Dreamweaver CS6 and Contribute

[lisztdesign]

I have spoke with several Adobe customer care reps and tech support. NONE of them have been able to answer even the most basic questions about the new Adobe Creative Cloud and how the newest software (including Muse) impacts web designer/developers who have web projects that are delivered to clients.

Here's the issue:

I create websites in Dreamweaver and have trained my clients to use Adobe Contribute to maintain the content on their sites. This has been working very well for a long time.

I recently signed up with Creative Cloud and am starting to use the new CS6 products (Dreamweaver CS6, etc.). But there is no Contribute CS6.

When I called to ask, I was told that "Contribute is being dropped and will be replaced with Muse." I was also told that any NEW sites I create with Dreamweaver CS6 will not work with clients using Contribute CS5 (or 4 or 3). So now what?!?!

One tech support person suggested that I "give all of your new clients your login/password to your Cloud account" so that they'll be able to use MUSE to update their new sites. When I asked about security, and whether with my credentials they would have access to ALL of my content in the cloud, including other client work, they said YES. (Is this just about the most stupid suggestion you've heard?!)

This is confusing at best, and here's why:

• Currently my clients pay between $10-$20/month to pay for hosting on their existing sites; new clients will likely pay the same.
• Previously they would simply *purchase* Contribute which would allow them to edit the content on the sites I've created for them which are based on locked templates with designated 'editable regions' for them to access.
• So if Contribute is being abandoned, how do clients maintain their site content??
• If they subscribe to the Cloud-based MUSE, it will cost them an additional $15/month. (as much as their hosting costs!!)

Questions that I still do not have answers for (since no one at Adobe seems to have a clue!)

1. If I create the site with Contribute CS6, will clients be able to still edit content in defined 'editable regions' of their site pages using MUSE?
2. Where will they host their site?
3. Does a monthly MUSE subscription include hosting? and/or is that yet another separate charge for hosting through Adobe Business Catalyst?? and what is this combined cost?!
4. All of these seems very cumbersome and not to the benefit of my clients or to me as a web developer using Adobe Creative Suite products?  and finally...
5. HOW do I get answers to my questions? (I've spent a total of 5 hours talking to overseas tech support staff with 'Adobe' who read from a script and cannot answer ANY of these questions)
6. Customer Care cannot answer ANY of these questions either

I need support and clarification.

Thank you!

Tim Liszt

LisZt Design | Claritas Consortium

[phone removed by moderator]

[Gaz Yates]

This is great news. Adobe Contribute is an amazing easy to use and intuitive application, its search engine friendly, secure and practically maintenance free. I recently won my biggest client ever on the basis of Contribute and trust me they are a serious, serious company who have already been down the Wordpress/Joomla/Drupal route (expect the sale soon Adobe).

Clients are to the most part not technical geeks and have little understanding of security. Anyone who hosts websites understands the security risks of open source software and what can happen when its not updated by the client. For example when a new Wordpress patch comes out now I have to manually go though all the sites we have built on that particular platform and check my clients have patched the software, 90% of the time they have not and this is something I can not ignore. I also do this for free as I can't risk a hacked site crashing one of my servers as it screws everybody up on the server.

The other issue that using an open source cms creates is that the client can manage their own plugins/widgets which are not developed to play well together and regularly crash sites (I had an entire video section stop working on a Drupal site recently because another plugin had been updated by a client).

Like doing the CMS updates you can charge for repairing this kind of thing but to be honest its a hassle I don't need and I guess a lot of other people feel the same way.

Business Catalyst is an Adobe hosted solution and does 100% have its place but when you offer hosting and build sites that range from small local businesses to huge companies then you need a solution that slots in anywhere, in my view Contribute does this.

We need a new version of Contribute that will play well with HTML5 and CCS3 (nothing clever we just don't want it screwing the code up) and gives our clients some social media options (like buttons, share icons) and that will do us for a couple of years Adobe, keep up the great work.

And thats my 2 pennies worth.

Cheers

Gary

[dominic_michael]

Adobe Contribute 6.5 is out! Find more on http://blogs.adobe.com/contribute/2012/08/adobe-unveils-contribute-6-5-with-html5-support.html

[bmlvail]

Will Contribute 6.5 work with updating sites created in Muse?

[dominic_michael]

Yes, you can edit all the static contents of the html page.

[wardseward]

Ok, I'm been following this thread for awhile and I'm still not sure about DW CS6 and older Contribute sites. I hope someone here knows...

Can I upgrade myself to DW CS6 and maintain my Contribute sites (that were built in DW CS5.5) and still keep my clients on Contribute 5... without breaking anything?

Historically, I've seen DW upgrades break Contribute sites and I really don't want to deal with that kind of problem right now.

[Nelson Therrien]

Well, it's strange sometimes the Decisions that Adobe makes... I know they make it to make the company profitable, but of course it hurts people using the product...

I went to give a Joomla! training to some people yesterday and finally, we decided that, for their current need, Contribute was the best solution for them.

They are Dreamweaver developer, but their client wants to be able to do some modifications... They are designers, so they want to use their own design (which was already approved by the client).

Possible solutions:

- Joomla! or WordPress: drawback: pain in the ass to import their design (built in Illustrator, I think); need to learn a new technology...

- BusinessCatalyst: I don't know about their design, but the client already has a host and they have (I don't know if it's going to be on the same site or another one) ASP.NET pages (so, even for Joomla! or WordPress, we would need to make sure it works with their existing server...)

- Contribute: Perfect: they already know Dreamweaver; they can use their own template and simply specify which areas the user can edit; the client keeps his/her current hosting provider/server.

So, I have both Web Premium CS5 and MasterCollection CS6 (well, in fact, Creative Cloud membership) installed on my laptop, so we were able to test it: yes, you can create a site in Dreamweaver CS6 and the user will be able to edit it with Contribute CS5 (or course, the new client will now have the new Contribute 6.5 version, but it was a concern for some of you)...

Will Adobe do like they did with GoLive! 9 (I think): release a new product because it was already near completion and then pull the plug? I don't know... It's just a shame they don't provide it with CS6 (Web Premium, Master Collection or Creative Cloud membership)... One way or the other, less people will use it if it's not included and it WILL at some point disapear (same thing unfortunately for LiveCycle Designer not provided with Acrobat XI anymore...)

[Nelson Therrien]

P.S. Muse will NEVER replace Contribute (maybe in Adobe's mind a combination of Muse and Business Catalyst will, but not in real facts).

Muse was created for print designers wanting to create a simple site, NOT for people wanting to edit an existing web site... So, the closest is using Business Catalyst (with, maybe, the InContext Editing of Dreamweaver), but I don't like the fact that you must change your hosting provider to use BC...

If they would have kept ICE (InContext Editing) as a seperate product, like it was at first (and even free...), THAT would have replaced Contribute... But now, if you want to use ICE, you need to use it with Business Catalyst...

[Nelson Therrien]

I agree aaronyoung... as you saw above.

Though the best solution would be to keep Contribute, I don't think they will... So, the closest solution I found is DMXzone's extensions:

- HTML Editor 3 (to have an "inline" editor) : http://www.dmxzone.com/go/18424/advanced-html-editor-3

- The Online Page Edito add-on: http://www.dmxzone.com/go/18529/online-page-editor-add-on/ (requires the above) that enables you to turn any section editable

There are other add-ons as well to manage images, files, Google maps and so on... Worth it to take a look (p.s. The client doesn't need ANYTHING (except, of course, a hosting company), so, in that regard, better than Contribute... It will require most of the add-ons if you want a complete solution, but you can charge more to the client, since he/she won't have to pay a software...

[nootkan_2]

Just found this post and I haven't even heard of Contribute before this.  I use CS6 and usually have to charge (hourly rate) extra to apply changes to my clients sites.  I'm sure I loose some clients when they realize that the only way to do their own maintenance is by using a hard to learn CMS (which most are for newbies).  My question is this: Can this be installed on my server for my clients or do they have to cough up the extra 100 bucks and install on their computer?  If so, I see this as another barrier as most small clients won't want to spend the 100 bucks if they are only asking me to make changes once every few months. Especially since my hourly rate is low and based on degree of difficulty in maintenance request.

[Nancy OShea]

Can this be installed on my server for my clients or do they have to cough up the extra 100 bucks and install on their computer?

I assume you mean Contribute?

Contribute is stand-alone software and not a CMS.

Your client would need to purchase Contribute and install on their work computers.  Also, your Templates would need to be built with Contribute proprietary tags.

Nancy O.

[Rob_Hecker2]

The problem with contribute is that virtually any CMS solves the same problem much better. One of my clients and I tried Contribute about seven years ago and both hated it.

Contribute offers the client a little control but also frustrates them because of the control they don't have. For the developer, it is really in your way. Thank God there are better solutions.

I do think it was a failed experiment.

[Mark_Mallett]

One of the most overlooked blogging tools in the Mac world has been Adobe Contribute. It is, bar none, the best product available. It lets you upload your theme, and you can edit, add images, change fonts, manipulate text, etc. all offline—and it looks exactly like it will online. There is absolutely no tool in the Mac world as of May 2015 that does what Contribute can.

Or rather, did. Unfortunately, Contribute is not compatible with Retina screens. And now I'm having image problems where uploaded images are being seriously degraded, and I can't figure out why (even though I'm set at 100 percent image quality).

Adobe is not a failed experiment—it's an undeveloped one. Adobe simply dropped the ball. Business Catalyst has excluded everyone with existing websites and blogs.

[Nancy OShea]

<And now I'm having image problems where uploaded images are being seriously degraded, and I can't figure out why (even though I'm set at 100 percent image quality).>

I don't think this is a Contribute problem as much as the way in which normal web graphics appear on Hi-Res/Retina displays.  You'll need to start using @2x images with more pixels (height and width).

A guide for creating a better retina web - Ivo Mynttinen / User Interface Designer

For images of text, logos, icons or line graphics, consider using Scalable Vector Graphics instead of jpg or png.  Illustrator has a Save As SVG feature that works pretty well.

Exporting SVG for the web with Adobe Illustrator CC | Adobe Inspire Magazine

Nancy O.

[Mark_Mallett]

Hi Nancy,

Certainly images in Contribute look awful because I'm viewing them on a Retina screen, but that is not the issue. I can see, after the images are uploaded, that their actual size in kb's has been greatly reduced such that they look pixelated on any device—Retina or not. This is something new, as I've been using Contribute for years.

[Nancy OShea]

Ask your hosting provider if your web server is compressing image files.

Nancy O.

[nootkan_2]

Thanks for your reply Nancy.  Guess I'll have to figure something else out as a lot of my clients aren't too literate when it comes to managing a site and I don't have as much time as I used to anymore. May have to hire someone I guess.