Content Management Using Contribute

As a slimmed-down version of Dreamweaver, Contribute makes it easy for anyone to connect to a website, make edits to it, and then publish changes, all without having to learn more than they have to. If you know how to type a URL in the address bar of a browser, you can connect to a site using Contribute. If you can type and save text in a word processing document, you can make changes using Contribute; and if you know how to click a button (I'll assume that you are quite capable of doing that), you can publish edited content using Dreamweaver. With that said, Contribute is the perfect alternative for users in an organization whose primary roles aren't to create, edit, and publish web pages. For instance, in our organization, we might want to allow Cammy the Content Manager, Tina the Tech Writer, and Ada the Admin Assistant access to specific parts of our website only to make simple changes. For the organization, this has two benefits: The first and obvious one is that we don't have to buy three more licenses of Dreamweaver for users who otherwise might not use its full potential; instead we can buy three licenses of Contribute at a much cheaper price. Second, it allows you, the site administrator, to police who has access to which sites, what kind of access they have, and even be assured that pages you've created won't get accidentally overwritten by someone who has limited experience. As an example for how users in our fictitious Dorknozzle company publish content to our site, take a look at the diagram in Figure 13.1.

Figure 13.1. Developers in our organization can continue to use Dreamweaver while those with limited web development experience use Contribute.

As you can see, Wally the Webmaster, Pat the Programmer, and Dave the Developer can continue to use Dreamweaver to publish content onto the company's website. Ada the Admin Assistant, Cammy the Content Manager, and Tina the Tech Writer, however, can use Contribute because their roles are limited to simple text-based changes and edits. With that said, let's install Contribute and then walk through the process of deciding who within our organization needs Contribute.

Installing Contribute

For the most part, installing Contribute is just as easy, if not easier, than installing Dreamweaver. The tougher task initially, is deciding who within the organization needs it. As a rule of thumb, consider the circumstances outlined in Table 13.1.

Table 13.1. Deciding Who Needs Dreamweaver, Contribute, or Both

User	Purpose	Application(s)
Wally	Site administrator. Makes changes to all pages in the website and also delegates Contribute roles.	Dreamweaver and Contribute
Pat and Dave	Developer and programmer for the website. They need full access to all pages in the site.	Dreamweaver only
Tina, Cammy, and Ada	On occasion, these people make simple changes to specific pages on the website.	Contribute only

Knowing what we know now about the users and contributors of our site, we come to the conclusion that Wally, Tina, Cammy, and Ada need Contribute installed on their computers. You might be wondering why Wally needs Contribute installed if he'll be using Dreamweaver for making changes on the website. Dreamweaver allows you to administer and delegate users and roles directly from the Site Definition dialog, but for this functionality to work, Contribute must be installed along with Dreamweaver. With that said, let's walk through the process of installing Contribute on Tina's, Cammy's, Ada's, and your (Wally's) computer:

1.	If you haven't purchased a copy of Contribute and would like to try it out, you can download a 30-day evaluation version from Macromedia's website at http://www.macromedia.com/downloads.
2.	Assuming that you've downloaded the trial software, double-click the ZIP file to extract the Contribute3.msi file.
3.	Double-click the MSI file to begin the installation.
4.	When the Welcome screen appears, click Next.
5.	Accept the user license agreement and click Next.
6.	Choose the folder in which you want Contribute to be installed and click Next.
7.	Choose options for creating desktop and QuickLaunch shortcuts and also set accessibility for yourself and any other users of your computer and click Next.
8.	In the Confirmation screen, click Install to proceed with the installation.
9.	When the installation completes, disable the Launch Macromedia Contribute 3 check box (unless you want to open it and poke around before moving forward) and click Finish.

That's all there is to it! Of course, in our scenario, we'd want to repeat these steps for every Contribute user. Because we're assuming the role of Wally the webmaster for this chapter, we're set to go.