Getting One’s Kit Off For The Weavers

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Here at RapidWeaver Central we’ve been getting all hot and steamy, down and dirty over Lucas’s UIKit 3 For RapidWeaver.


Lucas, of course, has been around a long time — in the guise of Archetypon and Weavers Kingdom — developing beautifully minimalistic themes for photographers and creatives, as well as a number of very cool stacks.

But it’s his latest and most adventurous project — UIKit 3 — that’s beginning to garner the attention and recognition it seriously deserves.

And of course it’s all Steve B’s fault — at least here on the forum where he’s reknown for his diplomacy and understated discourse — because with a slackwater schedule and the need to find a framework that would speed up his design process, he selflessly volunteered to scout the potential of UIKit 3 on our behalf. And with no thought for his own safety, Steve set out to explore what has lately become a myth of legendary proportions… but more on Tav’s sex-life later. What Steve discovered about UIKit 3, blew him away.

Unfortunately, not far enough. He returned to the forum with excited reports of strange sightings and wild encounters with exotic artefacts that we mere mortals simply could not believe.

So Many Questions


Tuesday, in search of answers, we invited Lucas to come along to our Workshop East session to give a presentation of his UIKit 3. He was gracious and he obliged. And two hours later at the end of his ordeal — by which time our ravenous pack of regular attendees had run out of questions — he was exhausted.

But here’s the thing that impressed us most: every time we asked him, ‘Can it do this?’ or ‘Can it do that?’, he’d look at us like we’d just arrived from a rather dim planet and say, ‘Yes. Of course.’

It seemed as though everything we wanted a framework to do, UIKit 3 did.

The Biting of the Bullet


So we bit the bullet and did what no sane developer has done before — we invited Steve B to participate in our Workshop West show the very next day.

Sadly, he did.

And it was another resounding success.

We at RapidWeaver Central are sold. Completely. A couple of us who were determined not to buy another framework, bought another framework.

Personally, I believe there are many reasons why — the sum of all its modular parts being one — but there still remains one incomparable factor that rules them all.

Speed Kills.


In RapidWeaving terms, the edit-to-preview speed kills productivity. It chips away a million times a day at a weaver’s will to procreate.

Why does a preview take so long? In one word — options.

Smart developers listen to Isaiah (and Tav) and minimise the number of options a stack has to load. Because each option adds to the preview time.

At least, that’s my understanding. It’s very simplistic, so hopefully those who know more will join the discourse and add some more meaningful detail.

In the meantime, though, I have a point to make. Again.

Speed Kills.


The speed of preview in UIKit 3 kills other frameworks dead.

And that kind of speed doesn’t just kill, it’s addictive, and very hard to live without. Returning to other RapidWeaver frameworks after using UIKit 3 is like voting Brexit or taking two steps back: you can feel your frustration building as previews crawl on shattered knees through the ruins of your zone.

Need More Speed?


If so, then you’ll be interested in the first of Steve B’s UIKitter themes, Skyline, which is guaranteed to get your kit off and speed up your design process.

In fact, if you want to find out more about UIKit 3 and Skyline — as well as qualify for a nice juicy discount — join our ‘show’ next Wednesday when Steve will be giving us all a live run-through.

Time To Shake The Habit


But that’s not all — we’re going to focus on the need for speed for the rest of this month.

On Tuesday 23rd we’re going to welcome Shaking The Habitual’s Stuart Marshall to the show to give us a preview of his own skeletal Source framework, which he’ll also be releasing this month. Top of the list of topics we’ll be discussing? Speed.

And Finally…


Finally on August 6th we’ll be doing another live session with Lucas where you can meet the developer and get a really comprehensive overview and insight into UIKit 3. There may also be a discount code for attendees, but don’t tell anyone.

Register for Tuesdays here: https://zoom.us/meeting/register/1e92a903c10a647166858a512be5123a

Register for Wednesdays here: https://zoom.us/meeting/register/a4b89a131841134ddc2040ba88984b7b

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Hey Marten was a pleasure to participate in the webinar, thanks for inviting me. I was exhausted at the end but really enjoyed it. And thank you for all the nice words about my work as well, you’re a gentleman.

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@Marten Is it possible to record and share these sessions. I’d love to watch both but the dates/times don’t work for me at all. I know with Zoom you can record meetings. These sound like fantastic sessions. Thanks!

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Yes, please!

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Hello, Steve B here, in my alter-ego superhero persona, UiKitter.

My first project is “soft launched”, by that, I mean it’s out there, but I’m not shouting about it too much, as this is the first time I’ve made a project available for sale, so I want to keep things slow and quiet until I’ve ironed out any creases in how I’m distributing it.

It’s available to buy though, so feel free :-) Although, as Marten says, I will be making a discount voucher available to those at the Wednesday session, so best to get along to that and save some squid.

Skyline started as an exercise for me to learn UIkit3, which then morphed into Skyline. It’s not so much a ready-made website project, to which you can throw your content and publish, it’s more a collection of pages and ideas to explore the things you can do with UIkit3. You can, of course, pull out individual pages from the project to duplicate into a full website, but I’ve mostly focussed on “content sections”, which cover standard requirements. The idea being you can lift these sections and use on your sites.

On Wed I’ll go over the ideas behind these sections, how I’ve used custom classes to customise UIkit3 and as someone who uses RW to make commercial websites for clients, why I now won’t use anything other than UIkit3 (Spoiler: It’s fast, really fast!).

I will also give a sneak peek at my next UIkit3 project: OnePage, which will be a complete “website-in-a-project” solution, which you can use in its entirety to quickly deploy a stylish scrolling one-page UIkit powered website.

So, see you all on Wednesday, and in the meantime…

KEEP KITTING!

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Hi @mitchellm , @Fuellemann

Unlike lesser webinar sessions where quantity often impacts quality, ours are indeed quite small and fun. Although they can be easily recorded they’re not like Joe’s conference webinars where one person talks and everyone listens. They’re much more freeform and personal — and as such are often both childish and adult in humour, content and language. In fact I’m sure you’d love them!

However, since they’re not suitable for those who are easily offended or take themselves too seriously — and because the content is sometimes personal — I’ll respect everyone’s privacy and not make them available for broadcast.

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@Marten That’s too bad they can’t be shared, but I can certainly understand your reasons for not doing so. Thanks for the explanation.

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Damn! You´ve nailed it!
I already bought platform recently and haven´t found the time to explore it at all until today.
(not to mention that I haven´t joined a zoom meeting for far too long although I would like to, need to finish my own website, clean up the garden, go to sleep early… etc.)

and now: another framework that sounds just too interesting…
is there any discount/promo un UIKit as well? I am desperately searching for justification to buy another framwork :D

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Ha! Totally feel your frustration! @Papart Mike, I started on Foundry (great by the way but limited) and then bought Platform because it was on offer but haven’t used it yet… Mainly because I was intrigued by UIKit and the more I read the more it sounded great. I bought it and never looked back! Just get it. It will save you money in saved time pretty damn quick imho. There’s a learning curve, but once it clicks it’s big cheesy grin time all the way!

Ironically, when I was first investgating Rapidweaver a month or so ago, UIKit was the first ‘framework’ I saw and probably what pushed my away from the other apps. I got a bit scared off at first as it looked too complicated… However its really not. Wish I’d bought it at the start!

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@Papart
I understand there will be a discount code available to those who are willing neglect their websites, spouses and gardens in order to attend the zoom session where @Lucas will give another exhaustive presentation and answer questions.

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@Marten: Guess what – I will be on vacation next week and most likely will not make to visit the session (again). Which is weird, because usually I miss it due to workload- not due to vacation. ;)

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@Papart

No worries — @Lucas 's session will be held on Tuesday 6th August… so plenty of time to get your excuses in order!

Next week 's Wednesday session will be when @TemplateRepo 's @steveb gives us a run-down of his latest project, as well as a sizable discount.

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Ah ok, august. the month following July. think, got it now! :)

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I’m confused. If I click on the Tuesday Link it comes up Jul 16th at 8:00 am (London). If I change the date to August 6th It still shows 8:00 am London time. That’s Midnight (12:00 am) on the West Coast of the US.

Is there going to be a Session on Wed the 7th of August at 5:00 pm London (9:00 am PDT) with @Lucas?

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Hi @Teefers

Tuesdays we have our Workshop East sessions — from 8am - 10am (GMT) — which cater for our Asian and Australasian users, as well as early risers in Africa, Europe and the Middle East.

Wednesdays we have our Workshop West sessions — from 5pm - 7pm (GMT) — which cater mostly for Western users.

As far as I’m aware, no. However, if there’s a groundswell of interest registered here, we’ll certainly raise the possibility.

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Upon the recommendation of a certain Steve (forgot his last name) I purchased Platform…
… when it came to writing a review, I (IMHO) found it to be well, let’s say “Lacking”, so rather than write a negative review I deleted the sad affair.

Now that same guy is recommending yet another piece of kit that’s going to eat into my very limited financial resources.
I’m more than reluctant to commit to waste dollars that I don’t have on yet another framework (I already have so many that have morphed into resource-eating behemoths), so I shall do my damndest to attend one of the upcoming UKit sessions to get an impression of the necessity of spending yet more $$$s.

WHY?? RW needs more support from developers who’s aim it is to improve overall performance and less support from devs that think that grabbing a scrap of freebie code from the net and morphing it into a stack is the Bee’s Knees, or as that Steve-guy would say, “the dog’s bollocks”. So if the Archetypon, no! what’s it called now?? something with ‘Kingdom’; well, if their kit’s any good, you can expect a review soon…

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Did I recommend it? Did I? ;-)

I did say positive things about it I know, and that was based on the loosest play with it. And I did too find limitations when I started to try to build a project with it. So ya, I take that one on the chin, hands up. I stand over some of what I recall I said about Platform, but I did offer opinions before really digging too deep though, so your criticisms are just.

But, I don’t recommend anyone as to how to spend their money, I just give my opinion and experience, it’s up to the individual to do their own research and make their own buying decisions.

:-)

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If your resources are that limited why did you buy something based on someones recommendation instead of using that as a guide and doing your own research?? Jeez I hear advertisers on TV recommending I buy stuff all the time but I’d be a bit silly if I went out and did that without finding out if I really needed a new kind of hair conditioner with new made-up-o-balls in it… (especially as I don’t have any hair left!)

Its not a certain Steve’s fault you messed up.

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No, not Steve’s fault that I fell for the hype — he even publically apologised.
Fact is that I have a great deal of respect for the guys and gals that post on this forum and don’t get the impression that they’re selling hair products!

Maybe you could read to the end of my post…

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@rob, I’m teasing Rob… You did sound a bit accusatory (if that’s a word) to me anyway… I’m certainly not criticising you as I myself have spent a small fortune on stacks and now that i have UIKit I hardly use them! Including Platform I might add.

I did read the end of your post but I miss-understood you to be referring to the devs for packaging up free existing script into stacks… Sorry about that… Still, it makes it easier for me to use if they keep doing that :-)

No hard feelings…