RapidWeaver Elements

A website builder that's made for pros but is surprisingly accessible

- Howard Oakley

> From £99/year > FROM elementsapp.io > NEEDS macOS 13 or later

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 customisation simple using CSS variables. It features rich transitions and animations, and most importantly trims unused CSS to minimise 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 colours, font families and sizes, default spacing and other global options. Six are provided, ready to be customised and added to. Importing projects from RapidWeaver Classic is also supported, although that’s still in beta.

There's a rich choice of ready-made components you simply drop onto the web page. These support forms with checkboxes, radio buttons and attachments, include media