New to Blocs — Taking the Plunge

General Discussion
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Hello to all from a brand-new member of the Blocs family.

I’ve decided to move on from RapidWeaver and now wholeheartedly take the plunge with Blocs. I’m excited, if not a bit uncertain, about what lies ahead with Blocs.

I’ll be looking to completely rebuild my website in its current incarnation, which is basically an extended portfolio of my writing works over the years. I’m not selling anything, rather just sharing with the people the fruits of my labor. I hope to make my humble website even bigger and bolder with Blocs.

The Blocs version of my site does not have to be identical to the current version, though at least the basic functions of components on each page of my site should be there, if at all possible.

As for range of experience, I’ve been at this website stuff for a while so I guess that would place me in the intermediate range — no longer a beginner but far from being an advanced, expert-level user. There’s always so much more to know, of course, but I’m open to learning a new approach of the kind Blocs offers. This includes learning CSS for the first time, if you can recommend a good learning portal for that.

Some questions now running through my mind as I start off on this journey with Blocs…

— how to rebuild my website with Blocs in the shortest possible time without skipping over anything important? Any advice you can pass along on “do’s and dont’s” for someone like me who is totally new to Blocs?

— how to get my current blog page (which was built with Nimblehost’s Armadillo platform) transferred/migrated over to a new platform like Volt CMS? (which looks awesome). I have decades’ worth of blog postings that I’ll need to be moving over to Blocs eventually; how best to do that?

I very much like the community feeling of this Blocs forum, a feeling which was sometimes missing over at the other place. I look forward to being a productive member of this forum, and promise to bring up questions that hopefully don’t come across as too lame.

Many thanks in advance for any guidance or advice you can share on the above points. And so, the journey begins…

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Hi, Welcome to the Community!

I would first recommend watching this set of videos to gain the basics of Blocs. Blocs is not difficult but you might find a slight learning curve from using other software that does things in a different way. After a few weeks constant use, you will probably have changed your habits towards the way Blocs works.

You also have lots of other videos on the Blocs Academy that will provide great help for certain tasks. See here https://academy.blocsapp.com/

Good luck!

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Thanks, @AdamNotEve, for the very helpful tips. Looking forward to watching each and every one of those videos.

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Welcome!

I would suggest the other videos in Blocs academy are also very useful as well. I reference them frequently.
Sometimes we don’t know what is possible until we see what can be accomplished using the tools provided.

Rich the Weather Guy

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@WeatherguyNH , thanks indeed for the tip. I’ll be sure to stay on top of all the great Blocs Academy videos there. They’re a real treasure chest of information for us.

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First of all @bricov HUGE welcome to Blocs!

And I can say you have made the right decision. I am one of many who made the move, but mine was a few years ago as was teased over and watched Blocs grow from a fairground to a theme park of offerings ! (Sorry, still got my Disney Christmas vacation head on!!!)

The great thing with Blocs is how much you can do from out of the box.
As many have mentioned look at the courses on offer from both @Norm in Blocs and also @Eldar has his brilliant Blocs Master courses

The only time consuming part will be bring your Blog over, but best to ask the developer who is @Jannis if there is a quicker way to bring them all over without individually writing each one?
Volt CMS is great and totally recommend.

Keep firing questions - we are a good bunch here.

Enjoy

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Thanks for the warm welcome, @AdieJAM , and the valuable suggestions I can follow up on, which I’ll eagerly be doing. So much to learn from here onward with Blocs, but I can honestly say that with the support of the community, I believe I can do this.

Truth be told, I’m also looking forward to Blocs helping to bring back the joy of website building. Hats off to all those great veterans you just mentioned here who, in their own ways, have helped us do just that.

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Hey @bricov

Welcome to Blocs Community! As others have mentioned, we are here to assist you in making the transition as smooth as possible. While initial changes may be challenging, I assure you that once you adapt to the Blocs approach, you’ll find it far superior to the ‘old’ way.

Also, check my Blocs Master YouTube Channel for lots of free tutorials for Blocs.

Cheers,
Eldar

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Many thanks, @Eldar . Your words of welcome and advice are appreciated. I’ll be watching your Blocs videos on YouTube and elsewhere with keen interest. Looking forward to learning much from you.

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First of all, welcome to the Blocs community @bricov. You have made a wise choice and I’m sure you will bump into a few familiar faces here in the Blocs community, we have many ex-RapidWeaver users.

Regarding your questions.

I’m not sure if it’s been mentioned yet, but the Extractor tool that is included in Blocs Plus will help speed things up. This tool can be used to extract images, fonts and colours from any website all you need is the website URL. This is a great way to hit the ground running.

You can find the Extractor in the main menu > windows:

CleanShot 2025-01-14 at 15.16.49@2x
CleanShot 2025-01-14 at 15.16.49@2x946×314 61.3 KB

Volt CMS is brilliant, I’m sure @Jannis may be able to offer some advice regarding this question. It’s also worth noting Blocs supports creating WordPress themes as an alternative option if its required.

Anyway, welcome, it’s great to have you with us :raised_hands:

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You’re the man, @Norm . Thanks a million for the welcome and the heads-up on ways for making the transition with Blocs. There’s no going back now, and I am truly looking forward to experiencing how I can rebuild my website the Blocs way with the support of yourself and the community.

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Unfortunately such a migration isn’t possible, or I don’t see how it could be handled.

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Thanks for letting me know, @Jannis . Even if I have to do it the old-fashioned way — switching my volume of blog postings over one at a time from the old to the new — I’m still looking at Volt CMS as my blog platform of choice with Blocs somewhere down the road. May that day come much sooner than later!

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I guess if you put your old Armadillo posts in a plain blank archive page, which then can be included via iframe in an Blocs page, you at least can transform to Volt CMS for your new posts, and keep your old posts still active.

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Very good idea, @Jannis. Thanks very much. I’ll keep that in mind.

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Welcome, Brain! :smiley:
As you can see there are so many willing to help you.

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YES! I second that. I’m not a high-volume website builder (or coder) like some, but I do enjoy using Blocs, so welcome aboard.

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Welcome to the community @bricov it’s great to have you here. :grinning:

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Considering taking the plunge myself as I think the Rapidweaver world isn’t really for me now… Looked into Blocs a while ago and gutted that I didnt jump when the sales were on…

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@KBConcepts , many thanks. Yes, having a supportive community like this one makes all the difference in the world. So glad I moved over to Blocs.

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