All Good Things Must Come to an End

TL;DR Stacks4Stacks and ThemeFlood have closed.

We had a good run for 19 years, and I am deeply grateful for all the support loyal customers have provided. What started as a small offering of a few free themes in a back corner of the old RapidWeaver forums grew to become a centrepiece of the entire addons ecosystem. Helping tens of thousands of people weave websites rapidly! During this time, I worked hard to innovate and bring new things into the platform; like ExtraContent, RWD (responsive web design), Bootstrap, WebP image support and Font Awesome Icons.

However, the landscape has changed significantly, particularly within the last 4 years. I've seen a sharp decline in RapidWeaver usage, culminating in less appetite for new or updated addons. Despite my best efforts, the reality is that maintaining an extensive catalogue of over 350 themes and stacks, many provided for free, is no longer viable. Particularly after you factor-in support time and the costs of updates.

Discussions had started a couple of years ago about the Stacks plugin splitting-off from RapidWeaver to become a standalone web design app, named StacksPro. However its somewhat glacial pace of development, coupled with months passing without updates or official communication about its progress, isn't conducive to my longer-term business planning. It's impossible for me to endorse or find confidence in supporting an app that I can't even open on my computer.

Meanwhile I had been optimistic about updating and converting many of my addons to work in Elements (the successor to RapidWeaver). I had committed a great deal of time and expense (like hiring an icon creator), and the results of these conversions were really promising. However, in June 2024, Realmac Software unexpectedly removed the tooling needed to recompile stacks into Elements. At that point, I lost everything I'd done. Rebuilding from scratch using their newfangled API and TailwindCSS is, unfortunately, not time effective or technically feasible for much of what I create. Since then, I have no desire to be involved with the recently announced rules governing affiliation, yearly subscriptions, commission fees and marketplaces.

We've effectively hit the buffer stops at the end of the line. So what's next?

First and foremost; past customers of my addons can be assured that I shall continue to provide support and important updates. With the aim of keeping things well-oiled and running smoothly in RapidWeaver 8 and RapidWeaver Classic. You are not about to get plunged into total darkness! Your choice to buy my addons was a wise decision, and your investment lives on. You should be able to get several years of use from my addons, if you hold-off from applying any major system updates. Or run RapidWeaver through a virtual machine. If needed, my addons are still available on request from me.

I continue to take on custom jobs, offer consultancy services and do advanced troubleshooting. I can code practically anything for you (on a wide variety of different platforms) and find solutions to most website problems. And yes, converting RapidWeaver websites to other platforms is something I'm being actively called upon frequently to do! I take pride in providing an exemplarily one-to-one service, as many past customers have openly expressed on Trustpilot.

Should StacksPro materialise someday, then I will re-evaluate things and consider relaunching under a new brand. I already have several state-of-the-art stacks lined up ready to release (like Cartographer, Concierge, GuestBook, ProGallery 4, Medley, Imogen, Tinker, Vidya and Socialite). It would be a shame if these did not get published, because they are absolute game-changers in what they do. However I should emphasise that StacksPro has a lot of ground to make-up. StacksPro would need to prove itself in several areas, before I recommit to anything. I set high standards and I'm picky about what I put my name against.

My decision to step back from RapidWeaver has yielded increased opportunities for expanding the amount of freelance web development work I do. There are innovative web design platforms I'm actively exploring, with an intention of possibly developing for. Additionally, I'm also involved in a completely different business start-up, away from the desk.

I hope this provides you with a more complete insight into what happened and my reasoning for the closure. Plus some reassurance that my involvement with RapidWeaver still continues, albeit in a reduced capacity.

Thank you again for your support since September 2005.



Updated 24th December 2024

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