Macromedia Contribute is a program for managing and updating Website content and has been designed for businesses without access to technical Website administration resources. Therefore it's perfect for non-technical computer users for managing their Website.
With a wizard-based setup system and simple WYSIWYG interface, Contribute takes only a few minutes to set up and only a few more to connect to the user's selected Website and start editing.
The interface works like a cross between a Web browser and a word processor. Users can navigate to the page they wish to modify and select the ‘Edit Page' button. Provided the user is authorised to update the page, they then access a simple editing menu and WYSIWYG page layout which can be used to modify the page content, font colours and styles.
The menu can also be used for more advanced updating, such as adding links, images and special characters or inserting and removing tables. However it does not allow the user to view and directly modify any HTML code or other forms of Web scripting. Publishing is just as simple.
Other key features include version control and the ability to rollback up to three versions, avoiding the accidental loss of old content. Page check-in/checkout prevents two users from overwriting one another's edits and users can drag and drop Word and Excel documents into a Webpage. It also includes its own file transfer program for easy page updating.
There is very little on the minus side. Contribute may be a little too limited for advanced users who like to edit HTML, there is no image optimisation included and no way to view a site map to quickly locate pages for editing or finding unlinked orphans.
There is also no way to prevent individual users from publishing a Web page before obtaining approval and Contribute doesn't offer much depth in supporting the content management of database driven sites.
Overall Contribute is a great application for non-technical content management. It is easy to use, supports all the functionality the average user would require and doesn't require any Web design experience to achieve great results.