Realmac Software released RapidWeaver 3.6.0 today. RapidWeaver is just as it sounds: a quick way to make great web sites. I've been beta testing it for a while, and publishing this site with it for as long as it has been stable.

For a quick look at what it does and how it does it, see the intro video and quick-start guide on the tour page. The quick-start shows how to create a blog in five minutes. It really is that quick. Customization is possible both through the RapidWeaver interface and by adding and editing HTML, PHP, and CSS. But there is no need to get embroiled in the details if you don't want to. There are plenty of low-cost themes and plug-ins available.

Tags: RapidWeaver, Blogging, Web Tools, Software, Interesting Stuff

This is really neat. John Hoogstrate has created a PHP-based system for browsing, filtering, and viewing Aperture libraries with a web browser called PHPture. It's open source and available at Source Forge . It uses SQLite to access the Aperture database and makes use of the high-resolution previews feature of Aperture 1.5 to display the images. It only ever reads the database so should be completely safe. Installation is not trivial since it needs PHP 5.

The design is very Aperture-like as you can see from the screen shot. An obvious application for this is when you have a number of people who need to be able to browse a library. Share it on the network or your machine and point PHPture at it. Multiple copies of Aperture are not needed.

It *does* need a new name though.

Tags: Aperture, Web Tools, Library, Interesting Stuff

The application that I use to create and publish this site is called RapidWeaver, currently at 3.5.1; but there is a new version on the way. I have been testing a beta of RapidWeaver 3.6 and it is looking pretty good. It's stable enough that I use it to publish now. My site is large, and I am running into problems with the current version because of its wasteful use of memory during export. 3.6 fixes that, so my workflow is to create in 3.5.1, save, and then publish using the 3.6 beta.

I use RapidWeaver because it is just so darn easy to use. I only have to touch HTML and CSS if I want to. Site templates are plentiful and low cost and available from a number of third parties. And there is a developer SDK that lets third parties write plug-ins. The only problems I have are self-imposed: my site has 130 pages or so -- and those are actual pages, not the automatically-generated ones line the permalinks. My home page has more than 450 articles. There are at least 500 images in the Aperture section alone, so probably close to 1000 in total now.

But RapidWeaver is keeping up. Not bad for a piece of software that costs $40 and has had free updates for at least a year and a half. I'm eagerly awaiting the release of 3.6. I know what is in it, but you'll have to wait to find out.

[Update: The Realmac Software blog page is now (2007-05-02) starting to reveal some of the new features]

Tags: RapidWeaver, Blogging, Web Tools, Interesting Stuff