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Just Click Your Mac To Build The Best Web Sites.

RapidweaverYou gotta love point and click. But point and click web sites? Apple made it easy with iWeb.

Rapidweaver makes it easier to build more capable web sites with more options, and standards compliant, too.

I’m convinced that there is no better tool for the web site builder who doesn’t want to learn HTML, CSS, and prefers to rely on point and click, yet demands a quality, attractive, professional web site.

iLife’s iWeb is a good tool to create simple, colorful web sites. Real web sites require more, demand more features, and conform to web standards for XHTML and CSS. Rapidweaver does, iWeb doesn’t.

To be fair, iWeb’s price tag is hard to beat. So is the drag and drop method for creating attractive web sites. Apple’s templates, while colorful and attractive, are not exactly standards compliant.

On the other hand, RealMacSoftware’s Rapidweaver is a mature tool for building web sites-- so easy that beginners can get the hang of it, so precise that even professionals use it to create sites for business.

On the surface, there are similarities between iWeb and Rapidweaver. Both are mostly point and click, drag and drop. Both use templates-- pre-designed themes of style and layout-- to produce excellent results.

The similarities just ended. Rapidweaver goes much further into web site construction with the ability to add flexible Javascript menu and navigation bars to multiple levels.

Daily blogs are a snap in Rapidweaver, including the all important RSS feed, done and upated automatically with each entry.

The photo gallery has the ability to produce Flash slideshows directly from your iPhoto albums.

Columns can be moved left and right, headers can be changed with a single click, and other content can be added within seconds. All point and click. No coding needed-- unless you want it.

Rapidweaver comes with over 30 well-designed themes to get started. Some are elegant, others professional, a few gaudy, still others are simple attractive.

Even better, Rapidweaver has a large community of theme designers who provide additional themes in varying styles, colors, layouts. Other Mac developers have plugins which add columns, produce accordion text, or create drop-in blocks to add content anywhere on a page.

Rapidweaver also allows simple point and click publishing. Upload your finished site to .Mac, or FTP or SFTP to a web host, or simply save to your Mac, burn to a CD, and hand deliver your web site presentation, complete with photos and movies.

It’s tough to compete against free, and that’s what you get with iLife’s iWeb. Beyond free is a Rapidweaver world of more themes and templates and tools which create web sites faster and fully compliant to XHTML and CSS standards.

Most Rapidweaver themes validate as XHTML strict, which means the site will look great now, and look just as good for years to come.

Even if you don’t have iWeb, you can try Rapidweaver with the free download and 30 day trial. The newbie and casual web site builder will find ease of use to be excellent. The professional designer will love the ability to tweak Rapidweaver’s many themes to create a truly customized work of art.

It’s good, but what’s missing? Samples, examples, and more themes. Point and click is about exploring, so give yourself enough time to explore the feature set and produce your own web site.

Do you create sites? What’s your tool of choice? Share your experience with other readers in the Comments section below.

Check out the daily list of our 9 Word mini-Reviews at NoodleMac, and Kate's daily in-depth Mac software reviews at PixoBebo.

   • Article by Jeffrey Mincey • Published on Friday, February 16, 2007
   • Category: Tips & Tricks • 25 Reader comment(s) • Email This • Digg This • Shop Now
  Page 1 of 1 Page(s) for this article.

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Readers Talk Back:
iggy pence says:

Yes, there is a way to change the order but usually requires a little digging into the theme’s code. I use Rapidweaver Theme Miner:

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/23520/rwthememiner

   — Posted on Fri Feb 15 at 2:15 am by iggy pence

affordable web hosting says:

I have a similar problem with the sidebars - they don’t seem to allow freedom of controlling what order things appear in. E.g. I’d like my google ads to follow my article categories in the sidebar but instead the ads always appear first. Is there any way to change this around?

   — Posted on Thu Feb 14 at 11:35 pm by affordable web hosting

michael says:

As much as I like RapidWeaver, I wouldn’t recommend it for serious blogging. Most pro bloggers use dedicated, server based software like Wordpress or Movable Type that handle large numbers of posts more easily than does Rapid Weaver. Both have numerous plugins that let you deeply customize your blog. The blogging feature of RapidWeaver is excellent for very casual blogging or for use as a news page for a more typical site. It’s not something I’d use to make money blogging.

If you have a web server with cPanel Fantastico hosting, then Wordpress is very simple to install. It’s just a few clicks. There are hundreds, probably thousands of themes available, some of which are beautiful and fairly straightforward to install. And Wordpress is free, open source software with a huge community of users ready to help.

   — Posted on Sat Oct 13 at 12:59 pm by michael

Stephen says:

I have a similar problem with the sidebars - they don’t seem to allow freedom of controlling what order things appear in. E.g. I’d like my google ads to follow my article categories in the sidebar but instead the ads always appear first. Is there any way to change this around?

   — Posted on Sat Oct 13 at 8:22 am by Stephen

iggy pence says:

RapidWeaver is a great tool. There are many web site hosts of quality. The two I recommend are:

Site 5 and

EngineHosting.

Not the cheapest, but loaded with features and decent customer support.

   — Posted on Sat Sep 01 at 1:59 pm by iggy pence

Cathy says:

I am getting ready to create a website using RapidWeaver.  I will need a FTP server.  I have a Mac 10.4.6.  I will also need a new web hosting company.  Which do you suggest?
I am in a large hurry so please let me know ASAP.
Thanks
Cat

   — Posted on Sat Sep 01 at 1:13 pm by Cathy

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