Macromedia Contribute
As a Web Geek, I think Contribute is one of the slickest web software titles to be released in some time. For way too long, there has not been an easy way to update a web page or even a web site for that matter. That has all changed with Contribute. Now, someone does not need to be a web geek to keep their web pages updated.
Here is an overview of how contribute works:
Its amazing how much the end user can do in contribute. It is also equally amazing what the Administrator can control.
This handout will go over both how the end user and administrator use contribute. Lets start with the end user first.
The End User and Contribute
Using Contribute is insanely easy. Like I mentioned earlier, it all starts when you are sent an encryption key, or, your administrator has given you the login information for the area of the site you are taking care of.
Receiving the key via email for Macromedia Contribute
There is a password that is associated with the key. Hopefully the administrator sent it along in this email, another email, phone call, water cooler, etc.
Password Screen
Once you have entered your password, contribute configures itself accordingly and logs you into your start page.
From the Start Page choose which web site. you want to edit by click on the site name underneath where it says "Begin editing my web sites"
1. The current page you are browsing. You can hand type a different page if you know the exact URL within your site that you are trying to get to.
2. Edit Page: This will allow you to edit the current page you are looking at. You cannot edit the page if you do not see this button. There is a chance the administrator set your home page to a page you cannot edit. If so, type or surf to a page you know you should be able to edit. Whap your administrator on the head if you still cannot see the edit page button if you are on a page you cannot edit. Do not whap too hard or they may not fix the glitch for you!
3. You can configure contribute to take you to another page by making it your "home page". Just click on the house icon to configure this.
4. You can also browse to a page using a typical open folder structure. The structure is based on the how the administrator designed it, so, this may look confusing if you did not have something to do with the initial organizing and creating of the web site.
5. Lists the pages you currently have in draft mode. draft mode means you have not sent the page to the server yet. Clicking on a page in this list will bring the page to the front and in edit mode. From there you can either make more changes, publish it, cancel the changed or place it back in draft mode.
6. Help System. The Help system in contribute is actually pretty in depth and easy to understand. Simply click on a topic and it will provide some additional details.
Please Note! You may or may not have the options below when you use your copy of Contribute! The administrator has the ability to control most everything you do. You may or may not be able to edit text, add links, pages, graphics files and more. Not sure what you can and cannot do in contribute? Ask your administrator.
Editing a Page
To edit a page, simply click on the Edit Page button. You will notice the page looks slightly different and your button options on the top have changed.
From here editing the text on the web page is simple. If you have used a word processor before, you will feel cozy in Contribute. Highlighting, adding, removing and changing text works exactly in the same manner than it does in a word processor.
Lets take a peek at some the most popular things to do using Contribute (that is besides editing and adding text!)
The Link Tool
The link tool allows you to link to existing pages, new pages, email addresses and files.
Inset Link: Drafts and Recent Pages
This command keeps track of the most recent pages and drafts you have been working on. All you have to do to link to one of these pages is type what you want your link text to be and click the page that you would like to set the link to. Contribute will add the link to the page once you click OK
Insert Link: New Page
This dialog box might look different depending on what your administrator has set for you. This dialog box allows you to make a new page based on a blank page, a copy of the current page or a template provided by the administrator. All you have to do is put the text in that you want for your link, the type of new page you want and a page title. The page title is the item listed at the very top of the window. It is the text someone browsing your web page will see in their bookmark list. That is if they bookmarked it!
NOTE: Sometimes choosing the "Copy of Current Page option will spit up on you. If this happens to you, Contribute will give you a warning dialog box telling you to do the following.
With the page you want to copy as your currently browsed page, Select File > Actions > Publish as New Page...
You will then see the Publish as New Page dialog box. All you need to do here is give the page a title (as discussed previously), title the document (make sure its all one word and ends in .htm or .html) and click publish. You can also click the Choose Folder icon if you want to store this page in another folder. Please note you will need to have contribute access to the newly requested folder in order to move the file there.
Insert Link: Browse
This dialog box can be used to link to an existing web page or outside link (eg http://www.google.com). Just like the other dialog boxes, type in the text you want the link to be. Then, either type in your outside link (remember to use http:// some browsers still depend on seeing that), or, click the Browse button to use Contributes web browser to surf to a page you would like to link to. Is the page not findable when you surf? If so, then click Choose. Clicking choose will let you look at the folder structure of the web server so you can find the folder and then the page inside the folder that you would like to link to.
Insert Link: E-mail
This dialog box allows you to add an email address. Just type in the text you want to have for the link and type in the email address you would like to link to. The end users email application will open when they clicks on this link.
Insert Link: File
Insert File allows you to add a file to your page. This is best used for .pdf files. If you upload files in other formats, you might want to compress them using something like Stuffit. To add a file, type in what you want your link to be and then click on the browse button. Your file will be stored on the server. Please note editing the file on your local hard drive does not change the one posted on the web site. You will need to relink the file if you make any changes to the local version on your hard drive.
Inserting Images
Insert Images is pretty straightforward. Simply put your cursor where you would like to add an image and choose either add an image from your computer or an existing one from the web site. Your administrator may have settings on images that will resample or resize them. They may also let you choose images only from a set folder on the web server.
Insert Table works just like Insert Image. Put your cursor where you want the table to go a select Insert Table.
Table Size: Allows you to set the number of rows and columns
Options: Lets your change the width of the entire table as well as change the border thickness (setting it to 0 makes the border invisible) As the dialog box says, cell padding changes the pixels between the border of the cell and its content and cell spacing lets you alter the amount of pixels between cells. I usually use 4 for each.
Header: Will preformat either the left, top, both or none bold
Curious what to do if you want to change your table once its created? The table menu is your friend. Simply select the table and then go to the table menu. You can find some nice formatting options as well as some options to add, delete, sort and format cells.
Time to Publish!
Depending on the type of access you have, you will either publish your site by clicking on the Publish Button or the Send for Review button. 
Publish will do just that, send all the changes your made to the web page to the web server.
Send for Review will give you a dialog box. Choose who you would like to review the page You can either send the review to their console or a link to preview the draft. I like sending it to their console and selecting Notify recipients though e-mail. This way the file goes straight to their console and they are sent an email letting them know its waiting for them there.
Administrating Contribute
Now, lets talk about setting up your web site. for Contribute.
Please note, this only goes over the configuration of contribute and not the things you need to keep in mind regarding the web development side. Check out Design and Deploy Web sites with Dreamweaver and Contribute if you are curious about setting up web sites in contribute. It is important to note that the tutorial files for this book are sadly out of date. However, I was able to apply the practices described in the book on my own web site. with no issue.
To Enter Administration Mode
To enter the administer a web site. go to the Contribute menu and Select My Connections (Macintosh). For Windows, go to the Edit Menu and select My Connections.
Your dialog box may be blank. To add a site to administer, click on the Create... button
I would love to show you screen shots of the connection wizard, but, in the process you would get most of my login information. Not that I do not trust you, but, you would be amazed the people who find my handouts via Google. I showed you in the presentation and it is a pretty straighforward wizard.
Administration Settings : Users and Roles
This is where you will configure who is allowed to do what using contribute on your server. As you can see, there are three roles. In this copy of contribute, you can almost look at roles as users. You would need the server version of Contribute if you didnt wanted to create something that looked like users. I simply create new roles and that works just fine. Once you create a new role you can edit the role. I explain editing the role in the User Settings are of this handout which is found after I talk about the administration configuration.
Contribute provides 3 main roles: You can always change their settings, but, I recommend you keep these the same and make additional roles if you want to alter any settings. That way it is easier if you ever need some support from Macromedia. Here is an explanation of the roles:
Administrator: Installs Contribute, creates connections to the website, and defines Contribute roles appropriate to the job functions.The system administrator consults the designer on how to set up role settings so that other members of the staff have appropriate editing privileges within their area.
Publisher: Gives final approval to all articles on the website and can publish final drafts of pages or send them back for additional editing or writing. Think of this person as the one who can make pages, change pages, publish pages and approve pages from the writer.
Writer: Can edit any unlocked text on a page, insert images, and apply pre-defined styles to text. This will be the person that edits the page, but cannot publish the page. They have to send the page for review to someone else who will then publish it.
Administration Settings : Administration
The Administration panel lets you set the email where you would like to receive emails. It also lets you change the admin password and removes all shared settings from the web site. It is important to note that you have note removed used access to edit pages if you have set up individual accounts for each user. Anyone who knows their login and password can still use contribute or ftp software to login and edit the web pages they have write access to. Make sure you delete any individual accounts if the goal is not letting that person edit pages.
Administration Settings : Publishing Services
The Publishing Server option in Contribute is actually an additional software title that you can purchase and install on your server. The publishing server gives you a central hub of all contribute activity. I would recommend looking into the server option if you are working with 50+ people on contribute.
Administration Settings : Web Server
Web Addresses: Will list main and any additional domain that your website is listed under. As you can see from the screen shot above it is listing my main domain, IP address and domain missing the www.
Index FIles: This is asking for how you set your index page name. Some servers user default.htm instead of index.html. Simply click this tab and enter how your server adresses a default page
Guard Page: Guard pages are web pages that Contribute places in folders containing administrative files and temporary copies of pages that have been sent for review. The guard page prevents users from browsing to a Contribute folder containing files that you don't want them to access. The web page you specified as an index page for the site is set as the guard page. By placing a copy of the website's index page in a folder, Contribute can redirect users to the home page of the website.
Administration Settings : Rollbacks
Say rollback to an online gamer and they will freak. Find a gamer, ask them. You will see. However, rollbacks in Contribute are pretty slick. Selecting this feature will keep a specified amount of previous version of the web page on the server. You can go back to a previous version even when someone makes a boo boo and even publishes the boo boo. To roll back to a previous page browse the page you want to roll back to and select File > Actions > Roll Back to Previous Version.
I stole this image from the Macromedia help files because I had nothing to roll back and I wanted to show you that it would list multiple people. Please forgive me!
Administration Settings : New Pages
This dialog box is pretty straightforward. Choose latin as your default encoding (unless you are designing on a different continent). Then choose if you want to have new pages end in the .htm or .html extension. Obviously choose the extension that you have used throughout the site.
Administration Settings : Comparability
Comparability simply allows users of older versions of Contribute to use that software to work on their web pages. Make life easier on yourself and make them upgrade. The difference between 2 and 3 is considerable enough that it support will be much easier to handle with everyone using the same copy.
Now, that we have gone over the settings the administrator has set up, lets go over the user settings. I know the screen shots below say Administrator, but, think of these screenshots for any user on the site. I just happened to grab these screen shots from my main machine, in where my copy of contribute has me configured as the administrator.
User Settings : General
This area allows you to set what default home page the user can access. Please note this is not the page they can edit, but a general page. I will set this usually to the default page they are allowed to edit. Simply click the choose button and either type in or surf to the URL to set up as their default page.
User Settings: Folder / File Access
This dialog box allows you to set what folder(s) the user can edit. As you can see, you can give the user the right to edit only one folder or multiple folders. As I mentioned earlier in my session, it is very important to determine your folder structure ahead of time. I place most items in individual folders by department, school, etc.
Please also note that you can give everyone the admin password then control what folder they are allowed to edit. The end user has no idea or ability to get to this password if you use the key system to configure their copy of contribute. Personally, I would rather set up individual passwords on the server for each person. This is handy in case the person decides to use full blown web development software in the future. Once again, they have no idea what their login and password is until you provide it. I think setting up individual user accounts on the server lets me sleep a little better at night.
You also can give the user the option to delete pages they are allowed to edit.
User Settings: Folder / Editing
This is where administrators who want their web pages to look like their web pages begin to get giddy. The editing option allows me to control the text the editor is editing. Some of the more popular options here is the ability to control whether or not the user gets to add images, format new text and add external objects such as a google search bar. Chances are you will go with selecting different options here depending on the person. I will usually allow a google addition for a teacher, but, will not allow it for a district department. The same holds true for formatting text. I will give the teacher more options to personalize their page while I will keep the district person within a set look and feel.
User Settings: Styles and Fonts
This dialog box allows me to control the look of the text the user is editing / adding. I think most of the choices here are self explanatory. I would recommend learning CSS (hopefully I had time to show you during the session). CSS allows me to limit the text and font to a very specific list, keeping the web pages looking consistent. Usually, I will select Allow users to apply styles and will Show only CSS styles included in the CSS file. I will then point to a specific CSS style sheet on the server. This will limit the user to only those choices and nothing more. I will uncheck every other option.
The screen shot above is typically one that I will use for a teacher. This gives them a little more flexibility and allows them to use different fonts, sizes, background colors and font colors. I would uncheck the 3 last options in this dialog box if my goal was a consistent web site.
User Settings: New Pages
Probably one of the more complex dialog boxes in Contribute. This dialog box allows to set if the user is allowed to make new pages. You can control how a user adds pages. You can use the build in template pages the contribute supplies, you can allow them to create a new page based on a copy of any page on the web site. or you can select pages from the site and allow the user only to make a new page based on those. If you use templates, you are in luck. You can create a template and tell contribute only to allow the person to make new pages based on those templates. Templates further protect your site by not allowing the user to delete images or text by determing what regions of the page the person is allowed to edit.
User Settings: File Placement
This dialog box determines where any images or documents will be place once they are added by the user (that is if you gave them the option). If possible, I set this to be a folder within the folder the user is editing in. Just makes the web site. more tidy when it is time to make any major edits. You can however set the location anywhere you would like. I would recommend making sure it is at least in the same folder where the page resides (which is the default setting contribute uses). You will also notice a file size option. While this sounds like something you might check, think again. PDF files are becoming larger and larger and setting this option would probably limit the amount of PDFs that can be posted.
User Settings: Shared Assets
Shared Assets allows you to set what images the user is allowed to place on the web pages they are editing. If you are concerned about what types of images people will add to your site, but, want to give them the option to add images, think of this setting. You can add clip art, school logos and pictures and the user will only be allowed to add these images to the page they are editing and nothing else.
User Settings: New Images
This is probably the better dialog box to use if you want to make sure your users and not putting large images onto the pages they are editing. You can set guidelines to the size of the image in width, height and kilobytes. I usually allow for a max of 600x600 (which is great for printing) or a file size of 300kb (which is more than enough for a 600x600 quality 6 jpeg)
