Adobe Contribute CS3

When it was first introduced, Contribute was a radical development in web authoring, as it enabled non-expert users to safely update a website's content without the risk of breaking its design. However, as the previous version was only launched at the beginning of the year, it's unfair to expect similar fireworks this time around.

In fact, the vast majority of new capabilities are simply tweaks to the support that Contribute 4 added for updating blogs as well as websites, such as the ability to connect to blog servers by URL, support for the Roller blog service, the ability to select multiple categories or trackbacks, and an option to preview your blog entry before posting. If you're not interested in blogs (which, of course, are already designed to be simple to contribute to) then the cupboard is pretty bare. Authorised users can now add HTML snippets to their pages and you can use the bundled version of Bridge CS3 to add assets through simple drag and drop. With new support for Acrobat PDF and Flash video FLV files this makes it possible for contributors to add richer-than-ever content. While that's welcome, it's only a fraction of Contribute's target audience of inexpert and occasional users that's likely to take practical advantage of this.

This is the problem for Adobe and the reason why each release of Contribute after the first has seemed increasingly lacklustre. Adobe can't add advanced new features to Contribute in the same way as it does to the other CS3 applications, since the program's whole purpose is to make updating site content as simple as possible. For most users, it already does this successfully, and any unused new capabilities detract from rather than enhance the package, leaving little reason to upgrade.

Author: Tom Arah