Administering Contribute Users in Dreamweaver

Adobe Contribute operates on the principle that there is a central person (or group of people) responsible for managing and maintaining an organization's website. Because many of these central people—known as Contribute administrators—are also web developers, Adobe has included all of the Contribute administration features directly within the Dreamweaver workspace.

With the arrival of Dreamweaver 8, every Dreamweaver as well as Contribute action can be logged with optional server-based Contribute Publishing Server (CPS).

There are two ways to administer a Contribute site in Dreamweaver 8:

• Connect to an existing site that has been set up for Contribute users
• Create Contribute administration settings for a new site

Administering an Existing Contribute Site

You connect to an existing Contribute site the same way you would any other Dreamweaver site:

1. Select the site you wish to administer from the Site menu.

2. If you are connecting to a remote site that isn't on your local hard disk or a share on your LAN, click the Connect button on the Files panel. If the site has already been configured for Contribute users, Dreamweaver will display message (see Figure 1).

   

   Figure 1. Message confirming a Contribute-enabled site's compatibility with Dreamweaver

3. Click Yes and then complete the Contribute Settings dialog box by entering a Check Out name and e-mail address.

If your remote site is located on your local hard disk or is a shared folder on your local network, then do the following:

1. Choose Site > Manage Sites from the main menu.
2. Select the site you wish to administer and click the Edit button.
3. In the Site Definition dialog box, select the Contribute category and click the Enable Contribute Compatibility option. Dreamweaver responds by displaying a message box indicating that in order to use the Contribute compatibility features you must enable Design Notes, the uploading of Design Notes, and Check In/Out.
4. Click OK and enter a check-out name and e-mail address in the Contribute Site Settings dialog box that appears.
5. Back in the Site Definition dialog box, click the Administer Site in Contribute button.
6. Type the administrator password and click OK. The Contribute Administer Website dialog box now appears, enabling you to perform such tasks as defining roles for users, and so on.

Creating a New Site Definition and Enabling Contribute Compatibility

To create Contribute administration settings for a new site:

1. Choose Site > Manage Sites from the main menu.
2. Click the New button and select the Site option in the pop-up menu.
3. Click the Advanced tab.
4. Enter details in the Local Info screen.
5. Select Remote Info in the category list and enter the relevant configuration details.

6. Enable Check In and Out.

   Checking out a file from the remote server locks the file so that no other member of the web team can work on it. Contribute 4 checks the status of files that users browse. If User A checks out a file and User B attempts to edit it, Contribute displays a message in the status bar (see Figure 2) and User B's Edit Page button is disabled, making it impossible for User B to overwrite the page accidentally.

   

   Figure 2. Status bar message alerting to a file's checked-out status

7. Once User A finishes working on the file and publishes it to the site (by "checking it in" to the server), user B's Edit Page button becomes active within a few seconds (depending on connection speed), enabling the person to edit the page in the Contribute browser.

8. After you enter all relevant remote server details, select the Contribute category and click the Enable Contribute Compatibility option (see Figure 3).

   

   Figure 3. Configuring a Dreamweaver site's compatibility with Contribute

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9. Enter the full URL of the site you wish to administer. For example:

   http://www.rurocketclub.com

10. Click the Test button to verify that Dreamweaver 8 can locate the remote server you want to connect to. If the test is not successful, make sure you entered a valid path to your host directory or remote folder in the Remote Info category. If you are connecting to your web server using FTP, ensure that you are using the correct login and password. In the Contribute category, make sure the site root's URL is valid.
11. Clicking the Administer Site in Contribute button in the Site Definition dialog box will notify you that there currently isn't a Contribute administrator for the site and prompt you if you wish to assume this role. Click Yes. Dreamweaver will request that you enter and confirm your Contribute administrator's password. Once this step is completed, you will see the Administer Website dialog box (see Figure 4).

Figure 4. Administer Website dialog box

Connecting to Contribute Publishing Server

With Dreamweaver 8, users can now be part of 's Contribute Publishing Serer (CPS). In order for Dreamweaver to join the world of CPS you must make sure your site(s) has been set up to work with CPS. Installing and configuring Contribute Publishing Server is beyond the scope of this article. To learn more about CPS visit the Adobe Contribute Publishing Server product page.

The following simulation walks you through logging events in a CPS-enabled site:

• Connecting to a site that has Contribute Publishing Server enabled.
• Connecting to a site that is CPS-enabled in Dreamweaver 8 is incredibly straightforward. After you set up a connection to a site, Dreamweaver will notify you that the site has been set up for use by Contribute users.

View Captivate demonstration: Dreamweaver 8 and CPS

If you have not already done so, you should now enter a checkout name and e-mail address, just as you would with any other Contribute site.

Now, if you choose the Contribute category of the Site Defintion dialog box you will see that Contribute compatibility has been enabled as well as CPS. In Figure 5 the Contribute rollback feature has also been enabled by the Contribute site administrator.

Figure 5. Contribute category of the Site definition dialog box

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With CPS enabled, any network activity you peform, such as check-in/checkout files, deleting files or folders, and so on, will be logged by Contribute Publishing Server (see Figure 6).

Figure 6. Contribute Publishing Server event log

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Creating Users and Roles

Contribute 34 lets you define a set of user permissions that range from file access to the level of typographic control as a role. You can read more about this in my article about the administrative controls in Contribute 4.

Configuring Administration Settings

The Administration category of the Administer Websites dialog box (see Figure 4) enables you to perform global administrative tasks. The first option changes the e-mail address that content providers use to contact the website administrator for assistance. You can also set the administrator password, which is required to select the Administrator role in the Connection wizard. Finally, remove all Contribute sitewide settings, users, and roles for this website.

Configuring Web Server Settings

Depending on the how your web server is configured and the complexity of your website, you may need to provide Contribute 3 with additional configuration details.

The Web Server category in the Administer Website dialog box shows three tabs:

• Web Address: Alternate addresses by which uses can access your website.
• Index Files: Filenames that your web server uses to look for a default index page in a web folder.
• Guard Page: Web pages that Contribute places in folders containing administrative files and temporary copies of pages that have been sent for review. Guard pages prevent users from browsing to Contribute folders (such as _mm and MMWIP) that contain files you don't want them to see.

Note: If your server does not use a standard file-naming convention such as index.html, default.html, and so on, you will be prompted to enter a valid guard page.

Utilizing Content Versioning with Rollback Pages

The Rollbacks category helps you maintain and recover previous versions of pages that Contribute users edit on a website.

Contribute 3 can maintain up to 99 rollback versions of each published page. When you specify the number of rollbacks, however, it is important to consider the amount of disk space that will be consumed on the remote web server:

1. In Contribute, select Edit > My Connections from the main menu.
2. In the My Connections dialog box, click the Administer button.
3. Select the Rollbacks category in the Administer Website dialog box.
4. Click the Enable Rollbacks check box to activate this feature.
5. Enter the number of rollback versions to maintain.
6. Click Close to close the Administer Websites dialog box.

Defining New Pages

There are two places where the Contribute administrator can fine-tune the creation of new pages by Contribute users. The first is in the New Pages category of the Administer Website dialog box. Here you can specify the default document encoding (for new blank pages and starter pages only) and default file suffix extension:

• Document encoding specifies the encoding used for characters on a web page. If a specific encoding option is not available, then select Unicode (UTF-8) to create pages that use the same encoding as your particular operating system.
• Although the default file extension is .html, you can specify any extension that is appropriate to your website. For example, if you create only ColdFusion pages, you would enter the suffix .cfm.

The second place where where an administrator can fine-tune the creation of users' new pages is in the Users and Roles category of the Administer Website dialog box. Here you can specify the types of documents users can create. You can also define which Dreamweaver templates Contribute users can see and use:

1. In the Users and Roles category of the Administer Websites dialog box, click the Edit Role Settings button.
2. In the Edit "Administrator" Settings dialog box, choose the New Pages category from the list.

3. In the Allow Users To section, choose any of the following options:

   • Create a blank page lets users create blank pages
   • Use built-in starter pages lets users create and modify copies of pre-existing sample pages that come with Contribute
   • Create a new page by copying any page on the website lets users create or modify a copy of an existing page on the website
   • Create a new page by copying a page from this list lets users create pages based on a set of pages you specify

4. In the Use Dreamweaver Templates section, choose from the following options:

   • Show users all templates lets users see all templates that are available
   • Only show users these templates displays only certain templates to users; click the Show and Hide buttons to move templates from one list to the other
5. After choosing the various options in the New Pages screen, click OK to apply your changes to that role.

Ensuring Compatibility

The Compatibility category lets you provide editing and publishing access to older versions of Contribute. With this option you can ensure that only those features that Contribute 4 shares with previous versions will work. However, it is important to note that you cannot enable compatibility between older versions of Contribute and sites that utilize Contribute Publishing Server to manage and authenticate users.

Here are the options:

• Transitional mode: Users of older versions of Contribute can still publish but Contribute 4 administrative settings will still apply to them
• Compatibility mode: Contribute 4 administrative settings will apply to all users. This requires users of older versions to upgrade to Contribute 4

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