Archive for the 'Software' Category

New In EverWeb 3.9: New Stripe Widget, Dividers, HTML Tags and Much More!

Monday, November 7th, 2022

We’re excited to announce the release of EverWeb 3.9 with an all NEW Stripe Widget, inline HTML Tags, Dividers which help you make creative object borders, more Contact Forms Enhanced features and much much more! See below for details and if you have any comments, please let us know in the Comments Section below.

Which Version of EverWeb is For You?

EverWeb is available in the following versions:

  • If you are running an Intel Mac running OS X 10.10, macOS Yosemite, El Capitan, Sierra, High Sierra, Mojave, Catalina, Big Sur, Monterey or Ventura, EverWeb version 3.9 is available for you.
  • If you are running an Apple Silicon Mac running macOS Ventura, Monterey or Big Sur, EverWeb version 3.9 is available for you as a Universal Binary. EverWeb will run natively without the need to use Rosetta 2.
  • If you are running OS X 10.7 – 10.9 (Lion, Mountain Lion, Mavericks) EverWeb version 2.9.1 is available for you.
  • If you are running OS X 10.6 EverWeb version 2.5.2 is available for you.

When updating to the latest version of EverWeb, the update process will automatically download the correct version of EverWeb for your operating system.

EverWeb 3.9 Includes…

[NEW] Stripe Payments Widget for accepting Payments through Stripe.com.

[NEW] Dividers for objects allow you to add creative and interesting borders to any element on your page.

[NEW] Confirmation emails from Contact Forms Enhanced can use the EverWeb Mail Sending feature rather than SMTP details for easier configuration.

[NEW] Contact Forms Enhanced now lets you download selected attachments in the EverWeb Client Area.

[NEW] Contact Forms Enhanced email editor now includes more advanced email merge tags.

[NEW] The Responsive Row widget now has an Overlap feature for objects within the Responsive Row.

[NEW] Import iWeb Photo Galleries from a local folder or from a URL (File-> Import menu). It will import all photos and captions into any gallery or slider. Just add a gallery, make sure it is selected, then select this option.

[NEW] You can mark any text in a TextBox as ‘h1’ through ‘h6’ from the Text Inspector. You no longer need to use the Headings Tag widget.

[NEW] The Blog Post Editor Window now has a Dark Editor Mode setting for when you want to use light, or white, text for your blog post.

[NEW] The Text Section widget now has a new ‘Inset Margin’ setting.

[NEW] The Image Slider widget can now have an ALT tag for images.

[NEW] The Line shape is now exported as CSS rather than an image when full width.

[IMPROVED] Improvements to the volume command for the Audio widget.

[FIX] The original simple Contact Form widget now works better with gmail and other email clients that will not parse HTML code.

[FIX] A crash when selecting blank rows in keyword list or Assets List has been fixed.

[FIX] Crash when dropping image into the Design canvas.

[FIX] Some fixes to Instant Preview.

[FIX] Fixes to the Inspector so it does not automatically change tabs when making some changes to certain settings.

[FIX] iFrame code with video links works properly in blog posts now so you can easily embed videos and other content.

[FIX] Copying and pasting text with spaces around the selected in Styled Text Editor for Widgets works properly now and won’t stripe the spaces.

[FIX] Undo for the Responsive Image Gallery now works correctly.

[FIX] Fixes issues with Master pages losing some of their changes.

[FIX] The Blog Post Widget does not flash grey anymore when it updates.

How To Update To EverWeb 3.9

You can easily update EverWeb by either:

  1. Launching EverWeb then going to the EverWeb menu at the top of the screen and selecting ‘Check for Update’ or by
  2. Downloading EverWeb from the EverWeb website.

After downloading EverWeb, double click on the EVERWEB.DMG file. A window will open. Drag the EverWeb icon on to the Applications folder icon. Once the file has been copied, you can close the installation window, delete the .DMG file and eject the EverWeb disk on the desktop by dragging it to the Trashcan.

Remember, you won’t lose any previous data when updating as your website project files are stored elsewhere on your computer.

The update is free for EverWeb + Hosting users and EverWeb Standalone users who are within their 1 year of free upgrades and support period.

You can easily check your EverWeb Standalone free update period from EverWeb’s Preferences window or from your client area.

If you have passed your one year of free EverWeb updates, you can purchase 1 more year of upgrades and support from your client area.

You can easily re-download earlier versions of EverWeb from your client area if you are not ready to purchase an additional year of updates and support.

Login to your client area and go to the ‘Manage Product’ page. On the left of this page, select ‘Downloads’ and choose the version of EverWeb that you need.

More Information About EverWeb

For more information about the new version of EverWeb, please check out the following resources:

  • The EverWeb website which has up to the moment information in it’s blogging section
  • New EverWeb videos on YouTube
  • The EverWeb User Manual in EverWeb’s Help-> User Manual menu
  • The EverWeb Discussion Forum

If you can’t find what you need, or have any other questions, comments or feedback please let us know. We’re happy to help.

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Be an EverWeb Web Page List Expert! Part I

Friday, October 28th, 2022
EverWeb's Web Page List

One of the basic features of EverWeb‘s User Interface is the Web Page List. It is a core feature of EverWeb since the product launched back in 2015 and one that has gained many additional features over the years. In the first part of this two part post, we begin by looking at the core functionality of the Web Page List so you can get the most out of it immediately!

What is the Web Page List?

The Web Page List is the column running down the left hand side of EverWeb’s User Interface. It is the place from where all the pages you have created in your site are listed and managed. Simply click on the name of the page in the list that you want to edit.

The Web Page List is comprised of a number of sections, In this post we will explore its basic core features, before moving on to related and advanced Web Page List features in our next post.

The Master Page Section

At the top of the Web Page List is the Master Page section. This section appears blue if you are your operating system is set to Light Mode and dark grey if set to Dark Mode.

A Master Page is a template page that is attached one or more of the regular pages in your site. You add features to your Master Pages in the same way that you would for a regular page. As the Master Page is a template, the features that you add to it will be those that you would typically see on more than one page of your site e.g. the background color of the page, your company logo, social media buttons, legal and regulatory information required on all pages and so forth.

A new Master Page is created by clicking on the ‘New Master Page’ button in the Master Page section or by using the File-> New Master Page… menu option. Note that you cannot create directories or blogs in the Master Page section.

The pages that you create in the Master Page section are listed in the order that you create them in. You cannot change the order of the pages in this section.

When you click on a Master Page in the Web Page List, you will see that all of the regular pages in the Web Page List that use that Master Page will be highlighted.

For more information about Master Pages, check out our ‘Getting Started With EverWeb 3: Master Pages‘ post or our ‘Six Reasons for Using Master Pages‘ post to find out why and how Master Pages can benefit you and your site.

The Splitter Line

Immediately below the Master Page section, and above the Regular Page section of the Web Page List, is the ‘Splitter Line’. This is a horizontal line represented by ellipses i.e. thee horizontal dots. When you hover your cursor between Master and Regular page sections, the cursor will change to a vertical line with an up and down arrow at each end, bisected by a horizontal line. If you click and hold your mouse cursor on the line, you can move hide or show more of the Master Page and Regular Page sections of the Web Page List. If you cannot see your Master Page section for example, it is likely that the Splitter Line will need to be dragged down from the top of the Web Page List to make this section visible.

The Regular Page List

Under the Splitter Line is the Regular Page List where most of your interaction with the Web Page List will take place. Regular pages are where you create the content of your site so each page in your site is unique. Regular pages may also have Master Pages attached to them which will give your site with a uniform look and feel.

If you have a Master Page attached to a regular page, all Master Page objects will have a black page icon displayed in their top right hand corner. To edit such objects you will need to edit the Master Page itself.

At the top of the Regular Page List is your project file’s name. By default, any new project that you create will be titled ‘New Website’. You can change this in the Web Page List by double clicking on the project name itself. This will allow you to edit the name. Alternatively, use the File-> Rename Website menu option. When you double click on the name of the project file you will also see that the Editor Window is replaced by the Site Publishing Settings screen. If you want to use the Site Publishing Settings without editing the project file name, just single click on the project file name, or use the File-> Edit Publishing Settings menu.

Once you have edited the project file name or its settings, just click back on the page in the list that you were editing to see the Editor Window again. The first page in the list is also known as the ‘landing’ or ‘index’ page.

To add a new page to the Web Page List either click on the ‘Add Page’ button in the Toolbar, use the File-> New Page… menu option or secondary click in the Regular Page List and choose the ‘New Page’ option.

Editing the name of your page is done in the same way as for the project file, by double clicking on the page name, editing the name, then pressing Enter to finish. Alternatively, go to the Page Settings tab of the Inspector Window and edit the File Name field.

You can move pages up and down the list as you want just by dragging and dropping them from their existing location to their new location. You can also create directory structures too, by either clicking on the ‘Add Directory’ button in the Toolbar, or by using the File-> New Directory… menu command. You can also convert a regular page in to a directory by secondary clicking on the page that you want to convert and selecting the ‘Convert To Directory’ menu option.

Directories can also have directories within them, so you can nest pages within directories as you want. Whilst the directory feature can be used for organizing your project file’s pages, it can also be used for creating single line, dropdown and responsive navigation menus.

Deleting pages from your project file is also simple. Highlight the page you want to delete then hit the backspace key. You will see a warning message that asks you to confirm the deletion. To continue with the deletion, press the ‘Delete’ button.

The Web Page List also allows you to duplicate pages if you want. In this case, secondary click on the page in the list that you want to duplicate, then choose the ‘Duplicate…’ option.

Master Page and Regular Page Common Features

Although Master Pages are ‘template pages’ and Regular pages are ‘content creation’ pages, the Master Page and Regular Page sections of the Web Page List have many common features:

  • Deleting Pages: In both sections, just click on the page you want to delete then hit the backspace key’.
  • Duplicating Pages: Secondary click on the page you want to duplicate and choose the ‘Duplicate’ option.
  • Renaming Pages: Just double click on the page name you want to. change, edit the name, then press Enter to finish.
  • You can create, rename, duplicate and delete regular and Master Pages using EverWeb’s File and Edit menus or by secondary clicking on the page name itself.
  • Both regular and Master Pages use the Theme Template Chooser when adding a new page to your site.
  • You can copy pages between each section, just drag and drop the page you want from one section to the other to create a copy.

In this post we have looked at the main core features of EverWeb’s Web Page List. In our next post, we will take a look at how the Web Page List works as a cornerstone of other features in EverWeb and at some of its less commonly used, but still very useful, features!

If you have any questions about EverWeb’s Web Page List, or indeed about anything EverWeb related, please let us know in the Comments Section below.

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EverWeb’s Scroll Position for Anchors in Your Site!

Sunday, October 16th, 2022

One of the most useful things that website designers often want is for their visitors to be able to jump from one location to another on the same page, or to to be able to jump from one page to a specific location on another page. In EverWeb this is super easy to do. Before showing you how, it is useful to have some background information that is good to know before you start…

Anchors, Scroll Position and Smooth Scrolling

The ability to ‘jump’ from one location to another is known in HTML coding terms as using an ‘anchor’ tag, so this is why this feature is often referred to as ‘anchoring’. The reference is analogous to anchoring a boat. In EverWeb, we use the term ‘Scroll Position’ which still is anchoring, but if your jumping from one location to another on the same page, EverWeb will scroll smoothly to the new location, making the transition from one place to another on the page smoother for the user.

Anchors and EverWeb’s Scroll Position Features

There are two ways in EverWeb for setting up anchors: ‘Insert Fixed Scroll Position’ and ‘Set Shape as Scroll Position’. Here’s a quick summary of what each Scroll Position is used for:

  • Insert Fixed Scroll Position: You can use this type of Scroll Position in a Fixed Width Page Layout. Typically this will be when using a ‘Centered Layout for your page. When you insert the Scroll Position, you will see a blue/green line across the width of the page at the point where you inserted it. You can move the Scroll Position up and down the page and you can give it a unique name using the Settings Button/Cog in the Inspector Window. If you want to delete the Scroll Position, just click on the blue/green line then hit the delete key. The main caveat to using this type of Scroll Position is that it should only be used on either the Centered or Left Aligned Page Layout. This type of Scroll Position should not be used on a Responsive Page layout.
  • Set Shape as Scroll Position: This type of Scroll Position attaches the anchor point to an object on your page, so can be used in both responsive and fixed width page layouts. When you attach the Scroll Position to the object of your choice, you will see a blue anchor symbol displayed in the top right hand corner of the object. As with the Insert Fixed Scroll Position, you can rename the Scroll Position. but in this case you have to go to the Shape Options tab in the Inspector Window, open the Scroll Position section and change the name there. If you want to delete the Scroll Position, just delete the name from the Scroll Position field.

Jumping to Where You Want to Be On The Same Page

If you are using a fixed width page layout you have the choice of which type of Scroll Position to use. If you are in a situation where you used fixed and responsive page layouts, e.g. if you are building different sites for customers, then it is probably best to only use Set Shape as Scroll Position. If you use Insert Fixed Width Scroll Position on a responsive page, it will not work properly, so our recommendation is to use Set Shape as Scroll Position at all times.

In the following example, we are going to create a Scroll Position to jump from one location in our page to another location on the same page. This example uses a Responsive page layout and uses a button at the top of the page which when pressed goes to a specific location further down the page which would not usually be visible unless you scrolled the page.

  1. First go to the page where you want to create the Scroll Position and create a button at the top of the page e.g. place a rectangle shape on the page and customize it to create the look of a button. If you click inside the shape, you can enter the text of the button. In the Text Inspector, center the button text to be horizontally and vertically centered. Remember to set the After Paragraph setting to zero to ensure correct text centering.
  2. After creating the button, go to the object that you want to be the anchor. Click on the object you have chosen, in this example, a Contact Form Advanced Widget to select it.
  3. Next, click on the Scroll Position button in the Toolbar at the top of the EverWeb User Interface and select ‘Set Shape as Scroll Position’.
  4. You will be asked to give the Scroll Position a name. In this example, I am going to call it ‘Booking’. The name you use must be unique for the page, so you could create a Scroll Position on another page with the same name if you want.
  5. Click on the OK button. You will notice that there is now an anchor symbol in the top right hand corner of the object.
  6. Now that the Scroll Position has been created, go back to the button you created earlier. We will now link the button to the Scroll Position so when a visitor clicks on the button, they will be taken to the contact form.
  7. Select the text of the button then go to the Hyperlinks Inspector. Click on the checkbox next to ‘Enable as Hyperlink’ to activate the settings.
  8. For the ‘Link To’ field, make sure that ‘One of My Pages’ is selected.
  9. In the ‘Page’ Field select ‘Current’ to select the page you are currently on. A new field, ‘Position’ will then be displayed under the ‘Page’ field.
  10. Click on the dropdown and you will see the Scroll Position ‘Booking’ is listed. Click on it to select it.
  11. Preview the page using the Preview button in the Toolbar to test that your Scroll Position works properly.

Jumping to Where You Want to Be On a Different Page

Once you have created a Scroll Position on the page, you can jump to it from the current page, as in the example above, or from any other page in your site, using the same hyperlinking procedure as outlined above. The only difference is that instead of using ‘Current Page’ in the ‘Page’ field, you would use the actual name of the page where the Scroll Position is located on instead.

If you have a question about hyperlinking in EverWeb, or any question relating to EverWeb, please let us know in the Comments Section below!

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EverWeb’s Contact Forms Enhanced Addon’s New Mass Email Feature Is Live!

Thursday, September 29th, 2022

The recent release of EverWeb version 3.8 brought with it an amazing new feature for users of the Contact Forms Enhanced Addon – Mass Emailing! This Addon is used in conjunction with EverWeb’s Contact Form Advanced widget and enables you to capture and store the information that your customers fill in when they submit a contact form to you, giving you great CMS capability.

The Contact Form Widgets, Contact Forms Enhanced Addon and Mass Emailing

In EverWeb the core of the contact form experience lies in the Contact Forms Advanced widget. This widget is a fully fledged contact form environment enabling you to build just the form that you want for all circumstances. The widget contains all the formatting and controls that you need to build any form your site might need.

As a side note, EverWeb also includes the simple Contact Form widget which is retained mainly for legacy purposes. Our recommendation, though, is to always use the Contact Forms Advanced widget as it offers better security and is more resilient against form SPAM attacks than the original widget is. Additionally, you can only use the Contact Forms Enhanced Addon with the Advanced widget.

A contact form has two important functions: The first is that it enables you to facilitate two way communication with your customers and clients, the second is that it is a great way to build up your customer base by storing the data from the forms submitted by your customers.

The ability to capture and store customer data from submitted forms is a key feature of the Contact Forms Enhanced Addon as is its ability to allow your form submitters to upload files to you if they want. The data collected from your form submissions can be exported to other applications if needed e.g. you may have collected survey data through a contact form that you now want to analyse. Another use for your data is as a customer database from which you can mass mail all, or a subset, of those who submitted a form to you. You can, of course, export your data out and use it to create a mass mailing, but with EverWeb, it is all built in for you.

How To Use Contact Forms Enhanced Addon’s Mass Email Feature

The following example assumes that…

  • You have purchased the Contact Forms Enhanced Addon for use with the Contact Form Advanced widget
  • You have already collected some form submission data that can be used for a mass emailing.

In the following example, we are going to produce a mass mailing to people who have sent in form submissions for DJ based concerts, telling them of some upcoming events that they may be interested in.

Selecting Form Submissions for Mass Email

  1. Start by logging in to your EverWeb Client Area at https://billing.ragesw.com/clientarea.php
  2. Alternatively if you are already in EverWeb, you can go to the EverWeb-> Preferences-> Account menu and click on the ‘Manage Account’ button or double click on your project file name in the Web Page List then click on the ‘Manage Account’ button.
  3. On the left hand side of your Client Area home page, you will see the section ‘Contact Form Submissions.’ Under this heading there are two options: ‘Mass Email Configuration’ and ‘View Form Submissions.’ Click on the latter – ‘View Form Submissions.’
  4. The ‘Contact Form Enhanced’ page will then be displayed. Use the ‘Please select your form to access its submissions’ button to see a dropdown list of all of your forms.
  5. Click on the form you want to use for your mass mailing then press the ‘Select’ button. In this example, I will click on the ‘DJ’s Booking a DJ’ form name then on the ‘Select’ button.
  6. You will now see all of the form submissions listed for the form. You can select the form submissions you want to include by ticking the checkbox to the left of each form submission.
  7. To deselect form submission, just click the checked tick box again to toggle the selection off.
  8. To select all form submissions, check the box to the left of the ‘Name’ field heading.

Using the Mass Email Form

Once you have selected the form submissions you want to use in the mass emailing, click on the ‘Send Mass Email’ button. You will now see EverWeb’s mass email template.

Check the Members Field

Before starting to fill out the template, check at the bottom of the page to make sure that the ‘Members’ field contains the form submissions that you have just selected. If there are no members in this field, go back to the previous screen and select the form submissions that you want to use for mass emailing. If you complete the form with no members, your changes will not be saved and you will need to rewrite the mass email template again.

Setting Up a Mail Driver

The first field in the form is the ‘From (Sending from: api) field. This field is used to configure from where the mass emailing will be sent from. You have three choices:

  • EverWeb
  • Amazon (aws)
  • SMTP (we recommend not to use this if you are using a Google or Office 365 email address. Use EverWeb or Amazon (aws) instead as your mail driver)

in this example, I am going to choose ‘EverWeb’ as the mail driver.

Subject, Tags and Content Fields

After you have configured your mail driver, complete the other fields in the form. Enter the text you want as the heading of the email using the ‘Subject’ field.

In the Content field, enter the text of the body of the email. You can include any of the listed tags in the email so, for example, you could begin with ‘Dear’ then click on the tag *|Name|* to insert the Name field in to the body text of your email.

Note that tags only appear when the field actually has some content in it. For example, if my contact form had a ‘Venue’ field in the form but no one filled this field in, I would not see a *|Venue|* tag when creating my mass emailing email.

Default Value for Mail Tag

When using tags in your mass email form, you can also set a default value for the tag itself, just enter the value you want in the relevant tag field in the ‘Default Value for Mail Tag’ section.

Sending Out the Mass Email

Once you have completed all of the fields, click on the Submit button to send out the mass email. You will see a confirmation message that the mail has been sent. If the Submit button is not available, make sure that the Subject and Content fields are not empty, then try again.

…More Features To Follow

We have a lot of plans for mass emailing in EverWeb so if you have a comment or suggestion about this new feature please let us know in the Comments Section below.

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Extending the Power of Hyperlinks with EverWeb

Friday, September 16th, 2022

In our recent post on EverWeb’s new hyperlinking capabilities that debuted in EverWeb 3.7, we promised that there would be more hyperlinking options coming soon to EverWeb. In this post we take a look those additional hyperlinking features which came out with the EverWeb 3.7.1 release.

Follow Link

The first new hyperlinking feature released with EverWeb 3.7.1 is ‘Follow Link’ which does just that – it follows the link you have added in your page back to its source. The source can be an internal page, an internal blog post or an external page. Follow Link gives you a simple, easy way in which you can test and troubleshoot links in your pages or to find where the source of the link actually is located. Using this feature will help you reduce the risk of including dead, or mistyped, links in your site that could result in ‘404 Page Not Found‘ messages when visitors click on such a link.

The Follow Link feature works for most of the hyperlinks that you use within your page with the exception being when there are hyperlinks contained within widgets such as the FlexBox or Text Section widgets.

To use the feature, simply secondary click on the link and select ‘Follow Link’ from the menu. If the option does not appear on the menu, then it is not available for link e.g. if you have a link to an email, you cannot follow the link to its source.

As mentioned earlier, Follow Link is a great way to check that your links are working properly. It can also be used troubleshooting links in the Navigation Menu widget. Have you ever had the Navigation Menu display two, or more, menu items with the name ‘Home’? If so you’ll obviously want to change one, or more, of your page’s Navigation Menu Display Name field. Simply secondary click on the one of the ‘Home’ page links in the Navigation Menu widget and select ‘Follow Link’. You will immediately be taken to the page where the link is and can immediately change the Navigation Menu Display Name from ‘Home’ to the label that you really want to use instead. Remember that when using this option, the Navigation Menu widget should not be selected when you right click on the menu option you want to follow.

Edit Link

The second new hyperlinking feature for users of EverWeb 3.7.1 or higher is the new ‘Edit Link’ option. Using this option you can now secondary, or right, click on an object and select ‘Edit Link’ from the dropdown. You will then notice that the Hyperlinks Inspector will be displayed with the.object’s link being available to edit. The Edit Link feature is available for use with text links and with objects that contain a link such as a shape or image. For the moment, this is the limit to the capability of the feature, but more is planned to make Edit Link more dynamic and context sensitive in a future version of EverWeb.

No More Linking to The Navigation Menu Widget

The great thing about hyperlinking is that you can use the feature on almost any object on your page if you want. However, prior to EverWeb 3.7.1, you could actually set up a link on the Navigation Menu widget itself. This is something you really do not want to do as you want to access the hyperlinks of the Navigation Menu Widget itself. So, as of EverWeb 3.7.1 we have disabled this so that you do not inadvertently add a hyperlink to this widget and lose access to your navigation.

More about Hyperlinking in EverWeb

Hyperlinking is a core feature of most websites and there is plenty to explore in EverWeb. Here are some related videos that may be of interest…

If you have a question about hyperlinking in EverWeb, or any question relating to EverWeb, please let us know in the Comments Section below. We’re here to help!

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Did You Miss These New Features in EverWeb 3.8?

Friday, September 2nd, 2022

Our latest EverWeb release, version 3.8, has three great new major features: a gorgeous new User Interface if you are running macOS Big Sur or later, an easy way to group assets on a page by page basis, and the new Mass Mailing feature for the Contact Forms Enhanced Addon. As always, though, we have added a lot of often requested minor features and tweaks to EverWeb to make your website building experience even better. Here is a rundown of those smaller features that you may have missed…

Blogging Posts Are More Customizable!

Good news if you use EverWeb’s blogging feature as EverWeb 3.8 introduced two new feature additions to help you with formatting your blog pos: Blog Post Header alignment and Blog Post Date Alignment. Alignment can be wither left, right or centered.

The other really useful feature to come in this release is the inclusion of Image Padding for your Blog Post’s Cover Image. As you increase the padding, the vertical and horizontal spacing increases between the Post’s Cover Image and the Blog Post Header and Date fields. The effect is most noticeable when the Post Cover Image is left aligned. If the image is center aligned, you will see vertical padding only, and you may not notice any effect is the image is right aligned as, in this case, the Blog Post Header and Date fields will be left aligned so will not ‘interact’ with the image.

New “Instant” Preview Feature

Over the last few years, we have aimed to improve the speed of previewing your site and with EverWeb 3.8 we are happy to announce the arrival of Instant Preview. This new feature does just what it says as it instantly show you a preview of your page when you either hit the Preview button and select the browser of your choice.

The new Instant Preview takes only one step to set up. First go to the EverWeb-> Preferences-> General tab. In this dialog box make sure that the ‘Preview Server’ checkbox is ticked. That is all you need to do to get ‘instant’ previews!

More Context Sensitive Help

We started adding more context sensitive Help dialog boxes to EverWeb in version 3.7 and have expanded these in EverWeb 3.8. if you find any Help dialog box intrusive, just tick on the ‘Don’t Show Again’ checkbox so it does not appear again. if you do want to restore the Help dialog boxes, go to the EverWeb-> Preferences-> General tab and click on the “Reset ‘Don’t Show Again’ Dialogs” button. Note that doing this action will restore all of the dialog box help messages.

We have also tweaked the Section headings that display when you move an object towards another section of the page, based on customer feedback to its implementation in EverWeb 3.7.

Photos and Captions

Photos contain a lot of information in the structure of the file, such as date and time created, location, aperture and focal length settings and so on. In EverWeb 3.8 EverWeb will try to retrieve the caption of a photo if there is one in the file information. Id the caption is found, when you import the file into EverWeb, it will replace the filename with the caption information instead e.g. if I have a photo with a file name of ‘P1000450.jpg’ on my desktop with a caption ‘Blue Sailing Ship’ included as the file’s description, when I drag and drop the file in to EverWeb, the file will be renamed as ‘Blue Sailing Ship.jpg’. The original file on the desktop remains unaffected and still has its original file name.

Faster Widget Generation for Apple Silicon Users

Although apps on Apple’s Intel based and Apple Silicon Macs in theory should run the same and without problem, there are some differences between the two. Typically this usually means that Apple Silicon users have found some speed issues in the past that need to be addressed, even though the app is ‘dual binary’. Although we have tweaked EverWeb to remove these issues, a bit more work in the area of widget generation in the Editor Window has been done just to keep this running at the speed they should – nice and smooth!

EverWeb 3.8.1 Is Now Available!

…and finally, the maintenance version of EverWeb 3.8, version 3.8.1, is now available for download. This update is recommended as it fixes some issues found in the recent 3.8 release. If you have ‘Automatically Check for Updates’ set on in the EverWeb-> Preferences-> General menu option, you will be notified of this updated when you next log in to EverWeb. Alternatively you can use the EverWeb-> Check for Updates… menu option, or download the latest version from the EverWeb website.

Do you have a feature that you would like to see in EverWeb? Or perhaps a feature that you would like enhanced or expanded upon? Let us know in the Comments Section below!

Organizing Page Assets In To Folders in EverWeb

Thursday, August 18th, 2022

If you find organizing your website’s image assets in EverWeb’s Assets list to be a necessary, but tedious activity that takes a lot of time to do, EverWeb 3.8 has the perfect solution for you!

If you have a small website with just a few images in it, you probably will not need to organize your image assets in the Assets List at all. If, however, your website uses a lot of images, or has images added to it on a daily, or regular basis, then organizing these image assets can be important, but also something that you want done quickly and painlessly.

Organizing Your Images

The first thing about the image files the you use in your website is that it is always a good idea to name your images as something memorable before you import them in to EverWeb. Photo image files are typically a good example as cameras and mobile phones often label image files using a sequential letter/number sequence which means that it is going to be harder to identify the image without looking at it first. So, if you have one or more images you want on your website, label the file name with some form of relevant descriptive name.

The other good reason for naming your image files with a descriptive name is that it is good for your website’s Search Engine Optimization (SEO)! Choose a file name that describes as best as possible what the image itself is about. Again, this is something that is best done before you import your images in to the Assets List in EverWeb. If, however, you have already imported images that do not have SEO friendly file names, you can rename the files in question by double clicking on their file names in the Assets List and changing the name there. This is an adequate workaround but not as good as natively importing image files with good SEO names.

Asset List Folders

Since EverWeb 3.0 you have been able to organize your image assets in to folders and subfolders. There’s even a Search box so you can quickly locate image assets in the Assets Tab if you need to. Another quick method of finding an asset in the Assets List, if you already know the file name, is to use predictive search. Just click on the Assets tab then click on the first asset in the list and start typing the name of the asset you are looking for. EverWeb will use your keyboard input to locate the file quickly as you type.

In our latest version 3.8 release of EverWeb, you can now collect together all of the image assets of a specific page in to their own dedicated folder in the Assets List just with a couple of mouse clicks! It’s super easy to do and will help you get your Assets List organized in no time!

Creating a Folder for Image Assets on the Current Page

  1. Start by selecting the page you want to create an Assets List folder for.
  2. Click on the Assets Tab. 
  3. Click on the Settings Cog/Button and choose the option ‘Select All Assets On Current Page’. 
  4. You will notice that all of the image assets on the current page will be highlighted in the Assets List.
  5. Now click on the ‘+’ button to add a new Assets List folder.
  6. Name the folder as required e.g. the name of the current page.
  7. The selected assets will now be added in to your new folder.
  8. Repeat the above steps for other pages whose assets you want to group in the same manner.

The new Assets List feature is a simple, yet quick and effective way to keep your image assets manageable and organized in page related folders. Let us know in the Comments Section below if you this feature is useful and what other asset related features you would like to see in future versions of EverWeb!

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What’s New in EverWeb 3.8: New UI, Contact Form Features, Assets List Features, Instant Preview and More!

Thursday, August 11th, 2022

We are super excited to announce the release of EverWeb 3.8 with a revamped UI, a new mass mailing feature for Contact Forms Enhanced Addon, a New Asset List feature to help you group image assets page by page, Instant Preview, new Blogging features and much more! You can find the full list of new and improved features below as well as the usual bug fixes!

Which Version of EverWeb is For You?

EverWeb is available in the following versions:

  • If you are running an Intel Mac running OS X 10.10, macOS Yosemite, El Capitan, Sierra, High Sierra, Mojave, Catalina, Big Sur or Monterey EverWeb version 3.8 is available for you.
  • If you are running an Apple Silicon Mac running macOS Monterey or Big Sur, EverWeb version 3.8 is available for you as a Universal Binary. EverWeb will run natively without the need to use Rosetta 2.
  • If you are running OS X 10.7 – 10.9 (Lion, Mountain Lion, Mavericks) EverWeb version 2.9.1 is available for you.
  • If you are running OS X 10.6 EverWeb version 2.5.2 is available for you.

When updating to the latest version of EverWeb, the update process will automatically download the correct version of EverWeb for your operating system.

EverWeb 3.8 Includes…

[NEW] Contact Form Advanced option ‘Mail Sending’ lets you select ‘EverWeb’ for email sending. You won’t have to use SMTP details and it will work with any web host and any email.

[NEW] The Assets list now has an option to select all assets on the current page. You can then click the new folder button and EverWeb will put all the selected widgets into that folder.

[NEW] Instant Preview: If you use the ‘Preview on Server’ option in Preferences->General->Use Preview Server, EverWeb does not have to regenerate all pages. Previews will be instant now.

[NEW] Updated UI for the Projects Window-> a down arrows replaces the up-down arrow for users running macOS older than macOS Big Sur.

[NEW] Redesigned Toolbar icons if you use macOS Big Sur or later.

[NEW] New UI when updating widget previews in the Design Canvas.

[NEW]New option in the Assets List to ‘Select all Assets’ on the current page.

[NEW] The Blog Post Header and Date fields can now be left, center, or right aligned.

[NEW] Image padding is available for the blog post cover image.

[NEW] More expanded inline Help messages.

[IMPROVED] Dragging and dropping from Photos will attempt to get the caption used for the photo.

[IMPROVED] Using Preview on Server option in Preferences will make it so you don’t have to regenerate the entire site when publishing, it will only generate the current page.

[IMPROVED] The Image Gallery Widget has a new navigation icon in the top right corner of the widget, on macOS Big Sur or later, to move the widget around the page.

[IMPROVED] Big improvement to widget generation time on M1 Macs.

[FIX] Fix for frame image settings when previewing.

[FIX] Fixed frames issue in the Responsive Row Widget.

[FIX] Fixed crash with some widgets on M1 MacsNew Contact Form Advanced option ‘Mail Sending’ that lets you select ‘EverWeb’ for email sending. You won’t have to use SMTP details and it will work with any web host and any email.

[FIX] Fixed problem with some links with anchors in them.

[FIX] Fixed FlexBox widget linking options.

[FIX] Fixed a problem with mobile pages and Instant Previews.

[FIX] If SEO PowerUp has expired but the Optimize for Search engines option is still selected, the user will be notified.

How To Update To EverWeb 3.8

You can easily update EverWeb by either:

  1. Launching EverWeb then going to the EverWeb menu at the top of the screen and selecting ‘Check for Update’ or by
  2. Downloading EverWeb from the EverWeb website.

After downloading EverWeb, double click on the EVERWEB.DMG file. A window will open. Drag the EverWeb icon on to the Applications folder icon. Once the file has been copied, you can close the installation window, delete the .DMG file and eject the EverWeb disk on the desktop by dragging it to the Trashcan.

Remember, you won’t lose any previous data when updating as your website project files are stored elsewhere on your computer.

The update is free for EverWeb + Hosting users and EverWeb Standalone users who are within their 1 year of free upgrades and support period.

You can easily check your EverWeb Standalone free update period from EverWeb’s Preferences window or from your client area.

If you have passed your one year of free EverWeb updates, you can purchase 1 more year of upgrades and support from your client area.

You can easily re-download earlier versions of EverWeb from your client area if you are not ready to purchase an additional year of updates and support.

Login to your client area and go to the ‘Manage Product’ page. On the left of this page, select ‘Downloads’ and choose the version of EverWeb that you need.

More Information About EverWeb

For more information about the new version of EverWeb, please check out the following resources:

  • The EverWeb website which has up to the moment information in it’s blogging section
  • New EverWeb videos on YouTube
  • The EverWeb User Manual in EverWeb’s Help-> User Manual menu
  • The EverWeb Discussion Forum

If you can’t find what you need, or have any other questions, comments or feedback please let us know. We’re happy to help.

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Exploring the EverWeb Client Area

Monday, July 25th, 2022

When you purchase EverWeb, as part of the purchasing process, you create your EverWeb client account for the type of product you have purchased – EverWeb+Hosting or EverWeb Standalone if you use your own hosting. Your account is set up in what we refer to as your ‘EverWeb Client Area’.

Why Do I Need An EverWeb Account?

Once you have setup your EverWeb customer account and purchased EverWeb, you need to enter the same account email address and password in EverWeb itself. To do this, log in to EverWeb, then enter your login details using the EverWeb-> Preferences-> Account menu option. Once you have entered in your account email address and password, check the box Add to Keychain so you do not need to login again. Under your login details, you will then see the products and services that you have purchased and their ‘Next Due Date’.

It is important to login in EverWeb itself because without these details you will not be able to publish your website to the Internet! The other important reason for having an EverWeb account is that it enables you to do some behind the scenes administration tasks if you need to. In this post, we will be giving you an overview of some of these features!

Logging In To Your EverWeb Client Area

There are a few ways in which you can log in to your EverWeb Client Area.

  1. Using your browser. In your browser go to the following URL: https://billing.ragesw.com/clientarea.php. Enter your EverWeb account email and password to login to your EverWeb Client Area.
  2. In EverWeb go to the File-> Edit Publishing Settings menu option, then click on the ‘Manage Account’ button in the bottom right hand corner.
  3. Again in EverWeb, use the EverWeb-> Preferences-> Account menu option and again click on the Manage Account button in the right hand corner under your product details.

EverWeb Client Area Features

Your EverWeb Client Area is probably a part of EverWeb’s eco-system that you will not use very often but it is worth knowing what it does offer you. Below is a list of some of the Client Area’s main features:

  1. Support Ticket logging and tracking.
  2. Purchased Product and Renewal notifications.
  3. Account Administration.
  4. Email Administration (EverWeb+Hosting only).
  5. Contact Forms Enhanced Addon Administration (if purchased).
  6. Website Metrics (EverWeb+Hosting only).
  7. Webmail Access (EverWeb+Hosting only).
  8. Domain Services.
  9. Access to the EverWeb Discussion Forum.
  10. Available Product Downloads.
  11. EverWeb Knowledgebase.

The Client Area Dashboard

Once you have logged in to your Client Area, you will see a dashboard of your main customer details and purchases. If you click on any one of the dashboard boxes – Services, Domains, Tickets or Invoices – you will be taken to the relevant page for that feature.

Client Area features can also be listed down the left hand side of the page you are currently on so, for example, on the dashboard page your own Client information is displayed so that you can edit and update it easily if you need to. You will also see on this screen your Client Area account contacts, shortcuts etc. In addition if you have purchased EverWeb’s Contact Forms Enhanced Addon you will have access to your Contact Forms Submissions from this screen.

The options in the left hand side of each page of the Client Area are context sensitive so that you will always see only the options that are relevant to what you are doing at the time.

Quick Client Area Tools and Tips!

There are lots of options to explore in the Client Area, but here are some of the typically most popular things that you may want to do…

  • Log a Support Ticket: Just click on the ‘Open Ticket’ menubar option. To quickly check the status of any existing just click on the Tickets dashboard button.
  • Using the EverWeb Knowedgebase: There is a wealth of information in EverWeb’s knowledgebase. Just click on the Support-> Knowledgebase menu option and enter your question in the search box.
  • When are my products an services renewing? You can quickly find out when your EverWeb products or services are going to renew just by clicking on the Services dashboard button.
  • When is my domain going to renew? In this case, just click on the Domains dashboard button to see your domain history and when any active domain will be up for renewal.
  • How do I gedownload my version of EverWeb? If you ever need to redownload the latest version of EverWeb you purchased you can do so easily via the Support-> Downloads menu option.

All the Options You Need…

In this post we have given you a top level view of EverWeb’s Client Area. There are a lot of features that we have only mentioned briefly or have not covered at all. If you take the time to explore the menu options in the Client Area you will find a wealth of configuration options. Some of these are quite technical so our advise is not to change anything unless you are 100% knowledgeable about what you are doing. If not, you can always ask out Support Team who will happy to help and guide you as needed.

Please let us know if you have any questions on the EverWeb Client Area, we are here to help!

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EverWeb’s Contact Form Advanced Widget Primer!

Sunday, July 10th, 2022

When EverWeb launched back in November 2013, it came with a number of ‘widgets’ which help to extend the reach of EverWeb without the need to modify EverWeb’s core features and functionality in the process. Widgets were a familiar, but limited, feature of Apple’s defunct iWeb website builder that EverWeb has capitalized and expanded upon since its inception.

The Original Contact Form Widget

The very first version of EverWeb included the Contact Form widget which provided similar features to those found in iWeb. The widget features five fields for visitors to fill in so is super simple and quick to use. In fact, the widget remains essentially unchanged since its launch in the current 3.7 version of EverWeb. The only real update has received has been to to make it a full width capable widget for use in responsive website design.

So, why has the widget not been developed further? The answer lies in its successor, the Contact Form Advanced Widget!

Introducing the Contact Forms Advanced Widget

The Contacts Form Advanced widget was introduced in EverWeb version 2.0 to give EverWeb users a widget that was highly flexible, customizable and secure. The original Contact Form widget is still provided for when your needs are very simple or for legacy usage.

Our recommendation is that, wherever possible, you use the Contact Forms Advanced widget. If you are still using the original Contact Form widget you may want to replace it with the Advanced version of the widget. There are three good reasons for doing so:

  1. The newer widget is more secure against spam due to its security measures both internal to the widget and through the use of Google’s reCAPTCHA tool if it is implemented in the form.
  2. The Contact Form Advanced widget has gained a host of customizable features since its launch and its existing features are also often expanded, or improved, upon. We will be looking at the widget’s main features of the widget later on.
  3. You can expand the widget’s capabilities with the Contact Forms Enhanced Addon, which is available to purchase from your EverWeb Client Area.

Security & Form Validation Features

The Contact Forms Advanced widget uses your SMTP details to provide a more secure way of making sure that your form does not get hijacked by spammers or malware bots taking over your form. Although entering your SMTP details may be time consuming, it is a one off operation that will help keep your form secure. Instructions are provided on how to enter your SMTP details for both EverWeb+Hosting customers and for those of you who use your own hosting provider.

The other security option the form uses is Google’s reCAPTCHA anti-spam tool. All you need to do sign up for the the service and generate the Site and Security Keys for the site you want to use reCAPTCHA with. When using the form, your visitor will need to verify that they are human by clicking on photos of objects presented to them.

One of the other important features of a contact form is its validation and confirmation for the visitor that the form has been sent. The widget includes validation (e.g. when using required fields in the form) and allows you to provide a customized Email message to the person submitting the form once the ‘Send’ button has been clicked upon.

Using Form Controls

The cornerstone feature of the Contact Form Advanced widget is its Form Controls. A Form Control is a user defined field that can usually be fully customized e.g. you could have a text field, an email field, a header field or a drop down menu field. When you select the Form Control you want to use, you will see the options that are appropriate for the control within the Widget Settings. There are seventeen Form Control types to choose from. This means that you can design your contact form confident that there will always be the right Form Control available to use in it. Some Form Controls, such as the Radio Button, you can even import your options list from an external text file if you want.

Form Controls can be designated as ‘required’ so that anyone using the form must complete the required field before they can send the form.

To help guide your visitors on how to complete fields in the form, the widget has two options: Placeholder Text lets you add help text within the field itself. When a visitor starts to type in the field, this help text is then replaced by the visitor’s input. The second help option is to use the Control Instruction/Tip field which can be used to display help text under the field in question.

Formatting Options

The Contact Form Advanced widget gives you the control and finesse that you need to customize the look of your contact form so that it will blend in perfectly with your website. Many of the Form Controls have their own font options so you can mix and match as you need.

Formatting options can also be applied to the contact form’s Send button as you can use the text you want, in the style you want, or you can opt to use a button image, which like a hyperlink has normal, mouse down and mouse over options. As a third alternative you can also use EverWeb’s Styled Button to design your own button, a feature which can also be found in other EverWeb widgets.

The EverWeb Contact Forms Enhanced Addon

The EverWeb Contact Forms Enhanced Addon was introduced in EverWeb 3.0 taking the ability of the Contact Form Advanced widget further. If you purchase the add-on, when visitors use your contact form, the data they input into the contact form is stored by EverWeb in a dedicated secure area on our servers so it can be used later. This is great if you want to build up a mailing list, or you have specific contact forms for different purposes. You can analyse the data returned for each of your contact forms and download it for use in a spreadsheet if desired.

The Contact Forms Enhanced Addon also allow your visitors to upload files to a dedicated secure area in your EverWeb Client Area so you can then download them at your convenience later.

EverWeb’s Contact Form Advanced widget is an incredibly powerful contact form tool and when used with the Contact Forms Enhanced Addon, takes managing and analysing your contact form data to the next level.

If you have any questions about the Contact Form Advanced widget, Contact Forms Enhanced Addon or EverWeb itself, please let us know in the Comments Section below.

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