It's been a while since a new Developer has traversed the maze and emerged with a viable plugin for Rapidweaver. That part of the Developer Community is a small group who have been able to successfully scale the mountain.

Welcome SymfoniP to this list. The first plugin is: symFlowPlayer

This new plugin creates a "media page" style in Rapidweaver that is easy to use and update. Store your movies and mp3 files on a server in a "warehouse" folder and simply link to them in symFlowPlayer.

Key Features:
✓ Playback FLV, F4V, H.264* mov, mp4, m4v and audio mp3
✓ Add content into Styled Text Header and Footer Areas
✓ One time setup and configuration.
✓ Variable Width and height settings for your gallery setup
✓ Full control of FlowPlayer control bar settings
✓ Use external warehoused urls (saves space in your RapidWeaver project, yes you can use local assets if you want to but this increases your project and publish time)
✓ Gallery page style
✓ Hover Title and Description captions
✓ Easily add you FlowPlayer commercial key and brand the Video Player with your own logo
✓ Automatic Generation of scaled Poster Image for the symFlowPlayer page.
✓ Works great with Pluskit to import into Blocks or Stacks

The official announcement on the Rapidweaver Forum can be found HERE


This new plugin, to me, replaces the aging Quicktime Plugin page style with something that works in all browsers and has a lot more functionality!

Kevin Burns and his partner Ronan have created a great first plugin. I know they have many more in store and I would not be surprised to see their second plugin arrive very quickly

Tags: Rapidweaver, plugin, plugins, Developer

It's classier!

This is something I have been wanting to do for a while. Time and having a clear idea of what I wanted where the issues.

Along came the O Mega Theme from Nick Cates. That spurred on an upgrade. So a big "Thanks" to Nick for his themes.

I also wanted to give a new look to the product icons and image. Though I am not actually using the look as the full cover of my books at this time, I wanted something where I could have nice looking text on the covers. I may, in the future, offer a full color cover for those who want it, but for now I like giving a simple, less use of ink, cover.

OK, I know I have my own theme. I was using it for the site. Squeeze was made for Splash pages, sales letter sites and for minimalistic looks. It's clean and fast with no images built in to it. Just because I built it does not mean I have to use it on every web site. A theme makes a statement and gives an immediate impression. Choosing a theme to suit a site is what we always have to do. I feel this new look expresses my site better. I still use Squeeze for lots of things.


What's up next? I need to clean up the Resources area and kill dead links and add missing elements. Watch for that update soon.


Thanks to all for the support and kind words I get by email.


Sundog

Tags: insiderapidweaver, Rapidweaver

My latest creation is now in the hands of my editor; Using FormLoom.

Part of this book my seem simplistic. But many folks, especially new to building a web site, need a foundation for understanding forms. I figured if I was going to write about FormLoom I should cover it completely.

For the rest of you I have a section on MySQL Databases and creating a Table to hold the form data. Dumping the information form a submitted form into a database is a great way to gather the data. It makes it easy to use, search and manage. If all you get from a form submission is an email in your inbox it can be hard to gather up all the email addresses and other submitted information and make it useful.

I have purposely kept the setup of the Database simple and fundamental. It gathers the info, allows you to export it and use it in email programs, applications like "Numbers" or "FileMaker Pro" (my app of choice) and work with the data. Keeping it simple will hopefully reduce errors and issues.

MySQL and Tables are the one area that is probably under utilized by most owners of this great Plugin for Rapidweaver.


Watch for "Using FormLoom" in the Store later this week.


UPDATE: Using FormLoom is now live in the store and available.

Tags: formloom, Books, Rapidweaver

Here it is, another blog post on the iPad. The subject, in a matter of a few short days, has been hashed, hacked, pummeled, drop kicked, spanked, petted, pushed, shoved and, well... You get the idea.

So here I am jumping into the tar pit of pontification with nothing new to say. Nope, I don't.

I simply wanted to point out that all the myriad of posts and articles are written by people who don't have an iPad. Not a $499 or an $829 model. Zip, nada. No facts other than the SteveNote and the Apple website.

These writers are not the target audience of this device. It is not a "prosumer" piece of hardware. It is aimed squarely and rightly at the media consumer. The ones who don't like surfing the web on a small iPhone or Blackberry screen. I don't like it. So I don't do it.

I don't think I need to go very far out on the proverbial "limb" to predict the iPad will be wildly popular. Especially as it evolves. I expect a camera in v2, that will arrive by the Holiday shopping season 2010. As for the Flash issue? Yeah, it's an issue for surfing the web. But I watch my iStats Menu on my iMac and Flash is a jealous hog of resources. My MacBook Pro heats up whenever I sit on a flash item for very long. All I have to do is move off the page or close the browser and my laptop cools, my iStats drop to normal and so does my battery usage on the MBP. Flash is a battery killer (do your worst Walt Mossberg and let us know the results).

Of course there will be the inevitable "Battle of the eBooks" between Amazon and the new iBookstore. Just like it was inevitable that others would jump in and battle Apple for music and video sales. Competition is good for the consumer.

Many of the folks deriding the iPad where wrong about the iPhone and they will be wrong about the iPad. Apple has proven that it has the eyes to see the future and even create that future in the image they want to see. A legacy for Steve? Time will tell. Is this good for the developer community? You bet it is!

Will I get one? Of course. I have a use for it when I travel, go out to share my photo portfolio and more. Does it do my dishes and make the bed? Nope, not yet. Is it cool? Yes. Will it evolve? Yes.

Will it shut the mouths and pens of the pontificators? No, but the noise of the cash registers ringing will significantly smother the din.

Tags: Apple, iPad

CartLoom is no longer in Beta. Today at noon eastern time CL exited the beta process and is ready for prime time.

I have been testing CL since the very early days but I put it to a real world test starting in November 2009. Insiderapidweaver.com started using CartLoom as the main shopping cart on the day FormLoom Style book was launched. I have to say it has been great. Only a few minor hickups along the way, but no show stoppers.

This is the easiest to use and manage cart I have ever setup. Wether you are selling digital products or physical products I highly recommend CartLoom. You can try it for free! With the Rapidweaver plugin you can setup a store on your site in no time. (well, almost...)

I will be talking more about this wonderful no entry into the marketplace, so keep checking back.

Tags: cart,web,shopping,cartloom