RapidWeaver Elements

A website builder made for pros that's surprisingly accessible

- HOWARD OAKLEY

HOW THE WEB has changed in the 21 years since Realmac Software brought us one of the first template-based website editors in RapidWeaver. Its new successor, Elements, is aimed at a broader market, from those building their first website to teams of professionals, indeed anyone who wants to develop visually rather than primarily in code.

It's built on Tailwind, an extensive open-source CSS-based framework that makes theme customization simple using CSS variables. It features rich transitions and animations, and most importantly trims unused CSS to minimize the storage space required for websites.

Elements is far more than a friendly front-end to Tailwind, though. Each Elements project for a website is stored in a convenient bundle and has an overall theme based on Tailwind config files. Themes set colors, font families and sizes, default spacing, and other global options. Six are provided, ready to be customized and added to. Importing projects from RapidWeaver Classic is also supported, although that's still in beta.