Two new screencasts have been released to
RapidWeaver Classroom subscribers today. The
first covers the symTune Image Slider
plugin from SymfoniP, which replicates
the look and feel of the image slider in the
iTunes Music Store. It’s provides a great
way of featuring content on your website,
and offers a really slick presentation of
images.
The second tutorial release is located under the
“How to...” lesson in Section 301, and it
walks-through the process of splitting a
RapidWeaver website into multiple project files.
This is great to understand when building large,
or media-intensive websites.
These tutorials are now available to RapidWeaver
Classroom subscribers. Not a subscriber? Register now or
learn more about
RapidWeaver Classroom!
A new tutorial covering the Speech Bubbles Stack from
Joe Workman is now available to RapidWeaver
Classroom subscribers. This is a pretty
awesome stack that creates speech bubbles
with rounded corners for your content. It’s
very easy to use and accomplishes something
that was once more complex to achieve -- I
know from personal experience, having added
speech bubbles to RapidWeaver Classroom, and
trust me when I say that it wasn’t nearly
this easy! Thanks to Joe for another great
stack, and I’m sure most of us can find good
use for it in our projects.
Two new tutorials are now available that cover
the Doo-Daily and Doo-Spin stacks from DooBox. Both of these
stacks allow you to add dynamic content to
your pages, either by having different
content load randomly with each visit, or by
having content set to appear depending on
the day of the week. These new tutorials are
available now to RapidWeaver Classroom
subscribers.
A new tutorial is now available covering the
symMedia5 plugin from SymfoniP. This is an
outstanding plugin that allows you to add
both video and audio files to a single page,
and have them play in a single player, with
a nice scroll bar to navigate through and
play the added media. In addition, this
plugin supports HTML5 video playback, and if
you aren’t familiar with the significance of
HTML5 video then you will learn a bit about
that as well in this tutorial.
This is the first tutorial on a plugin from
SymfoniP here at RapidWeaver Classroom, though
there is a FlowBox Stack tutorial available.
SymfoniP has been producing some great
RapidWeaver plugins for mixed media (photo,
audio, and video) -- so they all will be covered
in the coming weeks.
In the past week I have produced a couple of
walk-throughs for new RapidWeaver themes. Flame,
from Elixir Graphics, and
Havnit, from seyDesign are both
ExtraContent-enabled themes with some
phenomenal design and flexibility. These
walk-through videos are available in both
the members’ area and on the Curriculum page,
under the ExtraContent section. I have also
re-worked that ExtraContent section to
include all the tutorials I’ve produced for
ExtraContent themes -- currently there are 3
each for both seyDesign and Elixir Graphics.
In other news, production of tutorials for the
symMedia5 plugin from SymfoniP are almost
complete, so look for those additions to the
members’ area early next week.
The 4th tutorial in our CMS series is now
available online to RapidWeaver Classroom
subscribers. This CMS solution involves Pulse CMS, which is the
first full-blown Content Management System
to be covered. I have chosen to start with
Pulse CMS because you host it on your own
server alongside your website, which is a
great advantage because all of your content
exists on one server, opposed to some of it
existing on another server that you have no
control over.
In advance of viewing this Pulse CMS tutorial, I
recommend viewing the “Working With an FTP
Application” lesson, which can be found under
Section 301 of the tutorials. This lesson will
get you comfortable with publishing files to your
server via FTP, which is required to install
Pulse.
More CMS solutions will be covered in the weeks
to come, alongside a variety of custom stacks and
even a few new RapidWeaver plugins.
I am happy to announce the release of a new
tutorial series called “Choosing a RapidWeaver
Theme.” This series is comprised of 5 screencasts
that total about 45 minutes -- discussing how to
find themes, along with tips and strategies to
use when looking for the best theme for your
project. With the release of this series I have
re-organized the curriculum listing a
bit, placing these tutorials just below the
lessons for RapidWeaver, along with the
ExtraContent and BlocksBox tutorials, since
these are all theme-related screencasts.
Subscribers to RapidWeaver Classroom can now view
this new series. Additionally, several more
screencasts have already been produced on another
topic, so another new release is coming very,
very soon!
I am happy to announce the launch of a new series
of tutorials on Content Management Systems! As
mentioned in my previous blog entry, I have been
researching different CMS solutions and I have
now begun to produce screencasts on the subject.
The launch of this series begins with 3 video
tutorials, which are now available to RapidWeaver
Classroom subscribers. More tutorials will be
released in the coming weeks, with the goal of
providing the most comprehensive coverage of
options available to RapidWeaver users.
Once again, if you have any experience using a
CMS with RapidWeaver, please comment here and let
me know your thoughts. I have developed a list of
solutions (see
previous blog entry), but am open to
other options and I am interested in
personal experience with any of them.
Not a RapidWeaver Classroom subscriber? Register now for
access to these, and 170+ other RapidWeaver
video tutorials!
I have published the 6th screencast to the
Complete Design Demonstration series -- this
tutorial demonstrates how the Learn More page was
created. The most unique part to this page
is the use of a free Table Stack created by
Phil Warrender.
There are still a couple of screencasts left to
go in this series, and I am working on quite a
few new tutorials for custom stacks as well, so
check back soon for more!
A 5th tutorial has been added to the Complete
Design Demonstration series. This video
demonstrates the creation of some features of the
members' page. Specifically:
Adding 5 columns of images and text to an
ExtraContent area
creating anchors
linking text to video that displays in a
Lightbox
This tutorial demonstrates the use of
snippets for ExtraContent and the Lightbox stacks
from Joe Workman. It is a lengthy 18-minute video
with a lot of information packed-in! Look for
more tutorials in this series to appear next
week.
I am very excited to begin offering a new series
that incorporates much of what is taught here at
RapidWeaver Classroom. The Complete Design
Demonstration series takes you through the
process of designing a website from start to
finish, using many of the different 3rd-party
plugins and theme features such as ExtraContent.
In this first C.D.D. series, you will see how
many of the pages here at RapidWeaver Classroom
were developed, using 3rd-party plugins such as
Stacks, PlusKit, Carousel, Accordion, and
EasyTube Gallery.
This series is best viewed after you have made
your way through all of the RapidWeaver and
3rd-party plugin tutorials, so that you are
familiar with the interface of the different
plugins. The purpose of this series is to
demonstrate the usage of plugins and other
features in a real-world scenario, and to
break-down designs that are seemingly complex
into something much more simple.
I have published the first 4 videos (45 minutes)
of this series to start, and more screencasts
will be added in the coming weeks as I
demonstrate how to build a majority of the pages
found here at RapidWeaver Classroom. You may also
notice that I titled the series with a number 1,
as my intention is to create multiple series over
time that demonstrate the usage of different
plugins and strategies.
I hope you enjoy this new series and find it
helpful as you explore how different plugins can
be used in your own projects. There will be more
to come soon!
2 new tutorials on Joe Workman Stacks have
been released today. Tutorials on the
MovingBox Stack and Link & Anchor Stacks
are now available. Joe has been generous
enough to offer the Link & Anchor Stacks
for free, so visit his website to download
the stacks and view his other incredible
offerings.
I have published 5 new screencasts on
troubleshooting RapidWeaver issues. This is an
important series because RapidWeaver, like most
software, can have issues that result in lost
work and/or great frustration. I may add
additional troubleshooting tutorials in the
future, so if you have any tips that I’ve left
out then please let me know.
Next week will see new custom stacks tutorials
from Joe Workman, so stay tuned!
I am happy to announce the release of 3 new
tutorials on Joe Workman Stacks. Joe
Workman has been developing for the Stacks
plugin for some time now, and a couple of
months ago I produced a tutorial on 13
Video Stacks that were developed by Joe.
Today’s release adds 3 more stacks to the
curriculum, and I
have separated Joe’s stacks into their own
section, whereas before all custom stacks
tutorials were located under the Stacks
plugin listing.
The following tutorials are now available:
Lightbox Stack - Easily add a
Lightbox effect that displays any type of
content.
Translate Stack - Allows visitors to
read your website in any language.
Curtain Call Stack - Provide your
visitors with a unique presentation of content --
especially great for video or special promotions.
Of course you can expect to see coverage of many
more Joe Workman Stacks in the future!
A new video tutorial covering the FlowBox Stack has been
released to subscribers of RapidWeaver
Classroom. This is an outstanding stack that
provides a lightbox-type overlay for
displaying video, images, and even other
webpages. It is quite flexible and so the
18-minute video goes into detail of all the
different ways content can be presented
inside the FlowBox.
This is the first screencast on a SymfoniP stack, and you
can bet that there will be more to come!
I recently published a new video tutorial on the
FaqMaker plugin from
Loghound. This plugin has
actually been around for quite a while, but
I have recently rediscovered it myself and
made it a part of my toolset. FaqMaker
provides some great flexibility in creating
a highly functional -- and even creative --
FAQ for your website. FaqMaker can utilize
anchors or even a Lightbox to provide
information to your visitors. Most websites
need an FAQ of some kind, so FaqMaker is a
great solution for this purpose.
This screencast is available to RapidWeaver
Classroom subscribers and can be found underneath
the section of Loghound plugins. Enjoy!
yabdab software has
releaed an upgrade to its popular PayLoom plugin, now
available as version 2.0, and RapidWeaver
Classroom covers this latest release with 2
new video tutorials. This upgrade brings
some major enhancements to the plugin,
including an on-page shopping cart and
unlimited product options that include price
overrides.
With this release, the previous version of
PayLoom is no longer available, but those
tutorials will remain available for anyone who
owns that version of the plugin.
I have added another tutorial to the weaverPix
plugin section. This tutorial demonstrates how to
customize weaverPix to produce a really
nice-looking slideshow. You will see how it
pays-off to take some time tweaking settings to
get things just right. In this example, a
slideshow is created that mimics the feature
found on the Home page of the iTunes Store.
weaverPix has a lot of flexibility and you will
see another example of that in this latest
screencast.
I am happy to announce that RapidWeaver Classroom
is now covering plugin releases from another
fantastic RapidWeaver plugin developer, Greg Barchard. Our first
tutorial release covers the weaverPix plugin, which
provides a very flexible Flash slideshow
feature to your RapidWeaver projects. There
are two tutorials on the plugin and you will
surely be impressed with the options it
provides over the Photo Album plugin's Flash
slideshow feature.
Be on the lookout for more screencasts on Greg's
projects in the future!
I have released a new tutorial today that covers
the excellent Table Stacks from Phil
Warrender. There are two table stacks,
available for free, and these really provide
great flexibility in presenting content on
your website. This screencast is available
to RapidWeaver Classroom subscribers, and
can be found under both the Stacks and
"Working with Tables" sections.
I am happy to announce the release of 3 new video
tutorials covering the excellent RapidCart 2 plugin. This
is an update to the RapidCart plugin that
has already received the RapidWeaver
Classroom treatment. RapidCart 2 adds a ton
of enhancements that really makes it
stand-out as an exceptional e-commerce
plugin for RapidWeaver. You can enable
multiple payment processors, such as PayPal
and Google Checkout, and there is a lot of
flexibility and customization options for
your e-commerce page in RapidCart 2.
These new screencasts are available to
subscribing RapidWeaver Classroom students.
Enjoy!
Two new screencasts have been produced and both
involve ways to add video to your RapidWeaver
website. The first screencast covers the new
EasyTube Gallery plugin,
which provides a great way of displaying
videos from YouTube. The second screencast
covers a bundle of Video Stacks, to be used
in conjunction with the Stacks plugin. There
are 13 stacks in all that can be used to
embed video from YouTube, Viddler, Flickr,
Vimeo, QuickTime and Twitter-related video
services. These two screencasts are now
available to RapidWeaver Classroom
subscribers.
While on the subject of add-ons for the Stacks
plugin, these add-ons or “custom stacks” have
really taken off over the last couple of months.
I’m really excited about this as these stacks are
providing all kinds of functionality that is very
easy to implement. As a result I will be
producing more screencasts on what I consider to
be the best of these custom stacks, so expect to
see more tutorials in this area very soon!
I have released a new tutorial in the “How to...”
lesson. The tutorials covers the creation of
anchors. An anchor is used to link text or an
image to another location on the same webpage.
It’s great for an FAQ, or for a long page divided
into sections. This tutorial is specific to
RapidWeaver 4.0, which allows you to add custom
attributes in the Add Link panel. It’s very
simple to do and can be very handy!
Today I’ve added a new free RapidWeaver
tutorial on how to accept registration
and payment through your website. Using the
right combination of plugins, you can
provide a process by which a visitor
completes a registration form and then is
presented with a method for paying. This is
a great solution for events that require
registration and payment, such as
conferences, classes, etc. The tutorial
presents several different methods of
accomplishing this, from using the basic
Contact Form page with a PayPal button, to a
FormLoom page that redirects to a PayLoom
page. See the video embedded below, or visit
the Curriculum page for
this and other free tutorials. Enjoy!
Today marks the release of a new lesson of “How
to...” tutorials at RapidWeaver Classroom. These
tutorials are found under Section 301 in the
RapidWeaver
Curriculum, and it’s an area that will
be added to very consistently in the future.
I love teaching new 3rd-party plugins as
they are released, but it’s important to
cover different methods of accomplishing
needs, and so that’s what I hope to address
with the “How to...” lesson. Three new
tutorials have been produced to kick-start
the lesson, and these cover:
customizing a header
creating a sign-up form
accepting payment or donations through your
website
For quite a while I have been accepting
feedback from RapidWeaver Classroom students, and
as part of the feedback I ask what types of
tutorials they would like to see in the future.
This is one area where these types of requests
may be fulfilled, so I’m excited to hear what all
of you are wanting to learn and I will do my best
to satisfy as many request as possible!
It’s been a busy week that has culminated in the
release of video tutorials on 3 separate
RapidWeaver plugins. Yesterday saw the release of
tutorials covering GoogaLoom and RapidCart, and
now there are new tutorials available for the
TabLoom plugin -- YabDab Software’s latest
offering. TabLoom provides a great method
for organizing a lot of content on a single
page, by breaking the content into separate
sections inside of a nice, tabbed interface.
A total of 3 videos are available on TabLoom
-- combine those with the 3 others released
yesterday and that’s a total of 6 new
screencasts this week totaling close to an
hour of new training!
With the TabLoom and GoogaLoom tutorials now
available, RapidWeaver Classroom is up-to-date on
all the current offerings from YabDab Software.
The goal of covering all major RapidWeaver
plugins at RapidWeaver Classroom is getting very
close to completion, so check back often for
announcements on more new tutorials coming soon!
Several new screencasts have been published on
the GoogaLoom and RapidCart plugins. Both
plugins provide e-commerce solutions for
RapidWeaver. GoogaLoom comes from Yabdab Software, maker of
the “Loom” plugins, including PayLoom and
FormLoom which are already covered here at
RapidWeaver Classroom. GoogaLoom differs
from PayLoom in a few ways, the most obvious
being that it utilizes the Google Checkout
system instead of PayPal. Another unique
benefit to GoogaLoom is that it supports
digital products for download.
RapidCart is another e-commerce plugin for
RapidWeaver, and it is from omnidea. RapidCart
utilizes PayPal as well, but it also boasts
some really nice eye-candy, in the way of
animations and a built-in shopping cart
feature that keeps visitors on your page
until they go to checkout. It’s a very nice
implementation with a unique style, and I’m
happy to have it included here as a part of
RapidWeaver Classroom.
More screencasts are on their way very
soon, as in less than 24 hours, so stay tuned for
another announcement!
Last week I updated the RapidWeaver video
training library with all-new Stacks screencasts. Now
you may be confused because there were
already Stacks screencasts there before, but
those were ones created by YourHead, and now
that they have received the RapidWeaver
Classroom treatment, I have replaced the
YourHead versions with my own. So you will
now receive the detail and explanation for
Stacks that you are used to getting with the
other plugin tutorials! Thanks to Isaiah at
YourHead for letting me post his video
tutorials until I had completed them myself.
Speaking of Stacks, did I mention that it is the
greatest plugin I've ever used?! Now that's
completely my opinion, but I absolutely LOVE this
plugin! As an aside, this new RapidWeaver
Classroom design is done almost entirely with
Stacks. So what are you waiting for? Go watch the
new tutorials on this awesome plugin!
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a topic of
such frequent discussion that I felt the new SEO
tutorials here at RapidWeaver Classroom should be
available for free for everyone to view. The SEO
tutorials are now available for viewing in both
the subscribers' area and for free on the
Curriculum page
(scroll to the bottom of the page). Note
that the free videos are hosted by Vimeo in
HD, but enrolled students should watch them
in the subscribers' area to view them in a
bit better quality.
Feel free to leave comments here on these videos,
and let me know what kinds of questions I did not
address. SEO is such a huge topic that it could
certainly warrant more video instruction in the
future.
I have added a new set of tutorials covering
Search Engine
Optimization (SEO) with RapidWeaver.
There are a total of 7 tutorials covering
many different aspects of SEO, and this is
an important topic for anyone building a
website. It's also a controversial topic,
with many conflicting thoughts and opinions
on how to best optimize your website for
search engines. Part of this is because SEO
is a constantly changing science, with
search engines becoming smarter and
modifying their algorithms in order to
produce more accurate and valid results.
I have attempted to cover all of the major, valid
SEO strategies and make a point to explain the
strategies that are most valuable, in addition to
including ones that may or may not have great
impact. It's certainly an interesting aspect of
website design, but it's also very important and
so I encourage everyone to go through these new
tutorials and execute some of the strategies
yourself!
New video tutorials
covering the SiteMap plugin are now
available to RapidWeaver Classroom
subscribers. There are 5 tutorials on the
subject, and I have gone into great detail
to cover all aspects of the plugin. In
addition, viewers will learn how to submit
the generated sitemap to Google and Yahoo!
in order to improve SEO. Sitemaps are
important and I recommend all websites have
them regardless of the overall size of the
site. The SiteMap plugin makes creating a
sitemap a breeze, so check out the tutorials
to learn more!
New screencasts have been added on the excellent
RapidBlog plugin from
Loghound.com. RapidBlog
syncs with Google's Blogger to allow remote
blog posting from anywhere. It's a great
solution for those who need to blog outside
of RapidWeaver. These tutorials are now
available to RapidWeaver Classroom
subscribers.
The RWmultitool section has been updated with a
new screencast covering the full version of
RWmultitool. This full
version provides a lot of features not
available in the free, Lite version of the
application. This screencast is available to
RapidWeaver Classroom subscribers only.
I have added a new video tutorial covering
RWmultitool Lite, the
free version of this great tool. RWmultitool
allows you to easily modify images in a
theme without needing to modify the theme
directly, and without needing a graphic
design application like Photoshop.
The full version of RWmultitool will be covered
in future screencasts, so stay tuned for more!
I have added a new series of screencasts on the
excellent FormLoom plugin from yabdab
software. FormLoom is a more powerful
contact form plugin for RapidWeaver, and it
includes a lot of great features to offer
flexibility that the built-in Contact Form
plugin doesn't include. There are currently
3 FormLoom screencasts
available and one more will likely be
produced in the near future. Current
RapidWeaver Classroom subscribers can
immediately access these tutorials for
viewing!
I have added a new screencast today to the
Carousel lesson, covering the creation of a
custom Carousel Style. Carousel allows you to
create your own style using images for the
background and buttons, so if you are comfortable
with creating these graphics then you can have a
very custom carousel to display on your website.
Stay tuned for more soon on the GoogaLoom and
FormLoom plugins.
New screencasts have been added covering the
great Carousel plugin from YourHead Software. There
are currently 3 tutorials available to
RapidWeaver Classroom subscribers, and one
or two more are likely to be produced in the
near future. Check back often as new video
tutorials are added weekly!
I am pleased to announce that 5 new tutorials
have been added for the new Stacks plugin from
YourHead Software. This
is a first for RapidWeaver Classroom as
these tutorials are produced by Isaiah
himself! He did such a great job that we
wanted to make them available to all
RapidWeaver Classroom subscribers and
visitors -- so these tutorials can be viewed
publicly from the Curriculum page or
from the members' area.
I am likely to produce our own RapidWeaver
Classroom tutorials on Stacks in the future, but
for now these tutorials provide a great overview
of the plugin, along with some specific uses.
Thanks to Isaiah for the screencasts on this
great new plugin, and for all of his
contributions to the RapidWeaver community!
New video releases continue today with the
introduction of the Accordion plugin from
YourHead Software. Two
Accordion screencasts are now available and
one or two more will likely be added to
conclude that series. Accordion is a very
useful plugin, and we use it right here at
RapidWeaver Classroom to present our FAQ. Enjoy!
Another ExtraContent tutorial has been released,
detailing the new PlayMore theme from seyDesign. PlayMore
offers three ExtraContent areas that provide
all kinds of flexibility for presenting
content. Thanks to Adam Merrifield at
seyDesign for his outstanding RapidWeaver
themes!
A new feature called ExtraContent is appearing in
newer 3rd-party RapidWeaver themes, and
RapidWeaver Classroom has you covered. A new
category of screencasts has been created to show
you the benefits of this feature and how you can
utilize it for more flexibility in your website
designs. The first screencast in this series
covers the excellent Gotem theme from
seyDesign, and there will be more
tutorials made available soon.
Speaking of seyDesign, a new
promotion is currently underway for
RapidWeaver Classroom members and new
subscribers. New subscribers will receive a
coupon code for 50% off all seyDesign themes
until February 15th, and current subscribers
will receive 20% off all seyDesign themes.
Current subscribers can find the coupon code
in the members’ area of RapidWeaver
Classroom. Thanks to Adam Merrifield at
seyDesign for partnering with us for this
promotion!
At some point in recent weeks RapidWeaver
Classroom passed a major milestone of over 100
RapidWeaver screencasts! There is now over 14
hours of RapidWeaver video tutorials available!
Still, there is much left to be done and 2009
promises to be HUGE as there are plans to produce
another 100 screencasts by the end of the year,
and hopefully much more.
So as always, drop by the blog here once a week
or so to stay updated with the latest, or check
out the Curriculum page to
see what’s new!
I am happy to announce the addition of free
tutorials in the iWeb to
RapidWeaver section of the website,
which has been created recently to help iWeb
users transition from iWeb to RapidWeaver.
These iWeb to RapidWeaver tutorials will
cover some of the basic steps that are
recommended in order to rebuild an iWeb
website in RapidWeaver. There are currently
3 video tutorials available, with a couple
of additional ones to come soon. These free
tutorials are hosted using the Viddler
service, and the high-quality versions will
soon be made available to subscribers in the
members’ area of RapidWeaver Classroom.
I have released a new tutorial for RapidWeaver
Classroom subscribers covering Shadowbox with
video. Shadowbox is a javascript box that is
similar to the Greybox that has already been
covered here, but it provides a bit of a
different visual effect and it is increasing in
popularity as a method of displaying video. In
addition to the video tutorial I have provided
the necessary Shadowbox files for download, along
with a set of snippets to simplify the setup.
More screencasts are coming soon, including
coverage of the new GoogaLoom plugin. Stay tuned!
Three new screencasts covering the Collage 2
plugin have been added to the members’ area of
RapidWeaver Classroom. Collage 2 is a fantastic
plugin from YourHead Software that is exclusive
to RapidWeaver 4.0, while the original Collage
plugin is still available for RapidWeaver 3.6 and
earlier. Collage 2 has a multitude of uses, so
check-out the Collage 2 screencasts
to learn more!
I have published one more screencast for the
PayLoom plugin that shows an example of how
multiple PayLoom pages can be used in a project
to sell multiple categories of items. It also
shows a working, online example of PayLoom pages
and their interaction with PayPal for shopping
cart and checkout functionality.
Look for Collage 2 screencasts to begin appearing
next week!
Hot on the heels of our
Greybox tutorial comes two new screencasts
covering the PayLoom plugin. PayLoom lets you
easily create an e-commerce store on your website
that integrates with PayPal. You really can’t ask
for a simpler way to add products for sale to
your website. One more PayLoom screencast will be
added soon.
You will also notice the Collage 2 logo has been
added under the 3rd-party plugins section. This
plugin will be covered next, so keep an eye out
for more information!
A new set of RapidWeaver
screencasts are being added to the
Continuing Education section, covering the
popular javascript boxes: Greybox, Lightbox
and Shadowbox. These javascript boxes are
very trendy at the moment and add an
impressive feature to your website. Whether
you want to display images, video or other
webpages, these video tutorials will take
you through the process. It’s a bit more
advanced than prior lessons, so along with
the screencasts I will be providing snippets
for download along with each tutorial.
The first screencast for this topic is now
available, covering how to show a video in a
Greybox, and more will be released in the coming
days. Also watch for a screencast or two covering
the PayLoom plugin.
A second screencast has been added on using an
FTP application to manage your website assets as
an alternative to RapidWeaver’s built-in Assets
panel. It is a brief tutorial that will be
beneficial to those building websites with many
assets, such as audio and video files.
I’ve also updated the Curriculum page and
the Members’ area with estimated viewing
times for each lesson. You can find those
estimates below the title for each separate
lesson, and eventually I plan to include the
running times for each individual
screencast.
Keep an eye out for new plugin tutorials and
screencasts covering more 3rd-party themes!
A while has passed since the last video tutorial
update, but today brings a new release with many
more to follow soon. The latest release is a part
of the “Continuing Education” series, and it
covers the topic of using an FTP application to
publish your RapidWeaver-created website. I
consider using an FTP application to be an
important part of the website publishing process,
and it helps with managing and troubleshooting a
website. At least one more screencast will be
added to this topic in the coming days, so check
back soon.
In addition to these new tutorials, more
3rd-party plugin tutorials will be appearing in
the near future, so keep an eye out for more
details!
New video tutorials on working with tables in
RapidWeaver have been produced and are now
available to subscribers. There are currently
three videos on the topic that cover different
methods of building or placing tables into a
website designed with RapidWeaver. This is the
first of many lessons to come that fall under the
category of “Continuing Education” -- these will
be tutorials on various topics that RapidWeaver
users should find useful.
Production of 3rd-party plugin tutorials will
continue, but I will be going back and forth
between these various topics and the lessons
covering plugins. Stay tuned for more to come!
I worked extra hard today and completed the
remainder of the PlusKit screencasts. There are a
total of 8 video tutorials and they are all
available to RapidWeaver Classroom subscribers.
So what’s next? Well, I have some ideas that I’ll
be tossing around and I expect that some new
tutorials will start appearing late this week or
early next week. There’s much more to cover!
I’ve added two more PlusKit tutorials to the
subscribers’ area today. One covers the Backups
feature of PlusKit, allowing you to create
incremental backups of your project as you save
and make changes. The other is a big one, and
probably the most popular feature of PlusKit --
importing pages. If you’re not sure that PlusKit
is for you, make sure and check out the Importing
Pages screencast!
The remainder of the PlusKit screencasts will be
made available early next week. Everyone have a
great weekend!
PlusKit screencasts are now in production and the
first two have been made available online to
RapidWeaver Classroom subscribers. These first
video tutorials cover the Lightbox and Fancy Zoom
features of PlusKit, which provide a very cool
way of displaying full-size images -- perfect for
a website photo gallery. These can be added with
some advanced coding with javascript, but PlusKit
makes it simple to add this effect to any or all
of website’s images.
The full curriculum for PlusKit has been added to
the website, and the rest of these screencasts
will be appearing tomorrow and early next week.
Of course I will post another update here as soon
as more tutorials are online!
RapidWeaver Classroom subscribers can expect the
next round of plugin tutorials to be made
available soon. The next plugin to be covered is
PlusKit from Loghound. PlusKit is a
very useful and powerful plugin, and I’ll
make sure that you learn how to use it!
Watch for these tutorials in the coming
days...
I have released some free RapidWeaver video
tutorials for visitors to view without a
subscription to RapidWeaver Classroom. Now
that the video training
library has been built-up with over 10
hours of video tutorials, I felt it was time
to share some of the resources with the
entire RapidWeaver community. These free
tutorials can be found linked throughout the
Curriculum page, and
as more tutorials are produced I will make
more of these screencasts available for
free.
These free RapidWeaver video tutorials are
streamed using the Viddler service and are at a
lower resolution than the video tutorials
available to RapidWeaver Classroom subscribers,
so subscribers will want to login to the site and
view the high-resolution versions in the
subscribers’ area.
All of the Blocks plugin tutorials are now
complete and available to RapidWeaver Classroom
subscribers. There are a total of nine tutorials
detailing all the features of Blocks. It is an
outstanding plugin and I encourage all
subscribers to go through these to see the
potential of what can be achieved with Blocks.
More 3rd-party plugins will be produced soon and
an announcement will be made in the coming days
on what the next plugin will be. As always, check
back often for updated information.
Three more Blocks plugin
tutorials have been made available to
RapidWeaver Classroom subscribers. These
tutorials cover some of the different types
of blocks that can be added with the plugin.
The goal was to have all Blocks tutorials
complete by the end of the week, but I didn’t
take into account that Friday is July 4th
(Independence Day), so I will try and have as
many as possible available by the end of tomorrow
-- it may not be all of them, but it should come
close!
RapidWeaver Classroom’s coverage of 3rd-party
plugins begins with the Blocks plugin from
YourHead Software, and
the first video tutorials for Blocks are now
available to subscribers. There are three
tutorials to get you started, and the
remainder will be released by the end of
this week. For those of you who have not
used the Blocks plugin, you’ll quickly see
why it is a favorite amongst the RapidWeaver
community!
Production of video tutorials for
3rd-party RapidWeaver plugins has begun
and subscribers now have access to two new
tutorials that provide an introduction to
3rd-party plugins in RapidWeaver. The Blocks
plugin from YourHead Software will be
the first plugin covered, and those
tutorials will appear over the course of the
next week. A listing of those coming
tutorials will be made available soon -- I
have currently decided on ten inidividual
video tutorials, but that number could
potentally increase, so you can be
guaranteed there will be a lot of
information on this outstanding plugin!
Lesson 2 for RapidWeaver 4.0 is now complete,
consisting of four video tutorials covering the
updated features in the new version. This
completes the tutorials that are needed to cover
Rapidweaver 4.0, the remainder of the tutorials
for version 3.6 will also apply to version 4.0.
You may have also noticed that the BlocksBox
tutorials I put together for Jonas Themes are now
included in the subscribers’ area. Those of
you interested in designing your own theme
might want to consider the BlocksBox theme
in combination with the excellent Blocks
plugin from YourHead Software.
Speaking of the Blocks plugin, I will begin
producing video tutorials for the available
3rd-party plugins, and Blocks is first on the
list. Stay tuned for more info on this soon!
Lesson 1 for RapidWeaver 4 is now available to
RapidWeaver Classroom subscribers. This lesson
covers all the basics of the software and covers
the updated interface. There will be a few more
videos in the coming days covering the new
features with this version, and then it’s on to
3rd-party plugins!
Production of the RapidWeaver 4.0 video
tutorials is underway and I’ve posted
several of the Lesson 1 videos to the
subscribers’ area already. The remaining
tutorials for version 4.0 will be made
available early next week.
Following the release of the RapidWeaver 4.0
tutorials, I will begin the extensive task of
covering the 3rd-party plugins. So there is much,
much, much more to come!
Lesson 7 is now complete and available to
RapidWeaver Classroom subscribers. These five
tutorials will provide you with the knowledge
that is necessary to understand how theme
modifications can be made to further customize
your website. The completion of Lesson 7 should
bring you to a point where you understand the
functions and structure of RapidWeaver, its
plugins and themes, in order to successfully
create a complete website with RapidWeaver. The
learning doesn’t end there, though! I plan to
cover all 3rd-party plugins, which further extend
the capabilities of RapidWeaver and offer some
very useful, unique and impressive functions for
your website.
So what’s next? Well, you may have heard about a
little something called RapidWeaver 4.0.
RapidWeaver Classroom will bring version 4.0
users up-to-speed with what’s new in the latest
version of our favorite application. Not every
part of the application has been changed, though,
so many of the current 3.6 tutorials will be
still be completely relevant for version 4.0
users. Instead of re-doing all seven lessons with
RapidWeaver 4.0, I will be covering all the
changes that have been made to the application,
and then move on to tutorials for the 3rd-party
plugins.
The first three tutorials in Lesson 7 have been
published and are available to subscribers.
Lesson 7 covers the modification of themes in
RapidWeaver, and delves into much more advanced
areas such as CSS and HTML modification.
There are entire books and websites dedicated to
CSS and HTML, so while I can’t cover it all my
hope is to get you familiar with the file
structure of the RapidWeaver themes and give you
a peek inside the stylesheets and HTML documents
to start understanding how things work.
I encourage any of you who are making custom
modifications to give it a good shot -- trial and
error is a great way to learn. If you aren’t
having success then the RapidWeaver
Support Forums is a great resource with
many helpful people. Of course, my
one-on-one RapidWeaver
Consulting and Training is also
available to anyone who would like personal
assistance.
Lesson 6 is now complete and available to
subscribers, covering some advanced features
offered in RapidWeaver. This concludes what are
considered the "core lessons" -- but many more
tutorials will be coming soon, including RapidWeaver
4 video tutorials. Lesson 7 will also be
coming in the near future, and then the
focus will begin on 3rd-party plugins, so
there is much, much, much, much more to
come!
Hope all of our U.S. subscribers had a great
Memorial Day! I spent most of mine playing
catch-up after being away last week. I've
produced all the video tutorials for Lesson 5 and
they are now available online to subscribers.
This lesson takes you through the process of
building a website from start to finish and
basically summarizes all the previous lessons to
this point, as well as incorporating a lot of new
information as well. Lesson 6 will be coming
along in the next couple of days as well, so
things are back in full swing around here!
I've put together a couple of video tutorials for
the amazing BlocksBox theme from Jonas Themes, and a
few more will be available soon. These
videos can currently be viewed here, and in the
future I will add them in the
high-resolution version to subscribers of
RapidWeaver Classroom.
Lesson 4 is now complete and available to
subscribers. This lesson consists of 6 videos
which cover the more advanced functions of
editing content through RapidWeaver's Format
menu.
Lesson 5 is next and things will start to get
really fun! I'll be going from start to finish
with a website, from preparation to publishing
and covering most all the necessary areas of
RapidWeaver with a real project.
It's an exciting day in the RapidWeaver Community
as RapidWeaver 4.0 has been released! I'll be
working hard to produce brand-new RapidWeaver 4.0 video
tutorials for all of our subscribers who
are upgrading. RapidWeaver 4.0 introduces an
entirely redesigned user interface, and the
majority of the new videos will focus on
getting you acquainted with this redesign.
There are also some new features that will
be covered as well.
All that being said, a majority of the existing
RapidWeaver video
tutorials are full of information that
is relevant to the new version as well.
Since version 4.0 is Leopard-only, it's
important to me to support both 3.6 and 4.0
users with the tutorials, so be on the
look-out for new 4.0 tutorials coming soon!
Lesson 2 is now complete in its entirety and
available for viewing in the members' section.
The Blog and Photo Album pages are very
feature-rich, so the length of those videos is a
bit longer than normal as I wanted to cover all
the important aspects of these pages.
Lesson 3 will be coming soon and that will cover
some really important information on styling the
theme itself to give your website a more
customized look and feel. Keep track with the
progress here and more info on Lesson 3 will be
made available in the coming days!
Videos for Lesson 2, RapidWeaver Page Types, are
becoming available in the members section of the
site. Roughly half of this lesson will be
available by the end of the day, with the rest
going online tomorrow -- then on to Lesson 3!
Welcome to all of you who have already registered for the
video tutorials. The
special 60-day offer will last a little
while longer, but don't hold-out too long if
you haven't yet registered!
