Realmac Software has just released version 4.2.2 of TUAW favorite RapidWeaver. Although it may appear to be a minor point release, there are actually quite a few bug fixes and backend additions in this update.

Highlights from the release notes:

• Completely re-written contact form with support for multiple attachments, better security and spam protection and better support for Windows servers.
• JS-Kit commenting for blogs. If you were using the previously built-in Haloscan comments, everything works just fine, whether you migrate your account to JS-Kit or not.
• Improved Safari 4 support
• Better RSS handling

As a user who was using the 4.2.2 betas just for Safari 4 support, this update means the end of lots of headaches. Use the auto-update function within RapidWeaver or head to Realmac's site to download the latest version.

RapidWeaver 4 requires Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard and is $79 US.

If we've said it once, we've said it 1000 times: TUAW loves RapidWeaver. One of RapidWeaver's strengths is that it has an easy-to-use interface, but you can do some really, really powerful stuff with the program. Plus, the third-party network of plugins and themes is really, really top notch.

YourHead Software, which makes some of my favorite RapidWeaver add-ons, has just released a new plugin called Stacks, which ups the ante on what you can do with RapidWeaver, without even having to mess with any code.

Think of Stacks as a souped-up version of one of YourHead's other plugins, Blocks. Mat reviewed Blocks a couple of years ago and it remains one of the best RapidWeaver plugins around. Stacks takes the WYSIWYG drag-and-drop layout approach of Blocks, but adds support for fluid layouts (even if your theme has a variable width), nested objects, stacks within stacks, and more.

I've been using the Stacks beta for the last couple of weeks and I have to say that it has opened my eyes to some possibilities with RapidWeaver that I hadn't even considered before. Traditionally, creating a different layout for each page is time consuming unless you rely on snippets or go with basic designs. Because I like to use RapidWeaver to rapidly prototype sites, being able to build out various layouts extremely quickly saves me time.

As a demonstration, I created this page in about five minutes using Stacks, some graphics and Elixir's Twitter plugin for Stacks. That's another feature I like about Stacks -- there's an API -- so not only can advantageous users look at building their own elements for use in Stacks, RapidWeaver plugin and theme developers can look at using it too. Stacks can also use Loghound's excellent PlusKit so that you can embed Google Docs, other page types or elements and do lightboxing with your photos, all within Stacks.

Stacks is $19.95 and it requires RapidWeaver 4.2.1 or newer to work. You can try the demo (direct link to DMG) for free and access all the features; you're just limited to a certain number of items on each page.

Realmac Software has updated their easy Web site creation tool RapidWeaver to version 4.2 (not 2.2! Sorry). The new version is primarily a bug fix, but also adds a couple of new features.

The bugs that were squashed include:

• An issue when undoing set/remove links
• Blog plugin confused image file names in body and summary fields
• Growl notifications no longer occur when RapidWeaver is in the foreground
• The application no longer hangs on quit
• No more "System Exception 11" when duplicating themes
• Now able to add 3GP and M4V files to Movie Albums

The new features include the ability to hold down either the Command or Option key while starting RapidWeaver to disable all third-party add-ons until the app is restarted, and the ability to add and remove links from the sidebar is available again.

This is a free update for existing RapidWeaver owners.

RapidWeaver is our "favourite" WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) web design tool that gives you more flexibility than what iWeb. Realmac Software, the developer of RapidWeaver, has updated the software to version 4.1, and included some new features that are worth a look, including:

• QuickLook support is now standard
  
• .Mac references have been changed to show "MobileMe"
• Images pasted into a Styled Text area keep their names as specified in Finder
• Page inspector updates when/if a page changes
• PPC support for iMedia Browser
  

Owners of RapidWeaver 4.0 and 3.6 are eligible for a free update to version 4.1. You can see all of the updates on the RapidWeaver Version History page. RapidWeaver 4 is available from the Realmac website for $79 (US). There is a free demo available as well.

[via Ars Technica]

Did you just upgrade to the latest version of Realmac Software's RapidWeaver? Then you might notice RWThemeMiner, which lets you edit your RW themes, is no longer working. Fret not because RWThemeMiner was just updated to version 2.0.5 which works with RapidWeaver 4.

RWThemeMiner is available for $15 (US) and you can download a free 20 day trial version from the developer's website.

Realmac Software has recently released the fourth major version of their RapidWeaver website creation software. RapidWeaver definitely gives a whole new meaning to "drag and drop," as you can create whole websites by dragging and dropping files onto RapidWeaver. As soon as the Realmac website was updated I downloaded the software so I could get a hands on review of version 4. We took a look at three different categories: features, user interface and usability.



More after the break.

Realmac has released RapidWeaver 4, the latest version of their popular template-based web site design software. As former TUAWer Nik mentioned on our last talkcast, the new version represents a substantial upgrade.

In addition to an overhauled interface the release incorporates Leopard-only features like Core Animation and Quick Look for its new XML file format. There are also iPhone specific features like the creation of the WebClip icons for the iPhone's home screen.

RapidWeaver 4 is regularly $79, but is available for a limited time at $59. For registered users of version 3.6 the upgrade is free; it is $30 to upgrade from 3.5 and earlier.

I've mentioned before that I'm a fan of the web development application RapidWeaver, but I don't consider it complete until supplemented by a variety of excellent plugins from YourHead software. We've covered their excellent WYSIWYG plugin Blocks before and now they have a couple of new plugins that add some neat features. First up is PayLoom (jointly developed with YabDab) which makes it easy to set up a webstore on the internet using PayPal's Shopping Cart service. Second is a new beta plugin called Kwix that makes it easy to create fluid animated menus on RapidWeaver pages, and best of all it's compatible with the newest Blocks beta as well. With the MacUpdate Bundle we've been posting about being extended, now is a great time to get into RapidWeaver development.

PayLoom is $19.95 and a demo is available. Kwix is still in beta but is available for download from YourHead.

Not quite done with that holiday shopping? A little birdie tipped us to the upcoming "Give Good Food to your Mac" promotion, officially opening tomorrow -- if you're already a customer of one of the participants, you might get a preview link in the mail today. A ragtag band of European developers has put together this bundle discount: buy any 3 applications from the list, get 30% off your total, and scaling up from there (5 apps = 40%, 7 apps = 50%, 10 apps = 70% discount). Could add up to substantial savings, especially if you're paying in weak greenbacks like us Yanks must.

The list of available programs (full rundown in the bottom of the post) includes such heavy hitters as web authoring app RapidWeaver, bitmap diva Pixelmator and project management tool Merlin, among lighter fare such as iStopMotion, CoverScout and Expert Wine Cellar. While you're waiting for the annual MacSanta discounts to fire up, go ahead and check out GGFTYM.

RapidWeaver by Realmac Sofware is a WYSIWYG web editor that we like. If you're unfamiliar, it's a super-simple editor that features iLife and .Mac integration, flash photo galleries, an SDK and so on. Version 3.6.4 offers Leopard compatibility.

Realmac also announced today that Rapidweaver 4.0 is under development. It will be exclusive to Mac OS 10.5 and a free upgrade for registered users. Cool! In fact, you can get a sneak peek of of RapidWeaver 4.0 at London's MacLive Expo at the end of this week.

A quiet morning at TUAW Headquarters (located in scenic Wellsboro, PA, home of the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon); we're all pooped from yesterday's Talk Like a Pirate festivities. Time for a quick update on one of our favorite web authoring apps, RapidWeaver: version 3.6.3 is out, featuring

• Greatly improved memory usage when exporting websites
• Fixed issues with bold/color attributes and the main view displaying incorrectly
• Option-Double Clicking on photos now opens the files in a Photo Album

Plus more (including all the changes from the 3.6.3 public beta). You can now share your love for RapidWeaver at the new iloverapidweaver.com site, a mini-testimonial page for rabid enthusiastic RW fans. 3.6.3 is a free upgrade from 3.6, $25 from prior versions.

The new .Mac Web Galleries are great, but they unfortunately can only be built by iPhoto '08 and integrated into iWeb pages. Thanks to this RapidWeaver forum post from Günter, however, RW users have a trick for embedding those slick scrolling .Mac Web Gallery thumbnails into their pages. The trick more or less involves creating at least one or more .Mac Web Galleries, opening iWeb and using its new widgets feature to embed one of your galleries in an iWeb page, publishing to a folder and copying the specific piece of .Mac Web Gallery code out of that iWeb page and into a RapidWeaver Blocks page.

It isn't exactly pretty, but I think I know of a way to simplify this process, at least for some of you. The way I figure it, if you're already publishing an iWeb page to your .Mac account with your galleries embedded in them, you can just open your iDisk and drill down to Web/Sites, find the page you published with that gallery code and simply grab it from there. No publishing to a folder and creating more junk to manage and delete, since you're already publishing those pages and code somewhere.

As far as looking at the code on those pages, you can of course simply open them in a browser and use the View Source command, or you can find a text editor like TUAW favorite TextMate or even the free Taco HTML. For more questions on this you can try in the comments here since I know a good number of TUAW readers are also RapidWeaver lovers, but the original RapidWeaver support thread where I found this tip might be a better place if you want to get more thorough answers faster.

It would seem that today is retro theme day on TUAW, at least for me that is. Jordan saw my last post about the System 6 theme for Wordpress and he let me know about his retro themes for RapidWeaver. You can pick from System 7, System 8 (my first Mac ran 8.6, ahh the memories), or even Be (which isn't an Apple OS, but it was created by an Apple guy, so it counts).

Each theme costs $4, though there is a System Bundle that'll get your both System 8 and 7 themes for $7.50.

Realmac Software today released v3.6.2 of RapidWeaver, their popular WYSIWYG tool for creating websites, podcasts, blogs and more. Among the new features of this version are:

• Aperture Support in the iMedia Browser
• Dynamic PHP Sidebar option for the blog plugin
• Sidebar is now a fully features styled text area
• The link panel now supports linking to tags and categories from Blogs

Also included in their blog post announcing this update is a PDF manual for the new version and an all-new Help Desk area with links to tutorial videos, manuals, FAQs and more.

A demo of RapidWeaver is available, while full licenses costs $49.00 and upgrades from versions previous to 3.6.x are $25.