Overview of New Updates A new tutorial covering the RapidSearch Pro Plugin and a "How to..." tutorial on creating a mySQL database are now available to Classroom subscribers.

Instructions for Classroom Subscribers Login here to access your account, then navigate to the Classroom curriculum and click on the Latest Updates button for direct links to these new tutorials. I have made some changes to membership area this week that should improve the experience of browsing the sections of tutorials, and more improvements are planned in the coming weeks.

Details of New Updates The RapidSearch Pro Plugin from Nimblehost makes it possible to provide a search feature on your website that embeds the results directly into your website without the use of a 3rd-party search service such as Google. It is an excellent solution for large websites, or for websites that sell products. The plugin includes a web-based administration area that allows you to handle which pages of your website are indexed, and it also provides statistics about how your visitors are searching your website. This can be very helpful information for determining what your visitors are interested in. RapidSearch Pro does require the installation of a mySQL database on your server, which leads us to the other new tutorial for this week.

The new "How to... Create a mySQL Database" tutorial will walk you through the steps of creating a mySQL database on your web hosting server. This is becoming a more important topic to understand as more RapidWeaver add-ons integrate with databases. RapidSearch Pro requires a database, as does the WP-Blog Plugin that integrates a WordPress blog, and the BackSnap Stack that I will have a tutorial for next week.

The RapidSearch Pro tutorial can be found in the Add-Ons > Miscellaneous section of the tutorials, while the Create a mySQL Database tutorial is located in the Continuing Education > How to... section.

Also, I have made a few other updates to the Classroom membership area. You will now find a "Featured Tutorials" section on the Home page, and I've adjusted the styling of some elements throughout the tutorial sections, which I hope will improve the user experience as you navigate through the different tutorials. I have also been working to implement RapidSearch Pro in the membership area as another method of finding tutorials, but some hurdles related to the protection of the content has prevented that from being successful so far. I do hope to have this working relatively soon, but for the time being you can use your browser's Find function (CMD+F) on the Browse All page to search for tutorials.

In Case You Missed It (Recent Updates) A series of 14 new tutorials covering the Stacks 2.5 plugin were released in the first half of March. I highly recommend these new tutorials for every RapidWeaver user! Click here to learn more about these Stacks 2.5 tutorials.

The past couple of months have brought a number of other new tutorials: one covering the customization of banners or slideshows in the header of 3rd-party RapidWeaver themes, another discussing a method of embedding responsive YouTube videos, and there have been many new Stack Elements tutorials covering the PaySnap, MapSnap and DateSnap Stacks from Yabdab, the Content Fader Stack from DK Stacks, the PlayListr Stack from StackManiac, and the Jack Stack from Joe Workman. Another "How to..." tutorial on replacing an existing website was also added to the curriculum last week.

Coming Soon (Future Updates) Check back next week for a tutorial covering the BackSnap Stack from Yabdab, and a tutorial covering more advanced usage of the RapidSearch Pro plugin.

Thanks for your support!