Adobe releases Contribute 4

Contribute is one of the more disappointing pieces of software I use. It's only slightly more disappointing than Dreamweaver. (Though it has a long way to go before it's as disappointing as any of the Photoshop-family products.)

And I do use it. My agency deploys it as a customer-friendly site update client. We have three customers using it now, and we've streamlined our training and delivery to the point where setting up a client to use it on their website is a commodity delivery: We know how much time it will take to within a billable half hour.

Nevertheless, I have to say that it's a pig. It's slow and buggy on both OS X and Windows (though marginally less slow and less buggy on Windows). Contribute configurations are remakably fragile. You can't very easily use some of Dreamweaver's more useful features in Contribute -- most significantly, you can't use Contribute to update library items, which means they still have to call us every time they want to add a page to their navigation.

And you simply can't effectively use a lot of its features without "Publishing Server", which radiates dollar signs whenever you look at the implementation requirements. (Forget the licensing fee for a minute: By my estimating, you're talking about a minimum of ten hours of IT time to implement it for the first time in a crackerjack IT shop. That's a lot of opportunity cost.)

Maybe version 4 lets people update library items without having the client call us. That would be a big deal. It would be worth re-writing our documentation (and yes, Contribute ABSOLUTELY requires *extensive* documentation for a client implementation -- it's hideously arcane, like all Macromedia and Adobe products).

(And no, that's not "because they're powerful." Plenty of powerful software is not saddled with a hideously arcane UI.)

And as for Macromedia and Adobe: They deserved each other. Alas, now we reap the negative windfall from their monopoly...

Splashman - thanks for stating your case rationally and intelligently. I'm afraid we're going to have to agree to disagree on many of these points, but I'll take a well thought out and well written comment that I disagree with over some of the alternatives any time.

And now we can both move on. I have no doubt we will spar again in the future and I even look forward to it :)

Laurie, I appreciate your straightforward reply. I'm not applying for a job; I'm providing some constructive criticism. I won't bother with credentials; suffice to say that communication is my thing, and that's why I'm investing my time, rather than just rolling my eyes and clicking away. One last comment, and I'll let it go.

I understand perfectly that you must write for a wide audience, but that makes my point for me. In this case, there are three groups of readers: (1) Those who know what Contribute is, (2) those who don't know what Contribute is and aren't remotely interested in anything related to web publishing, and (3) those who don't know what Contribute is but might possibly be interested, depending on what exactly it is. Groups 1 & 2 take care of themselves; unless you decide to limit your audience to those two groups, Group 3 is what you should be thinking about as you write.

So, Group 3 looks at your post and sees "WYSIWYG web publisher". They stare at that for a second. "Another web publisher," they say to themselves. "Any reason to believe it's any different than any other web publisher, including the one I already have? Not really. Not worth my time to click through. Next post."

Someone who doesn't know about the slick DW/Contribute combination won't get any clue from your post. Again, I'm not talking about seven paragraphs plus a feature list; I'm talking about 14 words instead of 3, so that a reader can take a quick look and accurately judge "this is something I might be interested in" or "meh." Yes, you can argue that the reader can always click through to read the details, but the reader won't waste his/her time if your post has led them to believe it's not of interest.

Bottom line: If you're going to spend your valuable time posting, it makes good sense to take an extra 30 seconds to help readers separate the wheat from the chaff.

Thanks for your consideration.

A comment for the guy who asked for a Photoshop replacement, Google "Pixel image editor" and see what you think. It's not finished yet, it will be by the end of the year and it's a nice little program. Runs on OS X (Intel/PPC), Linux, Windows. And if you get it before it goes to 1.0 it's only 32 bucks. That includes all updates until it goes to 2.0.
(sorry for the advertising just want people to see one alternative to PS, and see that it has merit and value.

Adobe is very stupid for not releasing this or any software from this point forward as a Universal.

Splashman, you're obviously a bright guy and feel passionately about what and how we post here. We're hiring more bloggers - you should apply. Seriously.

Point taken, however. The thing is, our readership runs the gamut so we don't even try to hit the mark for all of them with every post. We couldn't possibly. My colleagues will confirm that I dislike rehashing news as much as you dislike reading it. The difference is that I have a much wider audience to cater to than you do so it comes with the territory. And as far as the post being more informative - that's what the links are for. If someone doesn't know a lot about the subject, there are references they can follow to get more detailed info. Every post can't be a full page feature. And we're damned if we do, damned if we don't. if we get too specific or too technical, we're accused of ignoring the "power users" and catering to novices. if we go the other way we're accused of being over the heads of half our readers.

I hope this clears things up a bit. It's not that your opinion isn't valid - it's just that for every one of your opinions there are so many others to consider. Which means someone is going to be annoyed with us no matter what.

Thanks for listening.

Laurie, the only words I directed to you, personally, were "it's hard to tell from Laurie's post whether she even knows what Contribute is. "WYSIWYG web publisher" could be just about anything, and could easily mislead people into thinking it's a DW-lite, which it's not." You think that's "scathing"? Uh, okay. The rest of my comments were directed to TUAW as a whole; there are far too many blog entries which are obviously re-worded press releases. I didn't know for sure whether your Contribute post was one of them, and that's why I stated it the way I did ("It's hard to tell...").

Here's a thought: How about taking my comment as constructive criticism? Unless there's an electron shortage I didn't hear about, you could easily have added a few words to clarify: "A WYSIWYG web publisher for non-technical users, set up by an admin using Dreamweaver." That would give your readers what they *need* to know -- i.e., it isn't the same animal as Rapidweaver or other web publishers, as some commenters concluded after reading your post.

Photoshop could be described as a photo editor, but if I were writing a blog entry on it, I'd probably expand on that. Y'know, maybe just a little bit? So readers would understand that it's a teensy bit different than EZ Foto Editor Lite?

Ah... it's good to be back. I missed these scathing comments. Thank you, Splashman, for such a warm "welcome back" :)

Contribute is, in fact, a wysiwyg web publisher. It's many other things, and could be described many other ways, but I felt that "wysiwyg web site editor that most people don't use to design pages, but instead to collaborate on page updates and such" was just a bit too clunky for early in the morning. And since you care, I am very familiar with Contribute and have been a licensed user since its inception with Macromedia. I use it often on several of my own sites and deploy it regularly for my own clients who want an easy way to keep their sites up to date.

I'll second the opinion that I've been leaning towards Adobe alternatives... hell, it may get me back to Quark Xpress (or maybe not). I'm tired of the weak updates, and the financial drain... nevertheless, I have no interest in Contribute, and I'd much prefer a customized, quality, web based CMS over a desktop app anyday. Contribute is clean, but it's no where near the quality of some of the web CMS' I've used and developed.

Thank you, Tony, for actually knowing what the heck you're talking about. Can't say the same for some of the other commenters. And it's hard to tell from Laurie's post whether she even knows what Contribute is. "WYSIWYG web publisher" could be just about anything, and could easily mislead people into thinking it's a DW-lite, which it's not.

I check the TUAW feed just to keep up on what's going on, but frequently have to hold my nose while reading. It would be more palatable and more honest to have a separate section for "recycled press releases for products which we have never used and know nothing about."

how can such a big company release an app 9 months after MBP, the first intel mac was released, and it's not a UniversalBinary ?