Rapid Weaver 8
A favorite app gets an upgrade
$89 ($69 upgrade) From Realmac Software, realmacsoftware.com Needs macOS 10.12 or later
RapidWeaver enables you to create a professional–looking website even if you’re an absolute beginner. And while it’s as user–friendly as any Apple app, there’s plenty here to delight power users too. With version 8 it introduces some important new features that makes it better than ever.
First off, the redesigned interface is more streamlined and modern–looking, but the core design hasn’t really changed. If you’re a seasoned RapidWeaver user you won’t find it strange or startling — but you’ll love the fact that the app now saves your window setup so it’s ready to go when you next open it up.
As before, RapidWeaver is built around templates. There are five new ones here including the pretty Artful and the crisp Future, and once you’ve chosen the theme you can add new pages with a click in the sidebar. You can switch between viewing and editing modes, and in the latter you can replace the boilerplate text with your own, as well as add items such as metadata for search engines. Version 8 also lets you automatically add titles and descriptions for improved social media sharing.
RapidWeaver can be as simple or as complex as you like. If you just want to edit the template text and publish, you can do that: there’s an integrated FTP uploader so you don’t need an extra app. If you want to add your own CSS or HTML code, or take advantage of the massive library of RapidWeaver plugins that add extra features, you can do that too. The new Addons manager makes it easy to toggle add–ons and back them up, and the new Resources Manager provides a simple way to manage such assets as images and files.
One of our favorite new features is the Simulate button, which enables you to see just how your site will look on anything from an iPhone SE to a 5K iMac — and not just in portrait mode, but in landscape too. That’s important if you’re designing for mobile devices and smartphones in addition to desktop. It’s live, too, so edits are shown in the Simulate window in real time.
RapidWeaver has long been our go–to app for building websites on Macs, and with version 8 it’s better than ever. Whether it’s a blog or a business site, web development doesn’t get much easier than this.
the bottom line. RapidWeaver is powerful, user– friendly, and the easiest way to build sites for Mac. Carrie Marshall