Web Makeover, Part 2

In the original Web Makeover article, I spoke about using Aperture 3 to produce "web journals" then incorporating them into my RapidWeaver site.
That worked, but any updates are a long-winded process.
So I investigated Rapid Album, a plug-in for RapidWeaver specifically for producing my photographic galleries. And it does the job.
But that doesn't mean I have stopped looking - and I am considering hand-coding my own solution, which is something I do at work a lot, but I really don't want to have to do it for this site - I could use the time for something much more productive :-)

I have checked out a new "plug-in" from the SymfoniP people - Gallery Box - which produces a Gallery a lot like many "off-the-shelf" websites that I have seen. They have the pictures in box with a "carousel" of thumbnails along the bottom. There are lots of options and it seems to work well. I might use it at sometime in the future.

But for now the quest continues for my version of the "perfect gallery" - I know it's out there, somewhere.

Software "Updates"

Yesterday was all about Realmac Softwares RapidWeaver.

I have used RapidWeaver since version 3.5 and I have followed along the sometimes bumpy ride of updates, right up until version 4+

Version 5.0 was released on December 1, and apart from the usual bug fixes and a “resource” feature (single folder storage of all your websites assets, replacing per page assets), there was not a lot that I could see to recommend it as it was a paid upgrade.

Then along comes the Mac App Store, and RapidWeaver 5.0 is now priced at £23.99. At that price, an upgrade was definitely in my near future.

So, do I upgrade using the untried and untested Mac App Store route, or I do bite the bullet an pay a few extra pounds and stick to the more traditional method?

To test out the Mac App Store I bought a copy of GarageBand 11 to see what would happen to my installed GarageBand 09. I suspected that, as the user has no control over the installation destination, then it would overwrite my existing install - and that is exactly what happened.

So for RapidWeaver, I chose the traditional route. I saw the price at £26.62 and thought, “OK, that’s a few pounds dearer than the App Store” - but of course Realmac had chosen not to display the VAT along with the price, which was a nice surprise when I got to the checkout.

End result was I got RapidWeaver 5.0 from Realmac at £31.94.

Oh, and by the way, after downloading the software I found some obvious bugs that shouldn’t have made it out into the world, and found that I had been pointed to the initial 5.0 release, not one containing the bug fixes Realmac brought out a few days later (V 5.01, then V 5.02). An update from within RapidWeaver brought me up to the latest version.

So, was it all worth it? Like most things, it depends. I regularly maintain 6 web-sites, and occasionally work on about a dozen more with RapidWeaver so I can’t afford to have it not work properly. Thankfully, I can run both V 5+ and V 4+ on the same machine without too many problems - you just need to be rigorous in keeping the project files separated! (And having both installed was another reason why I should have gone the Mac App route!) Also, you must upgrade to the latest versions of all your plug-ins (preferably before you install V 5).

If you maintain many websites with RapidWeaver on a professional basis then be cautious - there are still issues lurking about with the V 5 “upgrade” that could cause your re-publishing time to be very much longer than you are used to, and also colour picker problems - but Realmac say that they are working on these problems.

Incidentally, there were separate issues with the App Store version as well, which means that the App Store version is now on V 5.03, while my version number is V 5.02. Hopefully this will all come together in the near future.

If you upgraded to Mac OS X 10.6.6 and have the Mac App Store then go that route. If you are still on 10.5.8 then you have to go the Realmac website route.
Assuming, of course that you want to upgrade given the issues.

For your reference:
http://www.realmacsoftware.com/forums/index.php/forums/viewthread/42058/
http://www.realmacsoftware.com/forums/index.php/forums/viewthread/41461/

I have downgraded to the latest V 4 release, and that’s where I will stay for my production sites. I will still experiment with V 5, but I will not use it for anything important until the bugs are ironed out.

Bottom Line: RapidWeaver V5+ wasted a lot of my time - and while it cost me money too, the time lost is something I can never recover.
Not happy.