RapidWeaver 7 is now available to help you design and code beautiful websites

Realmac Software has announced that RapidWeaver 7.0 is now available for Mac, introducing a bunch of new features and improvements to make your lives that little bit easier when building websites. We're looking at an overhauled FTP engine, built-in web server to preview websites, analysis for search engine optimization, new themes, and more.

Here's a full run down of all the things that are new in 7.0:

  • Overhauled FTP Engine Super fast, super reliable FTP Engine (No, really it is this time!)
  • FTP Path Browser: You can now visually browse your FTP server to pick a location to publish too!
  • Built-in Web Server: Allows you to preview your entire site locally in a browser without having to export it
  • SEO Health Check: RapidWeaver will analyse your site and will highlight steps you can take to improve SEO.
  • Banner Images: In themes that support this new feature, you can now add a custom banner image to your site, and customise it on each page. Themes that support this feature also include optimal image dimensions to help you size images.
  • 4 Responsive New Themes: Designed by Realmac, Elixir Graphics, MultiThemes, and Yuzool!
  • New, modern OS X sidebar: with translucency, that shows all your pages, resources and settings in one location.
  • Portable Documents: You can now choose to store resources inside your RapidWeaver document, enabling you to take the project between multiple Macs.
  • Multiple Publishing Locations: If you need to publish projects to multiple locations, you can set these up in your project, and choose the server when publishing. RapidWeaver's smart publishing will also keep track of changes across multiple publishing locations.
  • Local Publishing: The "Export" feature is something we've always felt should be considered a way of publishing your site, and now it is!
  • Project Backup: RapidWeaver can optionally create a ZIP file of your project, and upload it to your server when publishing. The file is added to a "secret" location on your server, meaning that while it is downloadable by anyone who knows the cryptic web address, it's tricky to guess that web address.
  • User-selectable Addons Folder: need to save your addons in a custom location? RapidWeaver 7 allows you to do this, and will move your addons for you! Great if you're working between machines.
  • Minified Javascript and CSS: RapidWeaver can now optimise your CSS and Javascript by minifying it. Previously, RapidWeaver would remove some whitespace, but this time we're actually optimising it to be as quick to download and apply to your pages as possible.

You can purchase RapidWeaver 7.0 from the official website. The software costs $99 for 2 Mac installs, $189 for 5, or $59 if you're upgrading. A free trial is available for those who wish to give RapidWeaver a go before parting with cash. Do note that OS X 10.11 El Capitan or newer is required.

Rich Edmonds