome to the New RapidWeaver Classroom

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2009-04-21T02:02:57-05:00

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! :)

RapidBlog Screencasts Added

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2009-03-27T16:25:15-05:00

New screencasts have been added on the excellent RapidBlog plugin from Loghound.com. RapidBlog syncs with Google's Blogger to allow remote blog posting from anywhere. It's a great solution for those who need to blog outside of RapidWeaver. These tutorials are now available to RapidWeaver Classroom subscribers.

New RWmultitool Screencast Added

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2009-03-20T16:17:20-05:00

The RWmultitool section has been updated with a new screencast covering the full version of RWmultitool. This full version provides a lot of features not available in the free, Lite version of the application. This screencast is available to RapidWeaver Classroom subscribers only.

Stay tuned for new tutorials coming next week!

RWmultitool Screencast Added

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2009-03-10T15:06:15-05:00

I have added a new video tutorial covering RWmultitool Lite, the free version of this great tool. RWmultitool allows you to easily modify images in a theme without needing to modify the theme directly, and without needing a graphic design application like Photoshop.

The full version of RWmultitool will be covered in future screencasts, so stay tuned for more!

FormLoom Video Tutorials Now Available

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2009-03-04T16:25:13-06:00

I have added a new series of screencasts on the excellent FormLoom plugin from yabdab software. FormLoom is a more powerful contact form plugin for RapidWeaver, and it includes a lot of great features to offer flexibility that the built-in Contact Form plugin doesn't include. There are currently 3 FormLoom screencasts available and one more will likely be produced in the near future. Current RapidWeaver Classroom subscribers can immediately access these tutorials for viewing!

New Carousel Screencast Added

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2009-02-20T16:08:16-06:00

I have added a new screencast today to the Carousel lesson, covering the creation of a custom Carousel Style. Carousel allows you to create your own style using images for the background and buttons, so if you are comfortable with creating these graphics then you can have a very custom carousel to display on your website.

Stay tuned for more soon on the GoogaLoom and FormLoom plugins.

Carousel Screencasts Added

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2009-02-12T16:15:58-06:00

New screencasts have been added covering the great Carousel plugin from YourHead Software. There are currently 3 tutorials available to RapidWeaver Classroom subscribers, and one or two more are likely to be produced in the near future. Check back often as new video tutorials are added weekly!

100 Screencast Celebration!

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2009-02-06T15:36:12-06:00

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!

Stacks Screencasts Added

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2009-02-06T15:28:09-06:00

I am pleased to announce that 5 new tutorials have been added for the new Stacks plugin from YourHead Software. This is a first for RapidWeaver Classroom as these tutorials are produced by Isaiah himself! He did such a great job that we wanted to make them available to all RapidWeaver Classroom subscribers and visitors -- so these tutorials can be viewed publicly from the Curriculum page or from the members' area.

I am likely to produce our own RapidWeaver Classroom tutorials on Stacks in the future, but for now these tutorials provide a great overview of the plugin, along with some specific uses. Thanks to Isaiah for the screencasts on this great new plugin, and for all of his contributions to the RapidWeaver community!

PlayMore Theme: Another ExtraContent Screencast

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2009-01-15T21:38:13-06:00

Another ExtraContent tutorial has been released, detailing the new PlayMore theme from seyDesign. PlayMore offers three ExtraContent areas that provide all kinds of flexibility for presenting content. Thanks to Adam Merrifield at seyDesign for his outstanding RapidWeaver themes!

Accordion Screencasts Now Available

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2009-01-15T22:33:18-06:00

New video releases continue today with the introduction of the Accordion plugin from YourHead Software. Two Accordion screencasts are now available and one or two more will likely be added to conclude that series. Accordion is a very useful plugin, and we use it right here at RapidWeaver Classroom to present our FAQ. Enjoy!

ExtraContent Screencasts and a Promotion!

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2009-01-14T00:47:19-06:00

A new feature called ExtraContent is appearing in newer 3rd-party RapidWeaver themes, and RapidWeaver Classroom has you covered. A new category of screencasts has been created to show you the benefits of this feature and how you can utilize it for more flexibility in your website designs. The first screencast in this series covers the excellent Gotem theme from seyDesign, and there will be more tutorials made available soon.

Speaking of seyDesign, a new promotion is currently underway for RapidWeaver Classroom members and new subscribers. New subscribers will receive a coupon code for 50% off all seyDesign themes until February 15th, and current subscribers will receive 20% off all seyDesign themes. Current subscribers can find the coupon code in the members’ area of RapidWeaver Classroom. Thanks to Adam Merrifield at seyDesign for partnering with us for this promotion!

More than 100 screencasts!

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2009-01-14T00:43:12-06:00

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!

iWeb to RapidWeaver Screencast Tutorials

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2008-12-12T01:49:45-06:00

I am happy to announce the addition of free tutorials in the iWeb to RapidWeaver section of the website, which has been created recently to help iWeb users transition from iWeb to RapidWeaver. These iWeb to RapidWeaver tutorials will cover some of the basic steps that are recommended in order to rebuild an iWeb website in RapidWeaver. There are currently 3 video tutorials available, with a couple of additional ones to come soon. These free tutorials are hosted using the Viddler service, and the high-quality versions will soon be made available to subscribers in the members’ area of RapidWeaver Classroom.

Tutorial on Shadowbox Now Available

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2008-12-04T23:45:33-06:00

I have released a new tutorial for RapidWeaver Classroom subscribers covering Shadowbox with video. Shadowbox is a javascript box that is similar to the Greybox that has already been covered here, but it provides a bit of a different visual effect and it is increasing in popularity as a method of displaying video. In addition to the video tutorial I have provided the necessary Shadowbox files for download, along with a set of snippets to simplify the setup.

More screencasts are coming soon, including coverage of the new GoogaLoom plugin. Stay tuned!

Classroom Updates

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2008-11-26T17:36:23-06:00

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!

Collage 2 Screencasts Now Available

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2008-10-21T23:40:28-05:00

Three new screencasts covering the Collage 2 plugin have been added to the members’ area of RapidWeaver Classroom. Collage 2 is a fantastic plugin from YourHead Software that is exclusive to RapidWeaver 4.0, while the original Collage plugin is still available for RapidWeaver 3.6 and earlier. Collage 2 has a multitude of uses, so check-out the Collage 2 screencasts to learn more!

New PayLoom Screencast Available

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2008-10-16T23:12:09-05:00

I have published one more screencast for the PayLoom plugin that shows an example of how multiple PayLoom pages can be used in a project to sell multiple categories of items. It also shows a working, online example of PayLoom pages and their interaction with PayPal for shopping cart and checkout functionality.

Look for Collage 2 screencasts to begin appearing next week!

PayLoom Screencasts Now Available

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2008-10-15T01:03:51-05:00

Hot on the heels of our Greybox tutorial comes two new screencasts covering the PayLoom plugin. PayLoom lets you easily create an e-commerce store on your website that integrates with PayPal. You really can’t ask for a simpler way to add products for sale to your website. One more PayLoom screencast will be added soon.

You will also notice the Collage 2 logo has been added under the 3rd-party plugins section. This plugin will be covered next, so keep an eye out for more information!

New Tutorials on Javascript Boxes

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2008-10-14T14:47:34-05:00

A new set of RapidWeaver screencasts are being added to the Continuing Education section, covering the popular javascript boxes: Greybox, Lightbox and Shadowbox. These javascript boxes are very trendy at the moment and add an impressive feature to your website. Whether you want to display images, video or other webpages, these video tutorials will take you through the process. It’s a bit more advanced than prior lessons, so along with the screencasts I will be providing snippets for download along with each tutorial.

The first screencast for this topic is now available, covering how to show a video in a Greybox, and more will be released in the coming days. Also watch for a screencast or two covering the PayLoom plugin.

New Tutorial on FTP

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2008-09-18T16:52:05-05:00

A second screencast has been added on using an FTP application to manage your website assets as an alternative to RapidWeaver’s built-in Assets panel. It is a brief tutorial that will be beneficial to those building websites with many assets, such as audio and video files.

I’ve also updated the Curriculum page and the Members’ area with estimated viewing times for each lesson. You can find those estimates below the title for each separate lesson, and eventually I plan to include the running times for each individual screencast.

Keep an eye out for new plugin tutorials and screencasts covering more 3rd-party themes!

New Tutorials on Using an FTP Application

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2008-09-09T17:08:30-05:00

A while has passed since the last video tutorial update, but today brings a new release with many more to follow soon. The latest release is a part of the “Continuing Education” series, and it covers the topic of using an FTP application to publish your RapidWeaver-created website. I consider using an FTP application to be an important part of the website publishing process, and it helps with managing and troubleshooting a website. At least one more screencast will be added to this topic in the coming days, so check back soon.

In addition to these new tutorials, more 3rd-party plugin tutorials will be appearing in the near future, so keep an eye out for more details!

New Tutorials Available on Working with Tables

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2008-08-06T23:21:44-05:00

New video tutorials on working with tables in RapidWeaver have been produced and are now available to subscribers. There are currently three videos on the topic that cover different methods of building or placing tables into a website designed with RapidWeaver. This is the first of many lessons to come that fall under the category of “Continuing Education” -- these will be tutorials on various topics that RapidWeaver users should find useful.

Production of 3rd-party plugin tutorials will continue, but I will be going back and forth between these various topics and the lessons covering plugins. Stay tuned for more to come!

PlusKit Tutorials Complete

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2008-07-28T21:28:30-05:00

I worked extra hard today and completed the remainder of the PlusKit screencasts. There are a total of 8 video tutorials and they are all available to RapidWeaver Classroom subscribers.

So what’s next? Well, I have some ideas that I’ll be tossing around and I expect that some new tutorials will start appearing late this week or early next week. There’s much more to cover!

Two More PlusKit Tutorials Online

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2008-07-25T17:00:43-05:00

I’ve added two more PlusKit tutorials to the subscribers’ area today. One covers the Backups feature of PlusKit, allowing you to create incremental backups of your project as you save and make changes. The other is a big one, and probably the most popular feature of PlusKit -- importing pages. If you’re not sure that PlusKit is for you, make sure and check out the Importing Pages screencast!

The remainder of the PlusKit screencasts will be made available early next week. Everyone have a great weekend!

First PlusKit Tutorials Available Now

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2008-07-24T23:24:45-05:00

PlusKit screencasts are now in production and the first two have been made available online to RapidWeaver Classroom subscribers. These first video tutorials cover the Lightbox and Fancy Zoom features of PlusKit, which provide a very cool way of displaying full-size images -- perfect for a website photo gallery. These can be added with some advanced coding with javascript, but PlusKit makes it simple to add this effect to any or all of website’s images.

The full curriculum for PlusKit has been added to the website, and the rest of these screencasts will be appearing tomorrow and early next week. Of course I will post another update here as soon as more tutorials are online!

PlusKit Tutorials Coming Soon

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2008-07-23T00:05:07-05:00

RapidWeaver Classroom subscribers can expect the next round of plugin tutorials to be made available soon. The next plugin to be covered is PlusKit from Loghound. PlusKit is a very useful and powerful plugin, and I’ll make sure that you learn how to use it! Watch for these tutorials in the coming days...

Free RapidWeaver Video Tutorials Now Available

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2008-07-15T22:37:34-05:00

I have released some free RapidWeaver video tutorials for visitors to view without a subscription to RapidWeaver Classroom. Now that the video training library has been built-up with over 10 hours of video tutorials, I felt it was time to share some of the resources with the entire RapidWeaver community. These free tutorials can be found linked throughout the Curriculum page, and as more tutorials are produced I will make more of these screencasts available for free.

These free RapidWeaver video tutorials are streamed using the Viddler service and are at a lower resolution than the video tutorials available to RapidWeaver Classroom subscribers, so subscribers will want to login to the site and view the high-resolution versions in the subscribers’ area.

Blocks Plugin Tutorials Complete

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2008-07-15T22:33:51-05:00

All of the Blocks plugin tutorials are now complete and available to RapidWeaver Classroom subscribers. There are a total of nine tutorials detailing all the features of Blocks. It is an outstanding plugin and I encourage all subscribers to go through these to see the potential of what can be achieved with Blocks.

More 3rd-party plugins will be produced soon and an announcement will be made in the coming days on what the next plugin will be. As always, check back often for updated information.

Student Projects

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2008-07-03T15:56:38-05:00

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!

First Blocks Plugin Tutorials Available

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2008-07-01T22:31:59-05:00

RapidWeaver Classroom’s coverage of 3rd-party plugins begins with the Blocks plugin from YourHead Software, and the first video tutorials for Blocks are now available to subscribers. There are three tutorials to get you started, and the remainder will be released by the end of this week. For those of you who have not used the Blocks plugin, you’ll quickly see why it is a favorite amongst the RapidWeaver community!

Back to Normal

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2008-06-30T22:24:25-05:00

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.

Site in Slow-Motion

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2008-06-30T15:17:05-05:00

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!

3rd-Party Plugin Tutorials

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2008-06-25T17:04:23-05:00

Production of video tutorials for 3rd-party RapidWeaver plugins has begun and subscribers now have access to two new tutorials that provide an introduction to 3rd-party plugins in RapidWeaver. The Blocks plugin from YourHead Software will be the first plugin covered, and those tutorials will appear over the course of the next week. A listing of those coming tutorials will be made available soon -- I have currently decided on ten inidividual video tutorials, but that number could potentally increase, so you can be guaranteed there will be a lot of information on this outstanding plugin!

Your Feedback, Please

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2008-06-23T22:16:52-05:00

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!

RapidWeaver 4 Video Tutorials Complete

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2008-06-20T23:03:11-05:00

Lesson 2 for RapidWeaver 4.0 is now complete, consisting of four video tutorials covering the updated features in the new version. This completes the tutorials that are needed to cover Rapidweaver 4.0, the remainder of the tutorials for version 3.6 will also apply to version 4.0.

You may have also noticed that the BlocksBox tutorials I put together for Jonas Themes are now included in the subscribers’ area. Those of you interested in designing your own theme might want to consider the BlocksBox theme in combination with the excellent Blocks plugin from YourHead Software.

Speaking of the Blocks plugin, I will begin producing video tutorials for the available 3rd-party plugins, and Blocks is first on the list. Stay tuned for more info on this soon!

Lesson 1 for RapidWeaver 4 Complete

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2008-06-16T20:18:34-05:00

Lesson 1 for RapidWeaver 4 is now available to RapidWeaver Classroom subscribers. This lesson covers all the basics of the software and covers the updated interface. There will be a few more videos in the coming days covering the new features with this version, and then it’s on to 3rd-party plugins!

Some RapidWeaver 4 Videos Available

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2008-06-13T15:51:10-05:00

Production of the RapidWeaver 4.0 video tutorials is underway and I’ve posted several of the Lesson 1 videos to the subscribers’ area already. The remaining tutorials for version 4.0 will be made available early next week.

Following the release of the RapidWeaver 4.0 tutorials, I will begin the extensive task of covering the 3rd-party plugins. So there is much, much, much more to come!

RapidWeaver 4.0 Curriculum

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2008-06-10T12:55:19-05:00

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.

Lesson 7 Complete - on to RapidWeaver 4

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2008-06-03T23:31:09-05:00

Lesson 7 is now complete and available to RapidWeaver Classroom subscribers. These five tutorials will provide you with the knowledge that is necessary to understand how theme modifications can be made to further customize your website. The completion of Lesson 7 should bring you to a point where you understand the functions and structure of RapidWeaver, its plugins and themes, in order to successfully create a complete website with RapidWeaver. The learning doesn’t end there, though! I plan to cover all 3rd-party plugins, which further extend the capabilities of RapidWeaver and offer some very useful, unique and impressive functions for your website.

So what’s next? Well, you may have heard about a little something called RapidWeaver 4.0. RapidWeaver Classroom will bring version 4.0 users up-to-speed with what’s new in the latest version of our favorite application. Not every part of the application has been changed, though, so many of the current 3.6 tutorials will be still be completely relevant for version 4.0 users. Instead of re-doing all seven lessons with RapidWeaver 4.0, I will be covering all the changes that have been made to the application, and then move on to tutorials for the 3rd-party plugins.

Some Lesson 7 Videos Available

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2008-06-02T23:24:24-05:00

The first three tutorials in Lesson 7 have been published and are available to subscribers. Lesson 7 covers the modification of themes in RapidWeaver, and delves into much more advanced areas such as CSS and HTML modification.

There are entire books and websites dedicated to CSS and HTML, so while I can’t cover it all my hope is to get you familiar with the file structure of the RapidWeaver themes and give you a peek inside the stylesheets and HTML documents to start understanding how things work.

I encourage any of you who are making custom modifications to give it a good shot -- trial and error is a great way to learn. If you aren’t having success then the RapidWeaver Support Forums is a great resource with many helpful people. Of course, my one-on-one RapidWeaver Consulting and Training is also available to anyone who would like personal assistance.

The remainder of Lesson 7 will be available soon!

RapidWeaver 4 is here!

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2008-05-29T14:26:54-05:00

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!

Lesson 6 Complete

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2008-05-28T17:58:53-05:00

Lesson 6 is now complete and available to subscribers, covering some advanced features offered in RapidWeaver. This concludes what are considered the "core lessons" -- but many more tutorials will be coming soon, including RapidWeaver 4 video tutorials. Lesson 7 will also be coming in the near future, and then the focus will begin on 3rd-party plugins, so there is much, much, much, much more to come!

RapidWeaver 4 is Coming

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2008-05-28T12:46:10-05:00

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!

Lesson 5 Complete

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2008-05-26T23:55:25-05:00

Hope all of our U.S. subscribers had a great Memorial Day! I spent most of mine playing catch-up after being away last week. I've produced all the video tutorials for Lesson 5 and they are now available online to subscribers. This lesson takes you through the process of building a website from start to finish and basically summarizes all the previous lessons to this point, as well as incorporating a lot of new information as well. Lesson 6 will be coming along in the next couple of days as well, so things are back in full swing around here!

Spring Break

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2008-05-19T19:10:24-05:00

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!

BlocksBox Tutorials

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2008-05-19T19:05:57-05:00

I've put together a couple of video tutorials for the amazing BlocksBox theme from Jonas Themes, and a few more will be available soon. These videos can currently be viewed here, and in the future I will add them in the high-resolution version to subscribers of RapidWeaver Classroom.

Lesson 4 Complete

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2008-05-14T15:47:54-05:00

Lesson 4 is now complete and available to subscribers. This lesson consists of 6 videos which cover the more advanced functions of editing content through RapidWeaver's Format menu.

Lesson 5 is next and things will start to get really fun! I'll be going from start to finish with a website, from preparation to publishing and covering most all the necessary areas of RapidWeaver with a real project.

Say Hello to Hi-Res

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2008-05-12T19:52:04-05:00

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!

Some Changes in the Classroom

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2008-05-12T12:53:06-05:00

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!

Lesson 3 Complete

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2008-05-09T00:43:44-05:00

Recommended Supplies

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2008-05-07T23:09:26-05:00

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.

Lesson 2 Complete

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2008-05-06T17:45:03-05:00

Lesson 2 is now complete in its entirety and available for viewing in the members' section. The Blog and Photo Album pages are very feature-rich, so the length of those videos is a bit longer than normal as I wanted to cover all the important aspects of these pages.

Lesson 3 will be coming soon and that will cover some really important information on styling the theme itself to give your website a more customized look and feel. Keep track with the progress here and more info on Lesson 3 will be made available in the coming days!

Answering Questions

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2008-05-06T00:13:14-05:00

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. :)

Some Lesson 2 Videos Available

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2008-05-05T18:41:35-05:00

Videos for Lesson 2, RapidWeaver Page Types, are becoming available in the members section of the site. Roughly half of this lesson will be available by the end of the day, with the rest going online tomorrow -- then on to Lesson 3!

Welcome to all of you who have already registered for the video tutorials. The special 60-day offer will last a little while longer, but don't hold-out too long if you haven't yet registered!

Welcome to RapidWeaver Classroom

support@rapidweaverclassroom.com — 2008-05-01T17:30:45-05:00

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!