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This is the third in a four part series comparing WordPress with RapidWeaver (and speaking of RapidWeaver, don’t miss the comment from a lead RW developer on that review).

WordPress, a blog publishing system for Mac, PC, or Linux. I’m assuming that most people who read this probably have heard of WordPress and have perhaps noted that many blogs use it. In terms of blogging platforms, WP ranks second in use only to Google’s Blogger. That equates to millions of users. What accounts for this popularity? In short, it works. And it’s free. Not only can you get a blog up and running quickly with WordPress, you can manage your blog with one of the best browser-based administration panels out there.

If you’re considering WordPress, you need to understand the difference between WordPress.org and WordPress.com.

WordPress.com

 

The .com option is the WordPress answer to Blogger. It’s a commercial web hosting venture which employs a version of WP that allows for multiple blogs within one installation. Once you sign up, you get hosting space, automatic installation, and a fixed number of themes, plugins, and widgets to customize your site. In general, you won’t be able to modify much and you can’t put ads on it. However, you will be able to modify more than you would with Blogger. You’ll be able to choose from a palette of widgets, move them around on your sidebar, choose a header photo (this option is only available with some themes), and activate some plugins, but you won’t be able to style your page or modify the theme layout/design with the free package. Nor will you be able to choose from the wider universe of WP plugins and widgets available around the web.

The basic package is free, but there are paid upgrades if you want to customize the styles of your chosen theme, get more storage space, or change your domain name to something other than your_blog.wordpress.com. Most users choose the WP.com option because it’s easier to use, it’s just as free as the .org version, it offers better technical support, and it includes site hosting.

Last point: since you will be using tried and tested themes, plugins and widgets with this option, you will be ensured of a standards-compliant site.

WordPress.org

 

The .org option offers an open source package of core files to run a WP blog. It is free to use and abuse however you’d like within the terms of the General Public License. If you choose this option, you will get a download of the files needed to make WordPress run, but you won’t get a place to host it, you’ll have to install it yourself and you won’t get dedicated support. You will, however, have access to a veritable sea of plugins, widgets, and themes — and you’ll be able to fully customize and tweak your site. In other words, you have a level of freedom unmatched by what you’d get from a WP.com hosted blog. If you want the full features of the .org version, but don’t want to deal with the hassle of setting it up, there are many hosts that offer automatic installation (or you can get a WP expert to install your blog for free if your web host meets the requirements).

Last point: you may also choose the multi-user version of WP if you want the ability to have limitless blogs with unlimited authors with only one installation. It’s freely available as well (and, in case you are wondering, it’s the same platform used by WP.com).

This rest of this review will focus on the WordPress.org package because the flexibility inherent in this version most closely approximates the full capabilities of RapidWeaver.

Who is it for

 

While RapidWeaver is a website creation tool that also supports blogging, WordPress is first and foremost a tool for the weblog. Sure, you can add static pages to a WP site, but it is primarily designed to handle dynamic content. And it’s designed to support things that bloggers need most (moderating comments, managing posts, adding categories and tags etc.) right out of the box. While you can add photo pages, videos, and a variety of other content to your WordPress blog (either in posts or on stand-alone pages), it is generally not as easy of a task as it would be on RapidWeaver. And that’s the main difference. If you don’t want to pay any money up front, flexibility and customization options are important to you, and you have some (or great) knowledge of CSS and HTML, it’s a superb choice. It doesn’t hurt to know a bit about PHP and MySQL, too. If you don’t know anything about this stuff, you will still get a lot out of it because the basic administration tools are quite simple and robust. You just won’t be able to customize your site design/layout as much as you might like without a bit of research and studying.

About Themes, Plugins, and Widgets

 

Just like RapidWeaver, WordPress is based on the template (WP calls them themes). As I’ve noted before, templates are great because they are generally designed by people who know something about, well, design. Most of the hard work is done for you. However, if you roam far and wide for WP themes, you may find that some of them are not standards-compliant. Most are, though. However, they may no longer be compliant once you’re done modifying them. Fortunately, your can test this out compliments of the free W3C validation tools.

In addition to themes, WP offers plug-and-play extendability with plugins and widgets. Plugins are bits of code created by clever individuals that extend your site’s functionality. There are a ton of them out there and they are generally extremely easy to deploy. Some of the most popular are Askimet (a very effective spam filtering plugin), the ‘All in One SEO pack’ (to easily optimize your site for search engines), Google Analytics (to get some site stats), WordPress.com stats (more stats — you need to sign up for WP.com to use them on your site but that doesn’t mean you need a WP.com-hosted site), and Lightbox (responsible for the screenshot behavior of this site). But that’s just the very tip of a large iceberg. The WordPress plugin page is a good place to start your search.

Widgets are a special type of plugin. They are basically chunks of code that you can mix and match with ease to customize you sidebar content. WordPress comes with a bunch of widgets out of the box (search tool, calendar, recent posts, etc.), but that’s just the start. In addition to the standard WP widgets, for instance, this site uses an enhanced blogroll widget (which rotates links every time the page is loaded), an enhanced recent comments widget (to display chunks of the most recent comments) and a Feedburner widget (to optimize this site’s RSS feed).

Adding plugins, themes, and extra widgets to your site is easy. I’ll touch on this in the next section.

The basics of how it works

Now let's take a step back and take a deeper look at how WordPress is setup and how you manage it. I'm not going to go into great detail here, but it's important to have a basic understanding of how it's put together. Once you install WP at the desired location on your web host, the first thing you notice is that there are a heck of a lot of files and folders. Fortunately, pretty much everything you need to access is located in one folder labeled wp-content.

 

Inside there, you’ll find a plugins folder, an uploads folder, and a themes folder. My assumption here is that you have some sort of FTP client with which to install and view these files. If you don’t, you’ll need one. I use Panic’s Transmit.

Installing new themes and plugins couldn’t be easier (remember: extra widgets are also installed as plugins): you drop your new theme files in the themes folder; and (you guessed it) you place plugins in the plugins folder. The uploads folder is a good place to store images and other files that you want to place on pages or in posts. This organization scheme permits you to change themes on the fly while ensuring that your plugins and extra files remain properly in place. In other words, all of the images, files, and plugins are separate from your theme. That way, you can change your theme and your site maintains the same functionality and content, just with a new look.

All of your posts, comments, tags, etc. are also separate from your theme files — they are stored in a MySQL database. WordPress works its magic with PHP, an open source language that dynamically calls up and displays data and content from your database. It’s a bit complicated if you’ve never worked with it, but WordPress offers extensive documentation to help you understand how a site is managed. In a nutshell, the theme files control the layout/design and styles of your site (and you can manually add static content in here, too). The theme also contains all the PHP functionality that makes your blog dynamic. If this all sounds complicated, it is. It takes some getting used to. Once you get it down, though, you’ll find that WP is perhaps more robust and flexible than RapidWeaver, mainly because all of WP is accessible for modification and the pool of people who make plugins and themes for the WP platform is huge.

The hardest part to get used to with WP is how the PHP pages are split up into sections (into separate header, footer, index, etc). When you load up a WP blog page, all these disparate parts are called into play via the PHP code and then reassembled on the fly to spit out a dynamically-generated HTML page in your browser. When I first started to understand how all of these PHP files work together (and I confess I don’t understand all of it) it struck me as quite ingenious. It reminds me of an analog watch: looked at from the front, it’s a stylish, simple interface that tells the time. But open up the back, and you reveal a blur of cogs and springs and little gears somehow working together to create the time. Anyhow, to really get it, be prepared to spend some time with it. My suggestion? Try installing two copies of WP on your web host (one to use for your blog, one to hide and play with) or install MAMP on your Mac and install a copy of WP there. MAMP, by the way, is a great tool to set up a personal webserver.

While RapidWeaver content and user options are manipulated on a page-by-page basis and via inspector panes, WordPress is managed from a browser via a web-based Admin panel. The obvious benefit of this approach is that you are not tied to your desktop to manage your site. The Admin panel is the heart and soul of WP. It’s designed to give you the tools you need to effectively manage a site, even if you’ve never done anything like this before. For the most part, it succeeds. There are many aspects of the admin panel that I really appreciate. For instance, it’s very easy to activate and deactivate plugins. It’s as simple as turning them off and on. The discussion (comment) moderation is also excellent. You can choose to moderate every comment, just moderate comments from new users, or choose many options in between to get your settings just right. The built in commenting options blow RapidWeaver’s external Haloscan.com comment solution out of the water. In fact, many say it’s the best of any platform.

In fact, the level of fidelity with which you can control almost every aspect of your blog is superior. Given this tool is specialized for blogging, perhaps that’s not too surprising. You will also appreciate how easy it is to delete or edit a comment, monitor registered users, and move Widgets around (which is a pleasant drag-and-drop experience). You can also email posts in remotely with a few simple set-up steps. Like RapidWeaver, though, some of the admin windows are so chock full of options that it can be confusing to grasp.

For me, the weak link in the Admin panel is the tab for writing a new post. WP allows you to enter your post via a WYSIWYG or code-based window, but I find it to be clunky and limiting. At times, I’ve made changes to my posts via this panel only to find that other parts of my code changed in unexpected ways. I shudder at the thought of typing up a lengthy post (like this one) through the Admin panel. Likewise, I don’t care for uploading images or files for my posts via the Admin panel. I think it’s tedious; and it’s awkward to go back and move or change file names using the panel. My preference for editing and modifying posts? More on that in the next section.

To summarize the basics: you add themes and plugins by dropping them into folders on your web host using an FTP client; you manage all of your content, presentation options and plugins via the Admin panel; you change the design of your site by modifying the PHP and CSS files of your theme. Easy right? It’s actually not as complicated as it may sound, and it’s much easier if you use some good third party Mac apps.

Using Third Party Apps

 

Much more so than RapidWeaver, WordPress benefits greatly from the addition of third-party editing tools. For instance, I previously noted that I find writing posts on the web-based Admin panel a little annoying. It’s not that the WP Admin panel is bad. It’s actually quite good, especially compared to other CMS admin panels I’ve used. Still, once I tried MarsEdit I discovered how much better the experience could be. If there is one companion tool that is a must-have for writing, editing, tagging, and categorizing posts, this is it. Some people choose to set up MarsEdit to accurately preview what the post will look like. As I’ve mentioned, I post to a local server on my Mac on a mirror copy of this website using MarsEdit. I polish it locally, then publish it once I’m done. I find this to be an ideal set up.

Another third party tool you will need is a good FTP client. This will be useful when you need to update WP to a newer version (make sure you back it up first!), add new plugins or upload images.

If you are inclined to create/modify your theme, you will also benefit from an external editor such as TextMate or BBEdit/TextWrangler and a CSS editor like CSSEdit. I don’t want to go to deeply into this topic, but I want to point out that WP really rocks when you get a good workflow going with some extra tools. Of course, this comes at a cost. If I add together all of the third party tools I use to manage the site, WP actually cost me about as much as RapidWeaver! I have to ask myself how much of the pleasure of working with WordPress is due to these additional Mac apps. Tools like CSSEdit, TextMate, MarsEdit, and Transmit truly make it a pleasant workflow. In fact, one of the main reasons I stuck with WP for this site is because I really like to use these tools. Sounds kind of silly, perhaps, but I’ll stick by it.

Here’s one final tip: you can set up your WordPress admin panel to appear as a desktop application (and put it in your Dock) using a little app called Fluid. It’s still in Beta, but I’ve found it works great. With Fluid, in fact, you can set up any web-based app to function as a stand-alone application. Very handy.

Conclusion

 

So here’s the thing about WordPress: it’s a question of how far you want to take it. Pretty much anything you want to do is possible, but the need to understand a bit of what’s going on with the code behind the scenes increases exponentially the more you deviate from the standard WP model. In this sense, WordPress is an excellent training tool to learn about PHP, MySQL, CSS, and XHMTL. As I’ve said, I strongly recommend installing a version locally on your Mac using MAMP just for this purpose. Over time, you’ll start to gain the ability to bend your site to your will with greater skill. Until that time, however, you’ll be surprised how far you can get with existing themes, plugins and widgets.

While it’s certainly harder to set up (if you do it yourself!) and has a steeper learning curve than RapidWeaver, where you can take your blog with this version of WP is limited only to your ability, imagination and experience level.

What do I love about WordPress?

º It's free º It's easy to set up and maintain º Templates, plugins, and widgets abound º The admin panel is full-featured and about as intuitive as any that I've seen º It integrates exceptionally well with other editing tools, particularly MarsEdit

What's not to love?

º Compared to RapidWeaver, editing your site styles is more difficult º Editing your theme is even harder for beginners º The built-in WP theme editor is not easy to use º Updating a WP installation takes some patience and knowledge of FTP; it's also a bit scary º Compared to RW, support for adding slick graphics, javascript, video, etc. is certainly not as simple (but there are many plugins to help you along) º Since you can do whatever you want with this WP installation, it's easier to break web standards

If you are looking for a free and flexible tool to fire up your own blog, WP is a solid choice. It’s not only free and flexible, but there are just tons of user-created add-ons that you can quickly drop right in to your site. If you get stuck, you’re in luck: the web is rife with tips and tutorials and fixes for WordPress. I haven’t come across a problem yet for which I couldn’t find a ready-made answer online within a few minutes of searching. The user forums are great and instructions are comprehensive. The last thing I’ll note is that WordPress could do a better job at explaining the various options available for new users (.org, .com, multi-user, etc.). It took me a while to sort it out. I hope this review helps some readers make an informed choice.

That wraps it up. Next, I’ll conclude this series with a final summary comparison of RapidWeaver and WordPress.

learned that Adobe launched a public beta of Express yesterday. It’s an online photo editing application with a couple of free Gigabytes of storage. It was first demonstrated last September.

It’s pretty slick. It’ll be interesting to see how Picnik, Splashup, Snipshot, Phixr, Preloadr, and Pixenate (among other competitors in this crowded field) fare in light of this gorilla-sized competition.

I think Apple should enter the fray. I would think it would be a short leap from iPhoto and .Mac to a great web-based editing and storage solution from Cupertino. I’m guessing they wouldn’t want to make it Flash-based, though.

Here are two apps that recently caught my interest:

1. Iguania:

I heard about Iguania while listening to Adam Christianson's MacCast, which is incidentally one of the best general-interest Mac podcasts out there. Iguania is a novel application to edit your photos without all of those popup boxes and sliders. Instead, you use the keyboard to select the function you want, then adjust that value with your mouse. I've tried it out and love it. I found it to be quite intuitive. I couldn't help but think of how this idea could be applied to the iPhone/iPod Touch 3-axis accelerometer and the new Apple multi-touch trackpad. Some real innovation happening here. It's still in Beta, so give it a try and send some feedback to the developer.

2. Flux:

I came across Flux the other day while perusing my RSS feeds. It's a new website design tool just out of Beta (...and yet already at 1.1.1). I downloaded it, then went to the developer's site to read more. I have to admit it was a bit disconcerting to see the developer blog hosted on a Blogger site. Then I clicked on 'About' and landed on apple.com. Hmm. Still, I pressed on. Thirty minutes later, I concluded that the app has potential but still needs work. It just didn't feel complete to me. I pondered if I should post this or not, but decided I would. I think there are some interesting ideas here — the CSS view alone is worth a look.

A few posts back I described my experience trying to create a workflow to automate the process of exporting my Delicious Library (DL) catalog toLibraryThing (LT).

Here is the Automator workflow I created: open up Delicious Library, export the book catalog (an XML file) to my desktop, copy the location path of this newly created document to the clipboard, open my browser (Firefox) to the LibraryThing import page, tab to the appropriate form field (I used tabs so it was not relative to browser window location), paste the path from the clipboard into the ‘Upload File’ field on the LT import page, then use tabs and returns to activate the form and upload the file. Finally, move the exported DeliciousLibrary file to the Trash. Once that’s all complete, I threw in a Growl notification to let me know it was done.

And here is the Mac 101 tutorial for starters. Here are a few sources for more automator workflow actions, tips and tutorials:

1. Automator.us: This site has some good tutorials and a great variety of downloadable actions
2. AutomatorWorld.com: Look for more advanced Automator stuff here
3. Apple.com Automator Actions downloads: check out the most popular downloads

I just read about LinkBack, an open source framework sponsored by Nisus Software that’s been around since 2005. I guess I’m a little late to the game, but I thought I’d share it in case you’ve never heard of it. Right now, 22 applications support it.

LinkBack is best described with an example: Suppose you create a vector graphic in Lineform. Then, you drag and drop your creation into a VoodooPad document. Later, you realize you need to update the graphic. Since both apps support LinkBack, you double-click the graphic from within VoodooPad, edit it in Lineform (which opens automatically), then save it. Now your embedded VoodooPad graphic is updated.

That’s handy.

I’ve been thinking about what applications I use that support a similar sort of inter-application linking. Let’s see. I can open up and edit my iPhoto images in PhotoShop. I can use CSSEdit or TextMate to directly edit documents on the server with Transmit. And Adobe CS3 handles cross-application editing of files fairly well (within the Adobe apps, of course). That’s all I can think of.

I found two posts relating to the launch of LinkBack from March 2005. One is from TidBITS, the venerable weekly Mac newsletter that’s been around since 1990. The other is from O’Reilly’s macdevcenter.com. LinkBack launched with relative optimism. Yet I could not readily find any recent posts, reviews or otherwise about it. So why haven’t more developers integrated it into their products? Why only 22 apps after three years? Anybody?

By the way, in the post from macdevcenter.com, the author (Giles Turnbull) pointed out that one can hit ⌘-J while typing a post in MarsEdit to open up an external text editor. I did not know that. Now that I do, I’ll probably be writing all my posts in TextMate — the TextMate HTML bundle and text abilities are far more robust than MarsEdit. Of course, I could add my own Markup to MarsEdit, but I think it will just be easier (more efficient) to open it up in TextMate. I thought it was pretty cool that I learned a new tip from a three year old post.

Surf-Bit’s Mac ReviewCast episode, host Tim Verpoorten interviewed Evernote CEO Phil Libin. Evernote is a multi-platform application in Beta (invitation only) that “allows individuals to capture and find anything from their real and digital lives using their PC, Mac, mobile phone, and the web. Regardless of where or when your notes are created, everything is synchronized, recognized, and available from anywhere.” (as described on the Developer’s site).

I should clarify this a bit. A stand-alone desktop version of Evernote is free to download by anyone (right now, there are Mac, PC, and Windows Mobile versions available). The Beta invitation is for the web application (and the seamless synching between all your devices).

The most interesting (amazing) feat that Evernote performs? The uncanny ability to read and index text from photos that you’ve taken (handwritten notes and printed text within graphics). You have to see this to believe it. Check out Evernote’s video overview. I’d like to know how it’s done.

At any rate, Libin offered up 1,000 Beta invites for MacReviewCast listeners at the end of the interview. I signed up and just received my invitation from the developer. I’ll share my impressions once I test it out. If it’s too late to get an invite from the Mac ReviewCast, you can sign up to try the Beta at Evernote.com (the developer is issuing new invites as spaces open up).

This looks like a really promising application.

Delicious Library (DL) and LibraryThing (LT) book catalogs. It’s really not ‘synching:’ LibraryThing can ‘synch’ only in the sense that it can compare a DL book catalog (desktop app) with the LT book catalog (web-based app) so that only new entries are imported. In other words, you can add new DL books to your LT account, but I’m not aware of a way to synch your new LT books back to your DL database. I should note that LibraryThing accepts more than just Delicious Library info. It can import from a wide variety of other web-based and desktop apps.

All things considered, I have to say that LibraryThing serves up a pretty good universal import tool (they call it, appropriately, the ‘Universal Import').

In order to save some time, I think it would be nice to automate this process. I started down this road after reader brab asked if synching between the two services was possible. I originally responded that it wasn’t possible, only to discover that LibraryThing can, in fact, import with gusto. I should have read the manual!

Then it dawned on me that this is an ideal Automator scenario: create a workflow to expedite the process of exporting Delicious Library book catalog to LibraryThing. LibraryThing accepts DL exported data, so it should be easy, right? Two hours later, and I am ready to punch the little Automator robot.

While I used Automator quite often in Tiger, this was my first use in Leopard. I don’t know if I was just tired (and I’ll try again later to see if it was me) but I did not have a pleasant experience. Automator was very quirky: the steps I created in the process worked great, at first. Then, when I saved my workflow as an application, it suddenly did not work at all.

So, I opened up the automator process as a workflow again to troubleshoot, only to discover that my workflow no longer worked. My main problem: I exported a .txt file from Delicious Library to the desktop. Then I moved that file to my /Documents folder. Then I copied that path. Then I opened up the browser to the LibraryThings import page to paste that copied path. The problem is that Automator insisted that there was an error with copying my file from the desktop to the new location. And Automator had issues with deleting the file from the /Documents folder once I was done with it. I encountered these errors even though the process worked just fine an hour earlier, and despite the fact that I had changed nothing. I was (and am) pulling my hair out. I checked the permissions of this folder, and they are correct.

I then re-created the entire workflow from scratch; still, I could not get it to work again. Sigh. This is just a simple script to export an text file from DL, copy the file name, and paste the file path into the LT web form for import. It shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.

To recap, here is the workflow in a nutshell: open DL, export the book catalog to a desired location (my desktop), move that file to new location (my /Documents folder), copy the new location path to the clipboard, open my browser to the LT import page, tab to the appropriate form field (I used tabs so it was not relative to browser window location), paste the path from the clipboard into the ‘Upload File’ field on the LT import page, then use tabs and returns to activate the form and upload the file. For the last step, I deleted the exported DL file from /Documents.

Pretty simple, or so I thought. But Automator does not like my workflow. I’ll have to try again when I have time…chances are that it’s human error. Still, I’m struck by the fact that I had a working automation an hour ago. Now, an hour later, the same workflow is broken. It’s very odd. My conclusion: Automator is billed as a tool to bring automation to ‘the rest of us.’ In general, I think it hits this target: it’s easy to use and powerful. Yet, I would like to see better hints when an error occurs. For my problem, all I am told is that there is an error with a step in the process. I don’t see any logging information to help me pinpoint why or where that error is occurring.

At any rate, once I get a working Automator workflow I’ll post it in case anyone would like to modify it for his/her use. If I can’t get it to work, I plan to find some Automator user forums to post my workflow. Perhaps then I’ll locate the problem.

If you haven’t tried out Cultured Code’s Things yet, now is a good time. It’s my favorite task manager, and it’s better than ever. Yesterday, version 0.9 was released. You can download the public Beta preview for free. It’s a Beta, so you are encouraged to let the developers know what you think.

The big news about this Beta release? Recurring to-dos and projects. And there’s lots of other improvements as well. If you like Things, sign up for their newsletter for a 20 percent discount once 1.0 is released this Spring (you’ll be able to pick it up for $39; regular price will be $49).

If you read my review of Things, be sure to read the comments for this post, too. One of the developers of Things addressed many of the concerns I raised in the review.

Celtx. It’s a free tool for creating a screenplay and offers robust collaboration and sharing options (and it’s for Mac, Linux, or Windows).

In addition to screenplays, it also supports AV scripts (documentaries, ads, music videos), audio plays (radio, podcasts), theatre (U.S. and International Standards, and plain old text). But if screenwriting is your game, there are many choices…

Dedicated Screenwriting Tools

Celtx (free, Beta) Mariner Montage ($139.95) DreamaScript ($195) Movie Outline ($199.95) Final Draft ($229) Movie Magic Screenwriter ($249.95)

Tools that can handle Screenwriting (to some degree)

Latte and Literature's Scrivener ($39.95) MacroMates TextMate: Try the screenwriting bundle ($63 for TextMate, free Bundle) Apple iWorks: Try the Screenplay template for Pages ($79 for iWorks, free template) NovaMind Platinum ($249)

I’m not a screenwriter, but I’ve dabbled in it. For this, I use Celtx. For my other varied textual needs, I rely on TextMate, Scrivener, iWorks(Pages), and Redlex Mellel. This is off-topic, but I just have to note that I especially love Mellel. But it’s not for screenwriting. It’s a versatile word processor. Why I love it and how I use it is a topic for another post, another day…

Realmac’s RapidWeaver, a Mac-only web publishing tool.

Who is it for?

RapidWeaver targets people with little to no web design experience seeking a simple way to produce a professional-looking, standards-compliant, and highly customizable mixed-content website. By 'mixed-content,' I mean that it handles both static and dynamic content. But it's not just for those new to web publishing. It's used by experienced developers, too, because it's a handy way to quickly build and deploy a site with minimal fuss, and it's fairly easy to create custom templates.

What is it?

It's a stand-alone web design and Content Management System (CMS) that runs locally from your computer. As a content management tool, the built-in capabilities of this app are easy to use — and the user interface is much friendlier than most other web-based content management systems. It's also easier to set up since you don't have to worry about potentially complicated installation procedures. For instance, you don't have to set up a database on your server to get your blog up and running. The down side to this is that you can't manage your content remotely from a web browser (with a few caveats, which I'll go into later). For the most part, you need to be sitting at your Mac when you want to work on your site.

Like iWeb and WordPress (and other CMS solutions), RW is built around the assumption that it’s desirable to start out with well-built, professionally-designed, battle-tested templates. This is desirable because (a) most people don’t have the time, inclination or ability to produce a site design and (b) templates help ensure that sites meet web standards.

What I’ve just labeled a ‘template’ in the previous paragraph, RapidWeaver calls a ‘theme.’ What’s the difference? Themes are flexible templates. For most blogging tools or content management platforms, a user will find a theme he or she likes, apply it to their site and that’s pretty much it. The average user may change some basic colors and fonts for a given template, but they typically don’t have the ability or the inclination to readily modify much else. A RapidWeaver theme, on the other hand, empowers the user to really dig in and modify the template to make it his or her own.

For the novice, themes may be the killer feature of this program. With themes, some of the style variables that may be modified with ease include site colors, font families, page width (to include flexible and fixed width options within one theme), header image, and sidebar position. Most themes also offer several pre-defined styles from which you can choose as well, which is nice for those who have trouble picking complimentary colors or matching thematic elements.

The customization parameters of a theme are really only limited by how many options the theme developer builds into it. RapidWeaver comes with a slew of nice themes. If you don’t find what you like within these options, there are many top-notch third-party themes available (most will cost you around ten dollars or so, but many are free).

While most people will use a pre-designed theme, the RealMac developers provide a great tutorial and a software development kit for those who wish to create their own (for their own use, to give away, or to sell). Note for those of you who are interested in creating a theme: RapidWeaver works this magic by saving theme variables within an Apple property list (plist) file. It’s a standard XML file, which makes it a breeze to add to and modify theme properties.

Conceptually speaking, RapidWeaver places the design and management of your site in the background so you can concentrate on content, content, content. But that’s not to say that it doesn’t offer robust design/management tools. On the contrary, the app provides very effective management and customization tools, support for search engine optimization and advanced-user options (such as adding your own java, PHP, special assets, or custom CSS on a per-page or site-wide basis). Most of the configuration and customization options are deployed through a plethora of tabbed pop-up windows (commonly referred to as ‘inspectors’ in Mac parlance). You open them up when you need them; otherwise, you close them up and they stay out of your way.

All things considered, the developers have created a clean interface to manage just about all aspects of a site — which will especially appeal to those new to web development. The idea is that you won’t ever need to get at the code behind the scenes (if you don’t want to, that is). RW is so confident that most users will never have to mess with underlying code that the developers don’t even present an option to view the code through the application’s user interface ( actually, they used to have an option to view the code in earlier versions of the program, but no longer do. This was a good choice because the displayed code in the earlier versions was not directly editable. That was just annoying). Not to worry though — you can get to the code if you need to. UPDATE: I’ve learned from the RW forums that you can still toggle the code view by invoking the shortcut ⌘-Alt-U.

If you’re used to directly editing style sheets and web code, you may find the ‘RapidWeaver method’ a little awkward and limiting; the developers took many of the common things you would normally do ‘under the hood’ and gave them their own front-end user interface. If you’ve never hand-coded anything, no need to worry: RW’s built-in tools allow even the most novice user to jump right in and start modifying site colors, fonts, sidebar position, site metadata, etc. without ever needing to access the code. There are also some third-party tools you can buy to help you access images for easy modification (see RWmultitool). Alternatively, you can modify a theme by locating it’s associated package at /Your User Account/Library/Application Support/RapidWeaver/ and opening up the associated HTML and CSS files in the editor of your choice

 

The workflow

The RW workflow is simple: you choose a template, you add pages, you publish it to your web host. All you need to get started is a copy of RW, a remote web host and an FTP or .Mac account. What makes it special is how easy it is to do this, the good looks of the resulting site and the versatility of the 'theme' framework. RW also stands out in terms of how quickly you can deploy a site. How fast is it? It depends on how much customization you want to do. I was able to launch a site with a blog, multiple static pages and a photo album page in about 30 minutes. That's not too bad. I set up a fairly complex website for my wife that features a blog, dozens of static pages, customized graphics, and a highly modified template in about 6 hours of non-contiguous work. That's pretty good, too.

The core of this editing area (the main place where you add your content) is the RW page. You can add a variety of pages, ranging from a fully-featured blog to straight HTML code. Each page type you choose defines how you add content to that element. If you choose to create a blog page, for instance, the content area is specialized with fields unique to things you need to add for blog entries. Makes sense. If you choose a photo album page, you get a totally different content area, specialized for iPhoto integration and drag-and-drop simplicity. The designers have obviously put a lot of thought into creating simple interfaces for a wide variety of page types. Chances are that you will not need to refer to the manual very often, except when it comes to understanding all of the options in the RW Inspector panes. That is, each page type is associated with a specific inspector pane, and each inspector pane is chock full of customization options.

While this equates to a platform that allows users to quickly and easily deploy a site, there is a downside. Since RW makes it so easy to publish a site, many users won’t bother to (or won’t know that they should) fill in site metadata and other details. I have a suggestion for the RealMac developers: it it would be a good idea to provide some tooltips or otherwise-integrated instructions to better explain the myriad customization options available for each page type, the page inspector, and the site inspector.

For example, it’s very quick and easy to create a page. However, it may not be readily apparent to users with no web design experience that you also need to name the folder and file for that page. It would be helpful if the developers built in some sort of warning message when users hit the ‘Publish’ button as a heads up that some of the parameters have not yet been defined.

In the example above, for instance, a helpful message might say ‘Wait! Before you publish your site, you should name your folders and files for the pages you’ve created. This is an important step that will make your site easier to index by search engines. It’s also necessary for blog entries so your permalinks are meaningful.' Or something like that…

There are many other examples of instances where tips and other helpful messages would be helpful to ensure the site is properly set up. Imagine you’ve never published a website before. You may wonder: What’s a meta tag? Why should I worry about this meta stuff? What’s ‘page expiration?’ What’s the difference between optimized, tidied, and default code? And so on. I think the program would really benefit from some additional cues to help users along. This, of course, assumes that most people won’t read the manual or dig into the forums. I think that’s a safe assumption, especially for an app that draws so many people with little knowledge of these things precisely because it’s supposed to be so simple to use.

Remote management (for Bloggers only)

I mentioned that there were a couple of caveats to the statement that "you can't manage your site remotely." There are two exceptions that I know of. The first is with the built-in RW blog: while you can't manage your blog posts remotely, you can manage your comments remotely. That's because RealMac partners with HaloScan, a third-party commenting system, to deliver blog comments.

If you want comments on your blog posts, you need to sign up for this service. And if you sign up for this service, you can manage your comments via HaloScan’s web-based interface. You don’t need to be at home to do that.

The other exception? You can buy a third-party blog plugin called RapidBlog from Loghound.com. RapidBlog is basically a front-end for Google’s Blogger that seamlessly integrates into RapidWeaver. Using it requires you to sign up for a Blogger account. The only weird thing about it is that your posts will appear both on your website and on your newly-created Blogger site (you can choose to hide your Blogger posts, or you can just leave them there — who knows, it may generate more readership for your primary site). If you use RapidBlog, you can remotely edit your posts or email a post from a remote location.

The Small Print

RapidWeaver has been around since 2004 (the same year that WordPress hit the streets, incidentally). It's now at version 3.6.5. Note that this app is not free or open-source (like WordPress). RW costs $49 per license. That's pretty cheap, but if you want to really take it to another level, you're going to want some third-party add-ons. And when you decide to buy some, you'll soon discover that it's not as cheap as it first appears.

In my opinion, you need to buy some third-party plugins to really get the most out of this application. And one thing I really ike about RW is how well it integrates with third-party plugins, add-ons and themes. I mentioned earlier that the RealMac team offers a SDK for themes. Well, they also offer a SDK for anyone who wishes to try their hand at creating a plugin as well. What fun. True, there are many, many great third-party themes out there. But there are also some killer plugins.

Two complaints I’ve heard from RW users is that (a) some plugins should be part of the application from the start and (b) the cost of the plugins quickly exceeds the costs of a RW license. My view? There are some plugins that are so essential, I wouldn’t consider RW complete without them. They are just too handy to pass up. I could complain that RealMac should include some of these plugins as core parts of the application, but I honestly don’t mind paying for some third-party extended options (note that most of these plugins are different page types, each with their own Inspector pane full of options and choices). The app is still quite cost-effective, and it’s definitely generating some very great third-party software development.

Conclusion

I think RapidWeaver is a tool with a great future. It offers slick themes, powerful customization options, ease of use, a dedicated user base (check out the RW User Forum when you get stuck), and top-notch third party add-ons. It's cheap. It's easy for novices to use. It's fun for more experienced people to use.

What’s not to like? Well, as I mentioned, a case can be made that RW is feature-weak and not powerful enough, evidenced by all of the third-party plugins. Do you really need these plugins? No, but they will make life easier for you and they are pretty cool. I wouldn’t be surprised if the RealMac team bought out a few of the add-ons in the future. Yourhead Blocks, for instance, adds WYSIWYG freeform layout functionality to RapidWeaver. I know that my wife, for one, could not live without it for her site. She’s so used to using Blocks, in fact, that she forgot that it’s not actually a part of RW.

Speaking of my wife, I quizzed her on her RW experience as she’s the primary user of the app in our household. She reports that the program is, on the whole, a great tool. However, she has faced some problems with the app crashing while she’s trying to publish changes to her site. She’s taken to closing down all other running programs on the Mac when she’s uploading content, which she says helps. She also notes that publishing times can be quite slow, and the site itself is pretty slow on the initial load. These issues have gotten worse as her site has grown. It raises the question of scalability. How big can a RW file get before it becomes unreliable? I trust the developers will keep refining the loading/publishing issues as development moves forth.

I’ve personally noticed that RW can be limiting when it comes to adding or creating complex mixed content on a page. In addition, some things are tricky to do if you want to push the boundaries of a theme or mix up how your content is presented. I can best explain what I’m talking about here by way of example. Say you want to add a third column to only one page of a site. This isn’t so easy. One solution that many people use is to add a ‘faux’ column on a Blocks page. That works, but it would be nice to have some themes with one, two, or no column options per page. I’m not aware of any limitations that would prevent this.

As for mixed content, I’m referring to the ability to, say, mix in some static content with posts. For example, imagine you want your home page to list your top three newest posts. Above and below this, you wish to add some static content — but you still want your main blog to be a separate page in your site. This isn’t easy to do. Or imagine that you want to add two columns of static text and maybe some sort of additional javascript to go with your Photo Album page. There are work-arounds to issues such as these (and most rely on third-party plugins!), but I would like to see RealMac push towards more and more flexibility and more choices in the future when it comes to page customization (mixing multiple page types on one page, for example). I’d also like a way to open up the core theme files from within the application for quick edits. Of course, that’s a tall order since they are also trying to keep things simple with this app. My suggestion? How about two versions set at two different price points: RapidWeaver Standard and Pro?

I’ll close by noting that it’s a tool that certainly rewards the patient user — I mentioned that RW has a good user forum, and this is where you should head first to answer any questions you have, or to see if anyone has already posted a fix for a vexing problem you may be having. It’s a vibrant, friendly community and if you have an issue, chances are it’s already being discussed.

For the next installment in this series, I’ll present an overview of Wordpress. Then, in the final post, I’ll compare the two based on some criteria of my invention. Cheers.

Postscript: A forgot to mention Snippets! This is one of the coolest parts of RapidWeaver. This is a simple but powerful feature: open up your Snippets inspector pane to reveal stored bits of code. Drag and drop these ‘snippets’ directly onto your page. RapidWeaver includes many handy snippetized code bits, you can easily create your own, or you can download third party snippets from the RW site. If you find yourself typing bits of code over and over, this can be a huge time saver. Added to that, many people are integrating snippets functionality to create unique add-ons. For example, I just used Snippets yesterday to place social bookmarks on my wife’s blog. I works great. By the way, if you use the social bookmark snippet referenced here, be sure to check out this thread on the RW forums. Happy weaving.