Advertisements on some websites are extremely annoying, they can envelope occasional pages like a swarm of locusts. No wonder then that regular web users install ad-blockers. This is, of course, can be aggravating if you rely on advertisements as a source of income.

If you're an ad-blocker, you're bound to have seen messages informing you that a page can't be displayed because you have an ad-blocker active; you may even have been whisked away to a completely different page, or you may have seen a polite request to deactivate your ad-blocker.

Jeroen's AdblockDetector stack allows Weavers who rely on ads to display a LightboxMe lightbox with any content they please when an active adblocker is detected; it can display a floating text message; it can display the content of a child stack at the top of your page or it can whisk your visitor away to a different page entirely. The latter solution might sound a little harsh, but if you're offering free content and rely on ads to finance that content, you can usher your adblocked visitor to a page with paid content.

I personally don't have the LightboxMe stack from Marathia's Stacks, so I was unable to test this solution. This left me slightly disappointed that the 'Redirect' function wouldn't accept a javascript to allow me to activate one of my many other lightbox stacks. I'm hoping that this is simply an oversight. EDIT: Jeroen has, in the meantime, added a further option "Simulate a Link Click" which will allow you to run a javascript and open a 3rd party lightbox.

The redirect solution works as expected when an URL is entered and redirects almost instantaneously to your page with the paid content. The child stack displaces your page content to display whatever content you've added to it.

The AdblockDetector's 'Generic Alert' displays a page overlay with a text message of your choice alongside a 'close' button. A not unattractive solution if you don't have Marathia's LightboxMe.

AdblockDetector is not your run-of-the-mill 'pimp-my-page' stack that adds bells here and whistles there, it is an extremely useful stack for those Weavers that actually display advertisements to finance their publications. As such, I would classify it as a 'specialised' stack and recommend that you grab it as quickly as possible — before the price goes up!

Landing pages are a great way to get a visitor to click a Call To Action. With Marathia's latest free stack, you'll really grab your visitor's attention.

It's slowly becoming a tradition that Marathia presents us with a free stack at Christmas. ShatteringPopup is Jeroen's latest present; a popup with a fullscreen overlay that opens as an animated mosaic and closes the same way when your visitor clicks anywhere on the page.
The overlay can be set to either a colour, or an image.

It's recommended that ShatteringPopup is set to a maximum width of 320 px, so that it can be viewed in its entirety on mobile screen. The size is set via the mosaic tile size, but sadly the popup script that ShatteringPopup is based on is not responsive.

The non-responsiveness, however, is not a problem. Your popup appears in the centre of the screen and, due to the animation, it simply can't be overlooked.

The setup is simple, with settings for the tile Size and Number of tiles (you must set an even number), Border Colour, Width and Radius and , of course, the background colour or image settings.

Grab your free copy of ShatteringPopup now. Oh, and if you missed Jeroen's previous Xmas specials – XmasLights Stack from 2012, the Blink! and Marquee! Stacks from 2015, the Antiquify Stack from 2016 and the Nebula Stack and Shards Stack from 2017 – they're still available as free downloads

After Duck Soup, the world around Marten Claridge remained silent, except that every Wednesday, he was explaining live to an elite group, how to take Maximum Advantage of the Maximum Design pack. For the last month or so, these video conferences have targeted Quantum Edge (amongst other themes) and said elite group has been aah-ing and ooh-ing and rubbing their hands expectantly.

The wait is over. Duck Soup has a sibling and if you thought Maximum Design was cool, you'll find Quantum Edge has been chilled a couple of degrees more.
Quantum Edge began life as what was probably the single most complicated RapidWeaver project ever produced. In the meantime, Marten has taken sensible steps to split the project into more bite-sized modules. Five of them.

As with the Max Design pack, Quantum Edge is predominantly based on Sections modules; standalone, multi-purpose, full-width content containers that can be quickly deployed to make an instant impact on both your page and your clients. There are eighteen pages of these modules, but you don't have to purchase all eighteen of them; instead you can opt to acquire just five, or ten of them and, as a seasoned BWD user, work out for yourself how the remaining modules were created…

This time round, Marten's new package doesn't simply present Sections modules; there is a module with complete pages, one with cards, one that devotes itself to footers and one specifically aimed at the iPhone.
You can, of course, secure the complete bundle at a reduced price. But be warned: it will take you a whole day just to peruse your purchase and a month, or two, to get to grips with (i.e. understand) what Marten has put together! Quantum Edge takes advantage of the very latest BWD stacks to present subtle animations and 3D effects never before seen in RapidWeaver.

If you're looking to impress a new client, or just want to WOW the visitors to your new home page, Quantum Edge has everything you need to be able to do so easily.
Copy and Paste one of Marten's modules, replace the content with your own and the wow-effect is guaranteed!

Whichever module(s) you decide to procure, when you open your download, you'll discover that you have a Foundation, a Foundry and a Universal version for both RW7 and RW8. You'll also discover a download link to all images used within your project and – if SVGs were used in the project – you'll find all the SVGs too!

Be sure to watch Marten's tuition video on the demo page. Then, if you then still have queries, feel free to join his regular Wednesday meetings and ask any questions you may have…

I recently saw a post on the forums "sign up to our newsletter and receive a free stack". I'm a glutton for punishment, so that's exactly what I did! And I'm sure many, many more did to, because – Hey! It's free!

Dual Shard Designs. We have no idea who they are as their website gives us no information whatsoever (it's almost empty). Judging by their logo, they could be based in Mettmann in the not-so-idyllic North Rhine-Westphalia; we may never know…
… what we do know is that they are going to "provide the community with tools to build charming and attractive websites" and that their launch is being promoted with a free stack.

Floating Notice is a neat little notice that floats up and down over your important message, so that no-one will miss it! Strangely enough, I spotted a couple of messages on the forums "doesn't work!!". A very useful message, because it informs the developer exactly what is going on.

I've had no such 'luck' (I love it when stacks don't work, or when I can break them), I tested the stack with Foundation and RW8 and it works perfectly for me. I even tried a couple of different stack combinations – just to make sure.

So how does Floating Notice work? Quite simply drop Floating Notice into a Stacks page and drag the stack that you wish to highlight into it. At the bottom of Floating Notice, you'll notice a text container — this is where you place your message.

Now you just need to adjust the animation and such things as padding and you're all set. You might need to add a margin to encompass the movement, but that's all.
Unless, of course, you're not happy with a simple text message. Should this be the case, you can go wild and begin adding stacks to Floating Notice. The stacks will then jump, or float, up and down to catch a visitor's attention – depending on the animation speed you chose.

Stack settings
Colour – Font, Background
Align – Left, Centre, Right
Border Radius
Show Shadow
Animation Speed
Animation Distance
Top Position
Use Stacks Content

With a floating (or bouncing) message above your Special Offer, Book Now, or Learn More, no-one is going to miss your CTA.
And all Floating Notice is going to cost you is a subscription to the news letter, where you'll learn more about the site launch and about even more free stacks.

What are you waiting for? There's sure to be an 'Unsubscribe' button!

We've all read about the advantages of A/B testing. Upload a landing page with a call to action and a week later swap it out for a different page; then check your statistics to see which was more successful. But be honest; put your hands up, those of you that have actually tired it. It's just too arduous. Well, now it isn't!

ABSplit, from Yuzool themes, is a new stack that randomly serves up two alternate versions of a page, or parts of a page. If you wish to test two different CTAs, just drop them into the ABSplit stack sections and publish. If you wish to test two completely different page design, construct one page inside the A section and the alternate page inside the B section.
When your page is published and viewed online, an alternate version will be randomly displayed each time your landing page is loaded.

ABSplit has just a single setting in the stacks panel – Hide Tests – Show Both (default), Hide B Content, Hide A content. Hide Tests can hide either of your content areas in edit mode.

Now go forth and make your A/B testing work for you.