Contribute 2: Macromedia Gives Web Content Creators Equal and Easy Access

Thomas Penberthy

Macromedia prides itself on having been at the epicenter of the Internet’s “Big Bang.” As the Internet has exploded in every direction at once, so too has Macromedia’s product stable. For graphics creation and optimization, there are Fireworks and FreeHand. For Web site creation, there’s Dreamweaver. Authorware facilitates the development of e-learning applications, and of course Flash and Director make good on Macromedia’s slogan to “add life to the Web.”

Macromedia’s customer research has revealed a trend that anyone who has built a Web site for someone else already knows: Web professionals, those charged with coding and ensuring the functionality of Web sites, typically end up as de facto webmasters for every site they create. According to Macromedia, Web professionals are spending 15-50 percent of their time as “web-samaritans,” making simple content updates for an average of nine content contributors in a given month, often at no charge. This is time that could be better spent thinking about improved usability, security, and functionality.

Last December, Macromedia added a new product to its stable of Web-enabling tools. Macromedia Contribute was designed for users with proficiency in Microsoft Office to participate in the Web process. These folks are often not designers, not coders, but content contributors. They are responsible for making sure information on company, government, or other large organizational Web sites is up-to-date and accurate.

Macromedia Contribute offers a single window for navigating to and updating content on web sites with one-click ease. Originally only available on Windows, Contribute 2 adds Mac OS X support, improved site connection and security technology, PayPal e-Commerce support, and, for Windows 2000 and XP users, a new option for Web document publication called Macromedia FlashPaper. We’ll go through all of these features below.

Click-Click-Drag-Publish!
In order to make Contribute palatable and approachable to the widest audience possible, Macromedia included the ability to drag Word documents directly from your desktop into the Edit window within Contribute. So in an ideal situation, the copywriter would get approval for her new content (which she, like almost everybody else, has written in Word). She would open Contribute, click the “Home” button (1st click) to get to the target page, then hit the Edit button (2nd click), then drag the approved Word document into the appropriate area of the edit window, then click the Publish button to make it live.

Also included in Contribute is a feature Macromedia calls “FlashPaper.” FlashPaper is a technology that leverages the ubiquity of the Flash player to “turn any printable document into a compact, Web-friendly Flash format that can be embedded into any Web site.”

FlashPaper documents are created with the Windows 2000/XP-only FlashPaper Printer, a printer driver that kicks out Flash-compatible documents that can be placed and resized into HTML documents as images. When a visitor clicks on the FlashPaper “image,” it instantly opens within the browser, without need for the application that created the original file. While certainly not as robust as Adobe’s PDF technology, FlashPaper is also aimed at providing a platform- and application-independent means of sharing files. At this time, FlashPaper documents do not offer encryption, search, text selection, or any of the higher functions of PDF, and again, the FlashPaper Printer is only available to Windows 2000 and XP users. We would guess, however, that FlashPaper is a long way from its zenith as a technology.

Protected, Secure, Undo-able
The idea behind Contribute is to get content editors off the backs of those responsible for the functionality of Web sites. Contribute has a feature allowing site developers to generate “connection keys” that they then e-mail to their would-be content editors. These password-protected, encrypted connection keys carry with them all the settings necessary to allow the recipient to connect to the appropriate areas of the Web site whose content they are to manage. For users who don’t have an administrator, an easy-to-follow connection wizard is provided.

Once connected, Contribute’s connection to its target server is assured by a new file-caching, multithreaded architecture that dynamically stabilizes dial-up, long-distance, or otherwise spotty connections. Additionally, Contribute now supports SFTP (Secure File Transfer Protocol) and a system of permissions to ensure that your site is only edited by those authorized to do so, and that those so authorized are only able to edit administrator-defined pages.

Contribute is tightly integrated with Dreamweaver MX, sharing its file versioning system to log the time and issuer of every change made, and Dreamweaver’s check-in, check-out system to guarantee that two editors won’t write over each other’s work.

For the dreaded but inevitable event wherein an editor uploads the wrong content, Contribute features a “one-click rollback” option to restore the last approved version of any edited page.

Who Edited This Thing?
For most Web site designers, getting the layout to look just right is a long and grueling process involving multiple browser/platform/OS version testing. The idea of giving “Jack” in the marketing department the ability to change the Web site is akin to a parent handing the keys to the new Ferrari over to a 16-year-old son to “go to the store.” Macromedia has thought of that, and Contribute’s support for CSS and Dreamweaver templates, along with its elegantly accessible editing features ensure that content modified in Contribute will maintain the look and feel of the rest of the Web site. Contribute uses the HTML authoring engine in Dreamweaver MX, so any changes made will neither insert extraneous code nor reformat existing code. Additionally, Contribute 2 locks out any scripts or server code on pages that are being edited. The only thing that changes is the content.

Macromedia boasts that users of Contribute need only Web browsing and word processing skills in order to manage web content, and Contribute’s ability to incorporate Word or Excel documents into Web pages (HTML code standards intact) seems to make good on this claim.
Images can be imported into Contribute via drag and drop, and existing images can be edited with a simple right-click to launch your favorite image editor. Contribute allows Web site administrators to set image size limitations in order to control page sizes.

Contribute 2 adds multiple undo/redo capability, a spell checker, support for special characters, and the ability to import bookmarks from Internet Explorer to speed navigation. The Mac version of Contribute 2 allows Mac users to connect to and update their .mac accounts with a single click.

Oh, the Things You Can Do!
Macromedia has given Contribute users a lot of potential, while also giving administrators the tools necessary to channel that potential toward productive ends.

The permissions in Contribute regulate which folders can be accessed, which pages can be created, deleted, or edited, and even what text tags are acceptable. Contribute has provisions for including the tagging necessary to ensure that content meets the latest “best practices” in creating pages that are accessible to people with visual, auditory, or other disabilities. Additionally, Contribute itself supports the use of large fonts, keyboard shortcuts, and screen readers in an effort to make using the program easier for users with special needs.

Contribute 2 has ties to PayPal’s Merchant Tools, and supplies the functionality of a “Pay Now” button that offers small business owners the option of accepting credit card payments on a per-transaction fee schedule. For businesses that don’t want the headache or expense of installing and maintaining such a payment system, the ease of PayPal’s option might fit the bill nicely.

As an added incentive for professional Web developers to encourage their clients to use Contribute, Macromedia designed the Macromedia Affiliate Program. Macromedia will pay a 10-percent commission on every Contribute sale that is generated by an approved Affiliate. Becoming an affiliate is free, but in order to qualify, purchases must be made using links placed on the Affiliate’s Web site.

Time to Activate
When Contribute is first installed, the serialization process involves typing the serial number, and then having Contribute connect to Macromedia’s servers to “activate” the product. If the serial number has already been activated, Contribute will not launch. Contribute will work for 30 days in demo mode. In the absence of an Internet connection (not likely with this Web-centered product), Macromedia offers activation over the phone.

Another change in the serialization, hopefully for all Macromedia products going forward, is that each individual serial number will work for two installations of the product. For example, purchasing one copy of Contribute will allow you to install it onto your machine at work and your machine at home. You may use it in either of the two locations, but not simultaneously.

The Web Made Easy
Contribute 1.0 was a fresh idea that sought to address an emerging need: allow wordsmiths easy ways to update Web content without bothering coders or messing up the site. With the addition of several welcome editing features as well as some powerful underlying style and functionality controls, Contribute 2 will likely continue the success of this low-cost, easy-to-use application.