Customer Reviews

Macromedia Contribute 3 Win/Mac [Old Version]

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Overall: Contribute (3/5), Contribute Publishing Server (3/5)
Capabilities: Contribute (3/5), Contribute Publishing Server (3/5)
Support: 0
Pirce: 3/5

Contribute is a good product. Unfortunately, the Publishing Server is no longer supported by Macromedia or Adobe, and none of their sales reps know anything about the product. Their support department will charge you for a support incident, only to tell you afterwards they don't know who to go to for support on the product.

For easy site editing, and if you don't need the publishing server component, which was nice while it lasted, then Contribute is fine. It supports rolling back to previous versions and is easy enough to use.

However, the Contribute's real reason d'etre was for enterprise document editing with control over what users could edit, the ability to rollback all the user changes, and control who has access to what, all controlled by the Contribute Publishing Server (a.k.a. CPS).

Do NOT download the Trial version of CPS. You can't get a license out of Adobe for it, and Adobe couldn't find the media (the CD, or an installer for the full, non-trial version) when we tried to get it.

Overall, I liked Contribute, until the 30 day trial ran out and I found out, after almost $1,000 was spent on licenses, that Adobe still sells it but doesn't support it. The third-party sales rep apologized, complained to Adobe that they sell an expensive product they don't support, and refunded the money.

Feel free to try the trial of Contribute, but stay away from the publishing server. If you like it, buy it, but don't expect any support from Adobe. Apparently this is a product that was lost somewhere in the transition of Adobe's Macromedia takeover.

If you design website with Dreamweaver (works with non-Dreamweaver sites, but without Dreamweaver's integrated templates capability that locks portions of the page) that others will need to edit...AND you don't want them to break it, then Contribute is the product for you!

Allows you set user permissions that control what a user can edit, how they can edit a page, how they (and if they) can add images, whether they can publish or their draft needs reviewed, and saves rollback copies so any damage can be undone!

The user interface is easy and user-friendly - the user browses the site they wish to edit (and have permission to do so) and then edits the page. Simple.

This works best for the editor of a site created and maintained by Dreamweaver. And, it will make every Dreamweaver designer happier, healthier, and allow for the opportunity to spend your time making money designing a new site as opposed to the drudgery of continually editing an old site.

I've been using Contribute 3 Win/Mac for four months now to update my website.
I have three complaints:
1. Updating with Contribute 3 is very slow because of waiting while going back and forth between the 'Edit' and 'Publish' modes - even though I have hi-speed cable and a 1GHz G4 Mac.
2. Line spacing in Edit mode does not agree with spacing when I go to Publish mode. So has to be done over by trial and error, usually several times as it's erratic and hard to outguess. And all this is dragged out by item 1 above.
3. Contribute does not allow viewing and editing Source Code. Hard to understand why they left this out as it's an integral part of web editing.