Marketplace Developer Guide
If you’re a RapidWeaver Developer, welcome! This documentation is for you. It covers everything you need to know about submitting and promoting your addon to the growing number of passionate RapidWeaver users around the world.
What is the Marketplace?
The RapidWeaver Marketplace is a website for listing and marketing your Addons to new and existing RapidWeaver users. It’s a free service developed and maintained by Realmac Software.
The Marketplace was built to support developers and give customers an easier and faster way to find addons for RapidWeaver. You can think of it like an App Store, but for RapidWeaver Users.
The URL for the service is https://marketplace.realmacsoftware.com.
Developer Account Signup
To signup for a developer account please email us, with the email address you’d like to use for your account and your website address.
While you wait for your account to be created, why not read on and see what’s required for submitting your first addon.
Listing Addons
To list an addon on the RapidWeaver Marketplace you need a free developer account (see above).
Once you have an account on the Marketplace you can list as many addons as you like. Although, if you have a large backlog of addons we’d recommend adding them over a few weeks or months . By drip-feeding and spreading out the releases you’ll get more exposure to a wider section of the RapidWeaver user base.
Addons require a basic set of details, along with details for each version listed. All details are required when submitting an addon unless stated as (optional).
Icon: A single image that best represents the addon. This should be a square image, without transparency.
Dimension: 512(w)x512(h) @ 2x
Format: JPG or PNG
Title: The title of the addon as it appears inside RapidWeaver.
Type: Element, Framework, Plugin, Project, Theme, stack, Utility
Works With: (Pick from listed addons)
Compatibility: The version of RapidWeaver your addon requires.
RapidWeaver Classic (includes RapidWeaver 8)
RapidWeaver Elements
Stacks App
Price (USD only): $
Bundle ID: unique-bundle-id
Description: A description of what the addon does.
Supports Markdown (HTML is not supported).
Preview URL: A live preview of the addon in action.
Store URL: A direct store link to buy the addon.
Trial Download URL (optional): A link to download a trial version of the addon.
Status: Draft, Live, Archived (when an addon is no longer available)
YouTube Video:
YouTube video ID (e.g. C0yDPo_kSjc)
When provided your video will be the first item in the slideshow.
Screenshots: Between 2 and 6 images.
Dimension: 1920(w)x1080(h) @ 2x
Format: JPG or PNG
Addon Version:
Each release of an addon requires a version to be created. An initial release of an addon could be set as 1.0, then a future update might be added as 1.1 and so on.
Number: Version number (i.e. 1.3)
Build: Internal or external build number (i.e. 10763)
Release Notes: What’s new in this version of your addon. Be specific about changes!
Release Date (UTC): The date the addon/update was released.
Requirements:
All addons need to adhere to the following guidelines:
Must be compatible with RapidWeaver Classic or RapidWeaer Elements
If your screenshot shows RapidWeaver, it should be the current version at the time of listing .
Description and screenshots should not mention or link to competing products or forums.
Only actively supported addons should be listed.
When updating an addon be descriptive about the changes. DO NOT write “Various updates and fixes” — Let users know exactly what was fixed.
Marketplace Artwork
We’ve put together a Sketch.app document with the required artboards needed to submit an Addon. This template can be used to get a headstart on creating and exporting your artwork.
You do not need to use or match the artwork in the template. The example artwork is just there to give you an idea of how things could look for an imaginary “Grid Layout” addon.
Get creative, and make sure it’s clear to users what your addon will help them achieve.
Download RapidWeaver Marketplace Addon Template (Sketch) - v3
If you’d like to use another app to create your artwork, the required sizes and format are listed above.
Supported Addon Types
Below is a list of addons the Marketplace supports. If you think there’s an addon type missing, please get in touch so we can work on adding it to the site.
Element
Plugin
Project
Theme
Stack
Utility (RapidWeaver related apps and web services)
Marketing Addons
Creating an addon and putting it up online for sale is often not enough. To get a sustainable amount of users and sales, you might need to put in some extra marketing effort.
Let’s start by looking at what Realmac Software can do to help promote your addon once it’s listed on the Marketplace. Further down there’s some Marketing advice that will help you reach more customers.
Realmac Software will help promote your addons in the following ways:
The Marketplace is promoted to ALL new and existing RapidWeaver users . Users receive emails highlighting the best addons, as well as encouraging them to browse the marketplace and look for new and useful addons.
Marketplace search is built into RapidWeaver (coming soon).
From time to time we send out emails to our entire mailing list highlighting some of the great addons available for RapidWeaver. We do our best to feature a wide range of developers, if you’ve not been featured yet, please get in touch to let us know.
How else can we help?
If you’re building addons for RapidWeaver we want to help you make your business a success. Drop us a line and let us know what your building, and we’ll do our best to help.
Now, let’s take a look at some marketing advice that you can put into practice to help yourself gain more users and sales.
Marketing Advice
You’ve put the time and effort into creating your addon, now you need to make sure it’s getting seen by as many RapidWeaver users as possible. Here are some ideas on promoting your addon to get more users and sales.
Show and Tell
Make sure it’s clear what benefits the customer will get from your add-on. It’s good to put together example websites showing off how your addon can be used — Videos are also a great way to do this.
Don’t forget to post your promo/tutorial videos on YouTube, the more places you can show off your addon, the more chance you’ll have of finding new users.
Polished Artwork
Try to give all your addons a cohesive design language. Make each addon look and feel like it’s been designed by the same company. This will help customers pick out your addons when browsing the marketplace. If the icon for your addon looks poorly designed or hastily thrown together with clipart it will put customers off.
Build an email list
You need to start building an email list of customers if you haven’t done so already. This is still the number one thing to do in online marketing. The basic ways of starting a mailing list are as follows:
Sign-up customers up to your mailing list (with permission), when they purchase a product
Prompt users to sign-up to your mailing list/newsletter on your website.
Once you have a growing subscriber list, you should be notifying them every time you release or update an addon.
Contact the Press
Start building a list of journalists who might be interested in covering your product. When you launch a new product drop them an email.
RapidWeaver Showcase
Ask your users to submit their website to the RapidWeaver Website Showcase category, and include links to the addons they used.
Posting to Social Networks
If you have an account on Mastodon be sure to post about each addon release, and be sure to mention RapidWeaver so we can boost your post!
Updating Addons
Updated Addons will also get posted to the Marketplace RSS feed, for example going from 1.0 to 1.1 would generate a new post — please don’t abuse this system.
Contact Us
If you’re creating a new product for RapidWeaver we’d recommend contacting us so we can help promote it once you are ready to launch.
Developers often assume we know everything that is going on, but we don’t. So please, if you are launching a new addon, or just need some help. Drop us an email, we’d love to help.
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