Content Management using Contribute Software
Cornish WebServices have many clients maintaining website using Contribute and for many years (from 2004 through to 2008) this was our recommend content management solution for most websites. In 2009 we offered a choice between Contribute and our online CMS as both offered good solutions for most businesses. From 2010 the Cornish CMS is the better option for many businesses and organisations but Contribute can still offer a good content management solution.
Contribute is a scaled down version of DreamWeaver, the professional website design software. Although when supplied as standard the user can inadvertently create poor code, we can turn this off and leave the user with a system which maintains accessible code which is friendly towards search engines. Easy to use, similar to Word.
Cornish WebServices have an online guide to Contribute.
The pros and cons of using Contribute for Content Management
Contribute can be setup to produce high quality reasonably accessible code, and with a trained user can indeed produce accessible code. Unfortunately the default settings allow a user to (without knowing it) make a previously accessible website non accessible.
Contribute edits actual pages which means your website exists not in a database but as actual files which makes it easy to move from one server to another. The disadvantage is that good search functionality within the website is difficult.
The Contribute software is increasingly difficult to connect to some servers, especially behind firewall's or over slow connections, and it appears to not work well from Vista. In recent years larger numbers of our clients have found connection problems with this software, and support from Adobe is non existent.
Contribute is a software product and requires one license per user (or computer) making it expensive if many people are to edit the website. It also makes it harder to edit from multiple locations. You can install two copies (home and work PC) from one license, but this often give issues with not being able to edit the page at work because it is 'locked' from the home computer.
But one license of Contribute will enable you to edit many websites, making it quite good for someone with many websites.
Cornish WebServices' advice?
For a home user with multiple websites this is a good choice to consider.
Most businesses, schools and other organisations should consider an online CMS such as the Cornish CMS.
