Working with Contribute

As of 18 August 2006, Contribute Version 3 must be used to edit the site.

Changes and differences in V3:

• To create a new page, based on an existing page: go to the existing page, choose "new page" and choose "create a copy" (in earlier versions, you used "publish as new")
• Pasted formatted text is much more accurate, picking up styles correctly. However, using Ctrl+Shift+V will still paste "text only"
• Pages now display for editing with the left menu shown correctly.
• It's much better about "remembering" directories for repeated tasks.

If you are creating a completely new page, the templates you should use most often are:

• standard_secondary (one or two column content area, selection in Template Properties)
• standard_secondary_rightsidebar (narrow side bar for related content links)

Contribute Tricks and Tips

• The left column of a two-column layout must be longer than the right column. Similarly, the entire page must be longer than the menu. Use extra paragraphs to push it down if necessary.
• The page <title> tag is edited by using Format | Page Properties or Ctrl+J

 

Turning off the left menu in the editor (Contribute V2)

Our left menu is a single long list of all of the menu options, so it's useful to turn it off for editing. What you are doing is disabling SSI (server-side includes) parsing in Contribute (this will effectively make the left nav "disappear" while you're editing).  To do this:

1. Open this file:
C:\Program Files\Macromedia\Contribute\Configuration\Translators\Server
Model SSI.htm

2. Change:
returnArray[5] = "allFiles";
to
returnArray[5] = "nofiles";

3. Save the file and re-open Contribute.