Adobe Contribute CS3 includes many features to help make Contribute more user friendly and to help ensure consistency between new and existing pages. In addition to creating and editing existing web pages, Contribute CS3 allows for users to connect to their favorite blog sites and make updates and manage blog content.

Note: Administrators can access the Administrator Web sites dialog box by choosing Edit > Administer Web Sites, then choosing the site name. The administrator will need the administrator password to access these settings.

What's new

Contribute CS3 administration features includes some of the following changes:

• Enabling PDF embedding: This feature is new with Contribute CS3, users now have the option to Allow PDF Embedding as an object to link.
• New administration features with blog management: Contribute CS3 features a new drop down menu to manage blog entries and the ability to add date and time stamps.
• Choose Microsoft Word and Excel to create templates to publish.
• Improved PHP and CSS rendering support.
• Ability to insert HTML code snippets instead of using an external editor.

Administer Web Sites categories

The categories in the Administer Web sites dialog box present administrators with the ability to control much of the experience of the site content developers. The list below indicates the categories, and specifies the new categories for Contribute 3.x and later versions. Keep in mind that these are all site-wide settings, and not user group settings.

• Users and roles
• Administration
• Publishing services
• Web server
• Rollbacks
• New pages
• Compatibility

Users and roles

This category allows administrators to define distinct user groups. This has always been a feature in Contribute, but the new dialog box allows administrators to more easily see who is part of which group. Administrators can also add and remove users without remaking the user group.

This category allows administrators to:

• Create new user groups
• Edit role settings
• Remove a group, or a user from a group

Administrators may also send out connection keys from this category using the dialog box when creating a connection..

Administration

This dialog box has not changed from previous versions. This category allows administrators to:

• Change the Administrator email address
• Set the Administrator password
• Remove Administration from the site

Publishing services

Contribute Publishing Services;a feature introduced with Contribute 3;enables draft tracking and establishes a publishing flow. Using publishing services "send for draft", administrators can force writers to submit their drafts for approval before publishing. Editors can publish these drafts themselves, send back for changes or pass the drafts on to someone else for review. This tracking is done by Contribute Publishing Services, which is installed to a web server. Once this package is installed, the services are enabled in this category of the dialog box.

The Contribute Publishing Services category of the Administer Web sites dialog box also allows administrators to Enable User Directory. This setting allows users to be defined with an existing Active Directory or LDAP list, or by means of a built-in file based directory. Administrators can quickly define users, adding and removing them from a site and user group. Users defined with User Directory can access the site using Contribute without needing a connection key.

Web server

While this capability was in previous versions, the feature has been redesigned and expanded.

There are three tabs in the Web Server category of the Administer Web Sites dialog box:

Web Addresses - This tab lists the primary URL of the website and alternate addresses, such as the IP number or other options provided by the domain name server. The administrator may add other URLs here, edit the existing list, or remove any URLs that are no longer alternate addresses.

Index Files - The files listed in this tab are common index pages that the browser will search for when looking for the homepage. You can edit, add to or delete from this list of files within this dialog box.

Guard Page - The guard page is a concept in Contribute 3. Contribute makes folders on the server that contain files used in the editing process: files like temp files, rollbacks or server settings. In some instances, if a folder does not have an index page, a list of all the files within the folder will be displayed. This would allow viewers of the website to perhaps see files they should not view. A guard page is essentially an index page that will show by default, preventing the listing of the directory (they are enabled by default). This category of the dialog box allows you to change the default file name, and there is a button allowing Contribute to automatically detect this page.

Rollbacks

Rollbacks have been a feature of Contribute since the first version. Rollbacks are previous versions of a page that are kept on the server. This feature allows users to revert to a previous version of the page if needed. This category of the dialog box enables this feature for the site and sets the number of previous versions saved. In addition, Contribute allows for administrators to enable or disable the deletion of Rollbacks for their individual users.

New pages

Contribute 3 and later versions allows administrators to define the default file extension for new pages, in addition to the default encoding for new pages. Also setting a default file extension is defined in this category.

Note: This is different from a user group's New Page settings: this setting affects all user groups.

Compatibility

This option controls whether users of previous versions of Contribute can connect to this web site. Contribute 3 and later versions have many new features that are not compatible with previous versions, such as forcing draft review. Deselecting this box will allow users of previous versions to publish, but they will not be able to send drafts for review or other publishing services.

Products affected