Course Websites

Working with Macromedia Contribute 2.01

Overview

Contribute is a good tool for for people who will be providing their own content but plans to have someone else actually develop the site. It allows a user to edit a web site without having to know anything about HTML. Additionally, the PC version has a feature that allows you to insert a Microsoft Word document into a web page. Contribute is also cheaper than Macromedia's full featured code editor, Dreamweaver.

The downside to using Contribute instead of Dreamweaver is that Contribute can't be used to change the template used to create the web pages. This means that if you want to change how your pages look or the administrator has to do it. Also, if the menu is set up so that you can edit it yourself instead of having the administrator do it for you, then when you make changes to it you will have to change every page in your site.

Setting Up a Contribute-Based Web Site

While it is possible to create a web page using Contribute as a stand-alone product, Contribute was designed to be used by a developer-content provider team. If you are an instructor in the Materials Science & Engineering department, then I would be the developer and you would be the content provider. If you are interested in setting up a Contribute-based web site for your class, email me. If you are an instructor in another department, your department's webmaster may be able to assist you with setting up a Contribute site or you can download one of the Dreamweaver-based site available on the Course Web Sites Main page.

Contribute and Microsoft Word

The PC version of Contribute has the ability to convert a Word document to HTML and insert it into a Contribute web page. To do this, put the cursor where you want your Word document to be, select "Insert->Microsoft Office Document..." and choose the file you wish to insert. A document that has been inserted into a Contribute web page can not be exported back to the Word document it originated from. Therefore, it is a good idea to make any changes in the Word document and then re-insert the document into the Contribute web page.

The HTML that Contribute produces is better than the code produced by the Word "Save as web page" feature and uses a lot less memory. However, there is an art to producing a document that will look good in both Word and Contribute. For more information on this, see Creating Contribute Friendly Word Documents. Creating Contribute Friendly Word Documents is available both as a downloadable Word document and in the form of a web page created from the Light Course Web Site and the Word document, which was inserted using Contribute as well as a web page created using the Dark Course Web Site.

Fun with Administering Contribute

Administering Contribute is easy and fun - until you forget an Administrative password. You can delete your old site definition and create a new one. You can even declare yourself an Administrator. But you won't be able to perform any administrative functions without that password. (If you set up a site and declare yourself the Administrator and Contribute doesn't ask you what you want your Administrative password to be, it's because there already is one.)

Contribute's site definition is in a file named "contribute.xml," located on the server in the folder "_mm" in the top level of your site (you will have to view the file list with something other than Dreamweaver in order to see this folder). Delete this file and you will have a clean slate to start over with.

If you copy an entire site from one server to another you will copy "contribute.xml" over as well. If you don't realize this file exists and go to create what you think is an entirely new site definition, much confusion may result.