RapidWeaver 3.6 upgrade demands new payment

Just posting that here because I am really upset about it. Quite a while ago there was a thread about retrieving a free rapid weaver serial number, which was great. Of course I got one for myself, but also my company bought one months before that and we did part of our site with the RapidWeaver.

It's a fine application for smaller projects although it has some really annoying "features" if you try to work with more than 25 pages - but I guess that's a different subject. What we still use RapidWeaver for, is forinstance the news section/blog since it's an easy way to upload announcements, news and updates. So I just opened the application and it told me that there would be a new version available. Of course I was curious what new features it might have and if they killed some of the bugs I found. I downloaded it, started it up and saw a dialog where they ask me to unlock it with my serial number. First thing I tried the number we bought for our company and it told me that the key is not valid for this version and I could buy an upgrade for 25 US$. I thought that can't be and tried out the free key I got for myself, but unfortunately with the same result.

I find that really sneaky trying to get people to purchase a new key by giving out fee licenses before a new release. Also the 25 US$ already including the [cit]: "huge discount" I find kind of expensive. I was really happy about their "free serial number" campaign, but now I know it was just to catch some customers that would have to pay for the next upgrade. And I guess that would be OK since it was for free (and also the e-mail says I purchased RapidWeaver 3.5) but I am really upset about the fact that we bought a license pack for about 90 US$ at work and they want to make us pay again for a new version, that isn't even an upgrade from 3.X to 4...

Another fact I just noticed: The confirmation e-mail we got at work after we ordered the RapidWeaver package has a section about the "Product Support" we would get. And it clearly includes upgrades.

My consequence is downgrading it to 3.5.1 and transferring our project to a different application. Bye bye realmacsoftware, but that's not how it works.

Yeah a lot of people were upset about it. There are actually a lot of companies that charge for a .5 upgrade, but the thing that makes it different is that most companies also are very clear that it's a paid upgrade. Rapidweaver definitely was not clear. I had upgraded since the new features were great! but then when I saw it was a paid upgrade, thankfully it was an easy downgrade. I can understand a company trying to get people to use their software by giving away a free license. There are now a lot of happy RapidWeaver 3.5.1 users out there, and only those that are really going to use RW will do the upgrade now that they see what RW can do. Im not a RW fan at all, due to the bulk of the sites they create, although RW 3.6 is supposed to take care of some of the problems there, but it is great for those people who do not hand code.

Anyways I guess I just wanted to say that you're not alone.. lots of people are unhappy about it.

Murlyn said:

... Im not a RW fan at all, due to the bulk of the sites they create, although RW 3.6 is supposed to take care of some of the problems there, but it is great for those people who do not hand code.

Anyways I guess I just wanted to say that you're not alone.. lots of people are unhappy about it.

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Thanks for your long reply! I know what you mean with the bulk of sites. There are some really weird things going on but unfortunately you find out about that while you are working and then you are kind of stuck if you don't want to start all over again.

I did our little update/change I initially wanted to do in the 3.6 demo and already found some really obvious bugs. Do they test these things at all before they release it? I don't know...

I must say I disagree with you guys on this one

The free offer was actually not intended for the general public, but only for subscribers to a UK mac magazine.

So you got something for free that wasn't intended for you in the first place anyway. Plus I think this is the first Rapidweaver upgrade that is not free, so you can expect to get a lot of use out of this upgrade as well.

This is Realmacsoftware's only product. They've provided excellent value for money throughout the old version's lifespan and have added a ton of features along the way.

The fact that this is only a "minor" upgrade is really just the way you look at the naming convention. Apple charges you 129$ for "minor upgrades" 10.4-> 10.5 if you look at it that way. Plus they might not have introduced a boatload of new features, but their record shows that they'll continue to add plenty of free upgrades to 3.6 that will surely add additional functionality.

In summary: 25$ is steep, yes. But this product has gone ages without a paid upgrade and I feel that this upgrade should be viewed as an investment for all the features they'll add in the coming months.
Most shareware companies try to get as many free copies out there as they can when a product is nearing the end of its life-cycle, if you don't want to upgrade yet, just continue to enjoy your free and purchased copies - they'll still work just as well.

Cool, I didn't know that thing with the UK subscribers. Well, but like I said: If I have to pay by trying to use this license, I could understand that. The e-mail I got says RW 3.5. But the one with the version we bought doesn't say anything about a certain version and it clearly includes upgrades.

Also I don't think you can take the Mac OS for a comparison on that. Apple isn't selling an upgrad for Tiger - it's a new operating system with a new name. Also core animation, new desktop, timemachine, ..... are not really minor upgrades.

It wouldn't be so bad if they would have clarified it before. Telling me there is a new Version - na new part of a product and I can buy that, is ok. But just saying there is an upgrade, I can download it and once I want to start it up I see that I have to pay, that's sneaky and I don't like that approach.

Last thing: Obvious bugs I found by just working with the demo for 15 min. I don't pay for that...

The point with OS X I was trying to make is that you sometimes can't tell be a version name which is a paid upgrade and which isn't. Some product x.x upgrade are paid, other companies only charge for product x.0 releases...

But I agree that the initial 3.6 seems a little rough around the edges - I'll also be holding out a little while longer

Aptmunich said:

The point with OS X I was trying to make is that you sometimes can't tell be a version name which is a paid upgrade and which isn't. Some product x.x upgrade are paid, other companies only charge for product x.0 releases...

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Agreed, that point goes to you ;D

An update here!

Well, I was writing an email to Realmacsoftware to kind of ask them what's going on and if they could explain to me, why I should have to pay for the upgrade, even though our confirmation says it's included.

"Customer Support Guy 1" wrote me back, he doesn't know what's actually in those confirmation emails/receipts and if I could send him the one I got.I found that really weird b/c I think they should know what they are sending out...

But what can you do? I wrote back attaching the document and I even marked the part I am stressing on:

...
------------------------------------------------------------------------
PRODUCT SUPPORT
------------------------------------------------------------------------
...
* Upgrades
...

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Today I received a new reply from "Customer Support Guy 2" (so not even the same guy who wrote me in the first place) and here is a short quote of what he said:

I have re-read through our previous purchase receipt included in your email, nowhere does it say, or even hint, that future upgrades are included in the price.

Im sorry if the wording of the receipt was unclear or misleading for you.
...

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I am sorry? Not even a hint? Misleading? I don't know what he was reading but I think the receipt couldn't be any clearer on including upgrades into the product support we purchased with the product.

I am really disappointed and sure that I won't use any Realmacsoftware products anymore! Sorry, but that's lousy customer service.

I look at it this way - it's a great program. I didn't pay anything for it. If I want, I can continue to use it until the end of time in its existing form. I don't mind having to click past a "do you want to download the update?" prompt every time I open it. Small price to pay for what is otherwise an excellent piece of software that does exactly what I needed it to do.

cwa107 said:

I look at it this way - it's a great program. I didn't pay anything for it. If I want, I can continue to use it until the end of time in its existing form. I don't mind having to click past a "do you want to download the update?" prompt every time I open it. Small price to pay for what is otherwise an excellent piece of software that does exactly what I needed it to do.

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Yah, your right if you say it's ok since you didn't pay for it. But we payed for quite a big package for work here.

Also - I am not sure about the "great program". I go that far that I say it's nice for small projects with a few pages, but at like 25 pages it got so annoying, that I stopped using it for everything. Also no syntax highlightning for php - it just takes random brackets and spaces to change the syntax color.
And like I said above there are a few obvious bugs in the 3.6 version I found just from using it for a little bit. So not a great application for me.

By working with out website, I was trying to find some alternatives and right now I am only using the blog feature, which I replace in a few days.

So I won't use RapidWeaver for further projects and pages anyways. I guess I was just really enraged and disappointed by the support emails received from Realmacsoftware.. Sharing that with the community here helped me a bit to calm down again. Thx M-F

Well, perhaps in the long run it looks as though it's not the ideal solution for your company anyway...

Perhaps you'd be better off rolling a CMS solution such as Joomla, Mamba or Drupal.

http://www.opensourcecms.com/

Then download the fantastic app Coda and make any code edits you need with that!

dekan said:

Yah, your right if you say it's ok since you didn't pay for it. But we payed for quite a big package for work here.

Also - I am not sure about the "great program". I go that far that I say it's nice for small projects with a few pages, but at like 25 pages it got so annoying, that I stopped using it for everything. Also no syntax highlightning for php - it just takes random brackets and spaces to change the syntax color.
And like I said above there are a few obvious bugs in the 3.6 version I found just from using it for a little bit. So not a great application for me.

By working with out website, I was trying to find some alternatives and right now I am only using the blog feature, which I replace in a few days.

So I won't use RapidWeaver for further projects and pages anyways. I guess I was just really enraged and disappointed by the support emails received from Realmacsoftware.. Sharing that with the community here helped me a bit to calm down again. Thx M-F

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Understood. I'd be a bit miffed had I been in your position. It's a great little program for putting together a small, personal webpage. I can't imagine using it for a real project for paying customers.

Aptmunich said:

Well, perhaps in the long run it looks as though it's not the ideal solution for your company anyway...

Perhaps you'd be better off rolling a CMS solution such as Joomla, Mamba or Drupal.

http://www.opensourcecms.com/

Then download the fantastic app Coda and make any code edits you need with that!

Click to expand...

Using typo3 now pretty cool cms!