Oct62006Contribute 4.0 Supports Blogging
Adobe has released Contribute 4.0! Contribute has always been an easy way for regular people to add and edit content on Web sites…especially sites that were originally designed with Dreamweaver Templates.
But now, Contribute 4 introduces BLOGGING support! If it works well…I’ll know in a moment because I’m writing this blog using it…Contribute 4 will have access to new worldwide market: the legion of bloggers who are posting millions of articles online each day.
With its WYSIWYG interface, familiar set of wordprocessing-like formatting tools, and ease-of-use, Contribute 4.0 could turn out to be a run away best seller for Adobe.
Now…let’s see if it works…
It actually does work! I posted this story just a minute ago, and now I’m editing it. Cool. It doesn’t look like I can assign a story to mutiple categories (something Wordpress lets you do), but it does include an integrated spellchecker, buttons to enable trackbacks and comments, add enclosures (a feature podcasters need), set links and insert images. I’m going to try to insert an image from my computer into this blog post…if that works I’ll be amazed…
It works…I’m amazed.
Performance is a bit pokey (i’m testing on a Mac right now, I’ll try Win later), and for a blogger who’s new to Contribute, the "surf-to-page to edit" metaphor of Contribute will be confusing at first. For example, since Contribute uses a built in Web browser to display pages, it’s easy to find yourself hitting a blog post’s "edit" link instead of using the "Edit" button on the program’s toolbar.
Those problems aside, however, the simplicity of the program is a great boon for bloggers.
