RapidWeaver, is an extremely popular website editor and, like iWeb, is a template-based website creation tool (In fact, RapidWeaver may have been the source of not a small amount of inspiration to Apple for its own website editor).

Like iWeb, RapidWeaver creates sites that you never need to look at on your hard drive. Any changes you make to them you make directly within RapidWeaver. Simply save your site and all the appropriate files are rewritten on your hard drive, and you can upload your site directly from within the software as well.

As with iWeb, there is a disadvantage to this approach: you will not want to make changes to the site from outside of the software in any third-party HTML editor, and any web designer you work with should also use and be familiar with RapidWeaver.

Unlike iWeb, RapidWeaver is modal; that is, you do your editing in one mode (edit) and get an idea of what your site will look like to the visitor in another mode (preview). Edit mode shows only the styled text and graphics on your webpage; that is, you see all the font sizes and styles, boldface, italic and so on, as well as the pictures you have inserted into your page in a simple word processor-style interface, but none of the decoration added to the site by the theme you have chosen. Some users will hate this interface while others will love it because it allows them to focus on their writing.

One advantage of RapidWeaver's template-driven approach is that you can change your mind about which theme you want to use very easily. Just click a button and your site will have a new look based upon the theme that you choosel, although I suspect this is something you only want to do in the original planning stages of your site. Once you have chosen a theme you will probably want to stay with it.

RapidWeaver is an interesting piece of software. It can be either extremely simple or exceedingly complex, depending on how you want to use it. At its most basic level, it is one of the simplest ways to create a website available. However, that simplicity may also seem constraining to many users.

For example, themes included with the software all consist of a single-column layout. If you want multiple columns, you will need to purchase a theme from a third-party provider. In fact, if you want to do practically anything beyond a basic website you will need to look into obtaining third-party add-ons.

There are such add-ons available to allow you to do almost anything with RapidWeaver, but each add-on will have its own learning curve apart from that of RapidWeaver itself.

Creating a new site with RapidWeaver can be a bit intimidating. Aside from decoration provided with the theme, you are presented with a blank page. Adding text, graphics and links is simple. Adding anything else, such as sidebars, ads, multiple columns, etc, will take some study (and possibly the purchase of third-party themes).

As for limitations, there are a few, and, judging from the "showcase" on the RapidWeaver website, the software is not generally used for extremely busy or complex websites (for example, news sites) with lots of sidebars, widgets and so forth.

Fortunately, there is an extremely active message board for RapidWeaver frequented by extremely passionate (dare I even say rabid) fans of the software who will help you find out how you can do almost anything with the software. These passionate users are also the ones who create the huge number of add-ons available for the software. As of last count, there were over 400 add-ons available for RapidWeaver, including plug-ins, themes, snippets, styles, and utilities.

Some of these add-ons are templates to give your site a new look and new capabilities, although I wish that on the RapidWeaver site, the listing of themes included a small thumbnail instead of just a RapidWeaver icon (you have to click on the "More Info" button to see a preview of the theme).

The difference between the interfaces of RapidWeaver and iWeb are like the differences between a text editor and a page layout program. Photos added to RapidWeaver are inline; they move up and down as you add or remove text. In iWeb, you place text in boxes, either visible or invisible. Photos stay put and text flows around them.