Macromedia today announced a major upgrade to Macromedia Contribute. Contribute redefines web publishing by enabling non-technical users to update pages on web sites or intranets as easily as they would edit a Microsoft Word document. Macromedia Contribute 3 adds granular administrator control, flexible approval workflow, editing enhancements, and Dreamweaver MX 2004 integration to its award winning ease-of-use and browse-edit-publish workflow. Contribute 3 is a key element of the new, enterprise-ready Macromedia Web Publishing System for organizational deployments to hundreds or thousands of business users. For more information, or to download a preview release of Macromedia Contribute 3, visit http://www.macromedia.com/go/c3/
“Every organization benefits from sharing information via cost effective web and intranet sites, but the power to publish has often been restricted to a few technical gurus,” said Tom Hale, general manager, Macromedia in the press release. “Contribute empowers individuals to edit and publish, while giving organizations the control they need to manage their publishing process.”
Contribute has already unlocked the power of web publishing for more than 200,000 individuals. A broad spectrum of users — including teachers, students, government employees, project managers, sales and marketing professionals, administrative assistants, intranet administrators, and small business owners — depend on Contribute to publish their own sites for small businesses, maintain departmental intranets, or edit corporate websites.
Unlike traditional web content management systems, Contribute 3 does not require complicated workflow definitions, and is able to edit any existing HTML website. Site administrators simply define which users have publishing permission and who can only edit and send pages for review, giving significantly more control to administrators and web developers.
“So much organizational information remains hidden on desktops and networked servers because non-technical users don’t have the time to learn complicated web publishing tools in addition to their full-time jobs,” said Joshua Duhl, research director, content technologies, IDC in the press release. “There is a desperate need for no-learning-curve, complementary solutions that tear down technical and institutional walls, and make web publishing available to everyone.”
New features for content contributors include increased performance, support for editing a wider range of websites, integrated image editing, Microsoft Office integration, and automatic electronic document publishing in PDF and Flash file formats via FlashPaper 2. For web designers and developers, Contribute 3 adds WebDAV support and incorporates the engine for Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) rendering from the market-leading Dreamweaver MX 2004 to allow powerful, standards-based control of web page layout and styling. A new external editing feature enables technical review and editing of web page source code in an external HTML editor (such as Dreamweaver) before publishing.
“We use Contribute 3 to add new content to our corporate website,” said Bill Sherman, vice president of marketing, Intulogy in the press release. “Since our content writers and editors can now make direct changes to the website, we have streamlined the publishing and QA processes. The web team has more than doubled its productivity, and the product has fully paid for itself in just two weeks. With its improved CSS rendering and the e-mail notification and review system, Contribute 3 presents a great solution and an excellent return on investment.”
Upgrades to Contribute 3 will include a single user access license to Contribute Publishing Services, a new server component that is included with the Macromedia Web Publishing System. Contribute Publishing Services is lightweight and easily installed in minutes on Windows, Linux, and Unix servers or deployed to standard J2EE application environments. It provides web and IT managers responsible for larger organizational deployments of Contribute with centralized user management and website access control, including support for user authentication through integration with LDAP and Active Directory. Server-based logging and e-mail notification applications provide a deeper view into website publishing activities across the organization.
A preview release of Macromedia Contribute 3 is available at http://www.macromedia.com/go/contribute3/ Contribute 3 is expected to ship for Windows and Mac OS X in English worldwide in August. Pricing is $79 for upgrades, $149 for new users, and $699 for a Contribute six-pack. Volume discounts and government and education licensing are also available. Localized versions for French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, and Spanish are expected to ship later this year.
Sounds cool.
Contribute has been a God-send for me. When I design a site for a client, included in the price is a copy of Contribute so that they can make site changes without destroying my Javascript, CFML, or SQL. It also frees up our time to work on marketing a site as opposed to constantly adding and deleting commas.
Pretty pricey for a tool that creates a “static” site. You can buy fully “dynamic”, database-driven content management systems for around $150 and there are several open source packages that are free.
The trouble with the whole Macromedia product is that it intermixes all the content with the code. If you want to change your design or use the content for other purposes, you’re screwed. Separating content for presentation has been the norm/standard for years…this is so retro.
This is a product for the clueless.