Contribute

Using Contribute to edit help content

Macromedia Contribute is a combined web browser and HTML editor. Content owners, typically SMEs and/or Technical Writers, use it to create and maintain content without breaking your standards for style, layout, and code.

Online Help Managers access the content with a more sophisticated HTML editor, preferably Dreamweaver, to edit the content and to add more advanced features.

To add help specific functionality (toc, index, alinks, etc), the Online Help Manager uses FAR, RoboHelp, and/or the HTMLHelp Workshop. RoboHelp is necessary only if you need other output than chms, such as WebHelp or FlashHelp, or if you need to create printable documentation.

Process for Online Help Managers

1. Create empty help topic files where your SMEs can enter content. Place the help topic files on a webserver - for instance Apache or IIS.
2. Appoint yourself as the site administrator, and set up user groups and roles. As administrator you determine which folders the Contribute users have access to, and what kind of changes they have permission to do.
3. Send your content owners an electronic key to give them access to the files through Contribute.
4. Start endless nagging to make sure the content owners do what they're supposed to do.
5. Receive notifications from the content owners when they have added content.
6. Review the content, and work back and forth with the content owner until you're both happy. Use Dreamweaver to synchronize your local files and the files on the web server.
7. Do your help stuff (add alinks, index entries, compile, generate etc.)

Process for Content Owners

1. Receive the electronic access key from the Online Help Manager.
2. Cave in to endless nagging from the online help manager: open Contribute and browse to page you're going to edit.
3. Click Edit Page.
4. Write the content - at the office, at home, in the weekends, when commuting, at seminars, online or offline.
5. Click Publish.
6. Notify the Online Help Manager that you've updated the content.
7. Check the content for technical correctness after the online Help manager has reviewed/edited it.

Why Contribute?

I'm a consultant, and some of my clients are small businesses with only one technical writer. Sometimes, there's only one part time technical writer. Many of them are looking for an affordable, easy to use, multiauthor writing tool. There are many tools that fit one or two of these criteria, but few that fit all of them. I've looked at:

• HATs: RoboHelp, Author-IT, HyperText Studio
  • Too expensive for multiple licenses
  • Too hard to learn for non-writers
• Content Management Systems
  • Way too expensive
  • Overkill
• XML based tools
  • Too expensive
  • Too complex
• Blogging tools/Wikis
  • Huh?
  • Could work, but not out of the box

I'm always looking for other tools, but so far Contribute seems to be the closest match to what many of my clients are looking for.

Affordable

The price is reasonable, at least compared to other multi-authoring tools. A single license of Contribute 3 is $149 - six-packs are 699$ (116.50$ per license).

Simple and flexible

• With Contribute, users can start creating content with little or no training. You get all your content in one format - no more unformatted Word files, PowerPoint presentations, post-it notes, paper napkins...
• Let users edit existing files, or let them create new files from scratch, from templates, or from copies of exisiting files.
• You can start with just Contribute and the HTMLHelp Workshop, and then expand with other tools as needed: Dreamweaver, FAR, RoboHelp, Contribute Publishing Services, etc.

Multiple writers

• You automatically check out/lock the pages you're editing - other writers cannot accidentally overwrite your work.
• Edit your pages even when you're offline, then publish them when you reconnect to the network.
• Insert HTML snippets, Flash movies, and Dreamweaver Library items from a common interface.
• Contribute 3 has a content approval/review system (I haven't tested this system yet, so no recommendations).

Dreamweaver integration

• Contribute and Dreamweaver are tightly integrated and share the same CSS rendering engine, check-in/check-out, rollback, page lockout, and page-versioning system.
• Administrate Contribute sites/users/roles from Dreamweaver.

Protect content

• You cannot protect individual HTML files, but you can limit access to entire folders. Plan you folder structure accordingly.
• To protect elements within a file, for instance alinks, use Dreamweaver templates and non-editable regions.

Create a project web

• Use Contribute to create and maintain a project web where all team members can share and update information
• Perfect for style guide, reports, announcements, faqs, etc.

Extend the Contribute How Do I-panel

You can extend the built-in Contribute How Do I-panel to add your own content. Why not create a mini styleguide for your SMEs to help them avoid the most common pitfalls?