They said they would continue to develop new features. What new features do you use everyday that justify the pricing model and the approximately 62% price increase?
Fool me once shame on you. Full me twice shame on me. I never bought RW9 because nothing was new. I still won’t because nothing is new.
However, even if there was new stuff I still wouldn’t upgrade. Over the years RW has become a sloppy bug ridden app, run by a shrewd but untrustworthy owner. Very sad.
I’m done.
Still not sure about StacksPro. I will probably kick the tires on StacksPro in beta or trial release but no promises on the future. I’m not sure I even want to deal with any of this noise.
My point being that they said they wouldn’t go down that route. Whether you think it’s not too bad is irrelevant: it’s about trust.
And they’re not offering enough as a product to compete with other subscriptions. Let’s face it; without stacks, it’s garbage.
My site is in Foundation 1 and uses Go CMS. It works, but needs a refresh. I don’t trust Realmac.
I don’t want to jump ship, but StacksApp is going to die a quick death if it doesn’t get the very good marketing done VERY quickly. I realise that might upset some people and that’s not my intention, but that’s the way I see things as they stand.
Sadly, it’s never really offered anything other than a host for Stacks. I can see why they wan to rectify that, but I think they ought to have done something with the blog and e commerce to be truly useful.
Many of my clients prioritize the ability to log in and edit content effortlessly over the technology or costs of integrating a robust CMS. I typically use Total CMS, a tool that I find reliable and user-friendly. While I love the product, it shares a limitation with RapidWeaver in that clients can’t edit directly on the page; they must navigate to an admin page, something very few prefer.
I’ve refrained from switching to WordPress, finding it more challenging to work with and concerned about its history of being hacked. If Elements introduces an on-screen CMS similar to WordPress and beats StacksApp to market, I would consider it. However, I’d do so with careful consideration, as my favorite theme (platform?) isn’t following. Foundry (which I also own), however, is. I don’t know about Source, which I’ve also built a couple of sites in.
But, given RapidWeaver’s track record with new features, my strong suspicion is that I will remain a satisfied Foundation 6 customer for the foreseeable future, happily using TCMS 3. This aligns with my preference and seems to be the most likely scenario based on current offerings and demands.
I agree that it’s not the worst subscription model, at least things keep working after your subscription ends. But the cost of the same seems a bit odd, if you are paying for support and minor upgrades to an existing version the cost is usually less than the initial cost of the software itself.
Exactly, there was the hype of exciting new features etc. but lots of new features (sorry but a badge feature is not worth it) never appeared.
The whole thing is a mess and the approach has been far from professional.
That’s awesome news, Jannis! In that case, several factors come into play: the timing of product releases and the included features (or their absence). It’s also important to take into account the PR approach of StacksPro (if they are second to market) - there seems to have been little movement recently, at least publicly. I don’t frequently engage with Discord due to the reasons mentioned previously in other threads. Interestingly, upon logging in, (unless I’m doing something wrong) I noticed that the most recent post was over 30 days old. Additionally, I’ve been unable to follow the developer’s Twitter updates for quite some time.
Despite their abysmal PR, Realmac are getting out there with the marketing. Anyone not on this forum will likely go with Elements if they stick with this ecosystem.
@joeworkman of all the developers, you appear to be the best at marketing. I think you need to help Isiah up his game in this respect or it’s game over before it starts :-(
I don’t have a crystal ball and obviously I can’t say if Rapidweaver Elements will be out before StacksPro the app. But this is what I have observed.
RWE, is not very close to being released. Judging by the demo videos, there are a ton of “features“ that Dan has discussed that so far, he refuses to show. He admits that they are not ready to be shown. StacksPro at this point has a goal of shipping a beta before the end of the year, but that’s all we know.
RWE has the advantage of a long history due to its predecessor. So, even though the brand is tainted, the brand exists.
Stacks as the plug-in has a good brand. StacksPro on the other hand, is completely unknown. The good news is, the CEO and the head of public relations does not have to repair any damage to speak of.
I agree, completely, marketing department needs to start building the hype. It doesn’t have to be feature specific, it just needs to be specific about what the App can do for its potential customer base. And then get that information out to everywhere!
I agree. From the stage that Elements is being publicly shown now, Elements is a very long way off. E.g. the organisation of stacks should have been defined long before the original announcement 17 months ago when it was alledged to be “weeks away” from demonstrating. There are plenty of other apps for RM to copy, so why allude to involving Weavers in the process.
The right developer would get this sorted in a matter of days and Norm who develops Blocs App, is a good example with his weekly releases of Blocs showing this kind of progress.
Showing a carefully crafted video of Elements displaying a list of stacks frameworks, was an absolute low point IMHO and quite misleading. RM already let slip that they converted all of the Foundry stacks without asking Elixir, and then they show an old version of Source in the list of “Elements” frameworks in the video. When Elements was announced, Source like all other good frameworks and stacks have been encrypted to stop the stacks to Elements conversion. RM knows this and so the smoke and mirrors continue.
I wouldn’t say StacksPro is unknown. The vast majority of Stacks users know overall, how StacksPro will work and that it will be compatible with 100% of the 5000+ available stacks. We know exactly what StacksPro will say on the tin. Isaia’s style is confortingly, the opposite of RM’s approach and StacksPro will be an honest, tested and working product that will do exactly what it says on the tin. The stacks brains’ trust is firmly behind StacksPro and their beta testingand input will quickly get StacksPro to a quicker release.
We don’t even know what Elements will say on the tin or whether it will even have a tin. Based on what is being shown publicly, they are still working on the tin.
“The brand is tainted” for only a small subset of users though - keep in mind that this forum mostly has similar minded users and can act like an echo chamber. No flame intended - just making sure you realise there is a bubble that all of this discussion takes place in.
My guess is that 90%+ of the RapidWeaver users don’t even realise that the Stacks <> RapidWeaver split is going on, don’t care, or don’t even use Stacks. They’re RapidWeaver users and Elements is the new RapidWeaver. And Elements offers some cool new features if you look at it from that frame of reference.
StacksPro has to make sure its user base at least stays the same, and preferably of course grows. This means that Yourhead needs to promote it, making sure that StacksPro is known amongst other users than the likes of RW4All users.
This is going to be key. Everyone has a list, Isaiah has the largest. I’m just saying work on what you will say so that when the beta is released we can start building the brand and get a cash flow again.
I disagree that the community knows what the tin will say. It needs to do more than run stacks, it now needs to replace RW and do other things to distinguish it from the competitors.
A common Dash Board for global css selectors, style sheets, sub-style sheets that can be mixed to build larger ones, the ability to save and export themes and even individual pages like, tier 1, tier 2, tier 3.
EDIT: better support for global navigation and TOC navigation and multiple navigation, absolutely semantic HTML and CSS, fully Accessibility built into every component.
I’m not sure about its own CSS library but maybe. Don’t want to make StacksPro a competitor to the very developers that made Stacks Plug-in what it is.
However, some potentially new developers may want to build themes and style sheets that can be sold without building a whole framework. Designers can create and keep their own libraries based on the internal CSS framework.
However, this is ultimately just an advertising claim and nothing more. What’s of greatest value is what is the brand, and a brand’s value is what is the reputation of the brand.
The RapidWeaver brand, the Realmac Software brand is deceit, theft, disappointment, overpromise, under delivery, slick graphics and demo videos, but no actual delivery on the promise. Realmac Software is all hat but no cattle.
This is how RMS has operated since YourHead released Stacks. How many RW users actually believe RW would still exist without Stacks. It wouldn’t. It couldn’t. And now RMS is stealing Stacks.
On the other hand, YourHead is actually Isaiah, and he’s the brand, and his brand is a rock-solid product, Stacks, which (now) comprises virtually 100% of the Plug-ins available for RapidWeaver.
(True to form, RMS actually claimed on this very forum just the other day that Rapid Cart Pro is an active RW Plug-in. Even RMS AddOn page doesn’t make that assertion. Again, dishonest and deceitful.)
RMS’ marketing has been from the start all hat but no cattle. Boy was I disappointed to find out I had to get Stacks on top of RW to be able to get the nifty pages they said one could produce.
Would stacks have ever existed without RW?
There was no impetus to produce a stand alone stacks app until recently, and that has been born out of necessity. Having choice and some competition is good for consumers whom get to choose between two options.
Probably not but I think the question is how long would RW have existed without Stacks? I don’t think it would still be around today.
I remember reading the reviews ~2008/9 (before I bought my first version of RW), which even then said RW was basic but plugins allowed it to do more than Freeway/Sandvox etc. and that Stacks was an essential purchase.