After years of targeting professional Web developers and designers, Macromedia has a new type of customer in mind for its latest product - you!

This new piece of software promises to allow non-technical people in businesses to edit text on corporate Web sites as easily as they can edit other documents on a PC.

This latest move shows that Macromedia is getting back to basics. The maker of Web site creation tools such as Dreamweaver and Flash says it is finally climbing from the rubble of the dot-com implosion. Well that is what the advertising people have to say about Contribute and there are some very impressive reviews about the product but what exactly does Contribute offer. Lets take a closer look.

Okay, here's a scenario that should look familiar. Once a site has been developed many clients want to be responsible for its maintenance. Often this task is assumed by someone with no web design knowledge beyond that of basic HTML. Inevitably, the site deteriorates. With simple initial admin tasks provided by the designer and very little expense and training for the client, the site's maintenance can be assumed by its owner without endangering the quality of the site. Contribute ensures that content changes will adhere to existing web site style, layout, and code standards. As a web designer I like to develop new sites and not be bogged down with site maintenance and as most clients really want to maintain their own sites I think Contribute is a viable win/win solution.

Getting Started

I found the Contribute user interface to be intuitive and the integrated tutorials and help system made getting started a breeze.

Administrative Controls

The administration controls are both powerful and flexible, providing the capability to create permission groups, send connection keys, and control the file versioning and rollback system.

Unauthorized edits and inadvertent design changes can be prevented by granting very specific user permissions. In addition to determining who has access to specific sections of the site, the administrator can also control exactly what types of changes a user is allowed to make. Permissions can be set for such options as text only changes or new page additions, or to more detailed options, such as limits on the size of inserted images and the availability of text tags to the user. Also, by default, Contribute locks out any JavaScript, server includes, or server code on pages being edited.

Text editing behaviors can also be modified by the administrator. The default setting allows the user to enter text as they would in a standard word processor, such as Microsoft Word. For instance, hitting the Return key causes the cursor to drop down one line and multiple spaces can be insert by hitting the space bar.

File History

File versioning is supported and can be set by the administrator to roll back as many as 99 versions. Prior page versions can be recovered with a single click by the user.

So there you have it, Contribute is a product which will free up your time as a web designer to actually "design" because it lets you feel confident in handing over completed sites to their respective owners to maintain. Small businesses will benefit the most from this great product as they will not need to employ specific IT people to manage and maintain their Web sites. Nice one Macromedia.