RapidWeaver Tips and Tutorials
RapidWeaver online manual
www.realmacsoftware.com/rapidweaver/manual/
ScreenCastsOnline - Video Tutorials (Including RapidWeaver)
http://screencastsonline.com/sco/
Useful Plugins for RapidWeaver include Columns, Blocks and Collage.
There are tutorial videos covering the use of Blocks and Columns here:
www.yourhead.com/podcast/index.html
Rapidweaver Resources
There are a growing number of plug-ins, themes and supporting packages to ease the task of web design with RapidWeaver.
Check out the official list here:
www.realmacsoftware.com/rapidweaver/resources.php
Essential Supporting Software and Plugins
The resources you really shouldn't be without are:
Columns allows you to create 2 columns on your page.
www.yourhead.com/columns/index.html
Collage lets you easily create graphical links to other pages.
www.yourhead.com/collage/collage.html
SimpleViewer - Photo Gallery
www.airtightinteractive.com/simpleviewer/
Text Wrangler from Bare Bones Software - Text editor for web scripting
www.barebones.com/products/textwrangler/index.shtml
CSS Edit - allows you to edit the CSS for your website. £17.
www.macrabbit.com/cssedit/
RWMultiTool - editing your theme graphics will be simple
www.rwmultitool.com/index.html
Attracting Visitors
Once you have uploaded your site it would help if you submit your top-level page to Google to allow the Googlebot Crawler to index your site.
Before you add your site, check that you have edited the page and folder names in the RapidWeaver Page Inspector.
www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl
Photo Galleries
RapidWeaver includes a photo gallery page that draws images straight from your iPhoto library. This has the advantage that it is very quick to set up and that you have a choice between a slideshow and a standard thumbnail gallery. The disadvantage of the built in galleries is that the photos must be left in the iPhoto library. Another is the length of time that it takes to upload your site if you have to upload the entire site at any point.
There are alternatives to tying the gallery to iPhoto and Rapidweaver. These can mean easier, less 'bulky' uploads and allow different styles of galleries with transitions and special effects.
To find out more, read on...
SimpleViewer photo gallery.
SimpleViewer is a small JavaScript driven galley that displays photos and thumbnails within a web page. It pre-loads photos so that it can add a transition effect as the photos change from one to the next. The gallery can be set up by hand with the help of a text editor and a graphics program, or directly from iPhoto if you use 'SimpleViewer iPhoto Export' application that can be found here:
www.hagus.net/taxonomy/term/14
For a guide of how to create the SimpleViewer gallery see here:
www.airtightinteractive.com/simpleviewer/instruct.html
To use the SimpleViewer plug-in for RapidWeaver visit here:
http://comino.sakura.ne.jp/home/simpleviewer/index.html
Once the SimpleViewer gallery is created and uploaded to your web server, simply link directly to it from a text or graphical link within a page or give it an iFrame page style and set the url to match the location on the server and set the size of the iFrame.
To see a demo of SimpleViewer visit here:
www.airtightinteractive.com/photos/
AutoViewer photo gallery
AutoViewer is a small JavaScript driven galley that displays a series of photos within a web page. It pre-loads photos so that it can add a transition effect as the photos change from one to the next. The photos slide across the page to be replaced by the next. Find out more and download AutoViewer here:
www.airtightinteractive.com/projects/autoviewer/
Once the Autoviewer gallery is created and uploaded to your webserver, simply link directly to it from a text or graphical link within a page or give it an iFrame page style and set the url to match the location on the server and set the size of the iFrame.
To see a demo of Autoviewer visit here:
www.airtightinteractive.com/projects/autoviewer/app/
PostcardViewer works along the lines of the other gallery applications from Airtight Interactive.
PostcardViewer is a free Flash image viewer. The interface is based on the real world metaphor of a set of postcards shuffled onto a surface.
To find out more or download Postcard Viewer, click here:
www.airtightinteractive.com/projects/postcardviewer/
Lightbox photo gallery.
Lightbox is a useful JavaScript, which allows you to watch photos in a semi-transparent overlay to your site. When you click on a link, the picture is shown above the content of your page, which frees you of limitations like columns.
You can download Lightbox V2 here:
www.huddletogether.com/projects/lightbox2/
There is a guide on how to incorporate a Lightbox photo gallery here:
www.realmacsoftware.com/support/viewtopic.php?id=7090
Once the Lightbox gallery is created and uploaded to your web server, simply link directly to it from a text or graphical link within a page or give it an iFrame page style and set the url to match the location on the server and set the size of the iFrame.
Theme Customisation - CSS
Probably one of the biggest hurdles faced by many would-be theme developers is understanding and styling with CSS. Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a simple text based language used to apply style (color, size, type, etc...)
If you are really intent on getting your hands dirty and customise the colours and even the layout of a theme, you will need to edit the CSS associated with the theme. It can be very daunting at first, but there is a logic to the structure of the file.
To get an overview of CSS have a read through the tutorials here:
CSS Resources
http://www.w3schools.com/css/default.asp
http://www.culturedcode.com/css/reference.html
http://www.cleancss.com/
http://www.dezwozhere.com/links.html/
http://www.htmldog.com/
http://www.css3.info/
http://www.cssplay.co.uk/menu/index.html
http://homepage.mac.com/jch200/RWdiagrams/index.html - Visual diagrams of the RW theme structure.
CSS and RapidWeaver
To get an understanding of how RapidWeaver applies CSS read the tutorial here:
www.realmacsoftware.com/rapidweaver/manual/index.php?n=RapidWeaver.CSS
A breakdown of the CSS classes used in RapidWeaver themes can be found here:
www.realmacsoftware.com/rapidweaver/manual/index.php?n=ThemeDevelopment.CSSStyles
Colour Scheme Design
Adobe has recently launched a colour scheme designer. This is useful for web designers as is is easy to play around with colour combinations that work well together. There is a gallery of other peoples creations which you can choose from. The downloadable colour schemes only work with Photoshop CS2 or above. You can use the apple colour picker within Photoshop Elements to lift the colours from the screen. If you want the colours to customise website css files you can simply take a note of the hex values when in create mode.
http://kuler.adobe.com/
Web Graphics Tutorials
Creating professional looking graphics for your website can be a challenge without some of the tips of the trade.
The aqua look, made popular by the Apple OS X operating system features in many websites.
A collection of simple tutorials that enable you to copy the pros can be found here:
http://www.adhdgraphics.com/tutorials/photoshop/index.html