The Bottom Line
Pros
- Very easy to use
- It's possible to create a complete site in 15 minutes
- Includes a blog without blogging software
- Automated navigation
- Lots of nice templates
Cons
- Difficult to create custom themes (especially for newcomers)
- WYSIWYG is not really - you must preview to see edits in your design
- Text editor is challenging to get into
Description
- Includes FTP and a site manager to easily maintain your websites.
- Image editor makes it easy to add images and then adjust them how you like them.
- Includes a blog editor to maintain a weblog as well as multimedia tools.
- Edit international pages with special characters without any problem.
- Includes code snippets for reusing sections of your pages and code.
- Lots of free templates.
- Easily build a photo gallery from all your photos or a group of photos.
- Include PHP or other hand written code in your documents.
- Many ways to extend the tool both within your site and with add-ons.
Guide Review - RapidWeaver 4
When I first opened RapidWeaver, I was expecting your standard WYSIWYG editor - in other words, a tool that did all the work for you without giving you a lot of control over anything but the most basic parts of the site. And yes, RapidWeaver is a tool that can act in exactly this fashion. This is perfect for people who don't want to learn HTML or Web design, but most professionals don't want an editor to be inflexible. That's where RapidWeaver suprises.
There are a lot of features that make RapidWeaver more appealing to professional Web designers. You can edit HTML directly, rather than relying on the WYSIWYG tools, and you can use RapidWeaver to include the same information, such as a Google analytics code, on every page of your site. RapidWeaver even allows you to use non-HTML code such as PHP or ASP in your sites.
I don't like that it doesn't validate HTML that you hand code and I couldn't figure out how to add an external link in one of the WYSIWYG pages, but there are probably extensions or add-ons in the user community to do that.
RapidWeaver is the perfect first editor for nearly anyone who wants to build a website. It's easy to start out (I had built a 5-page site in 15 minutes). But as you want to learn more, RapidWeaver grows with you.
