Numiko Labs

Basics

Based around Dreamweaver templates. Create “Editable regions” – the end-user can edit these.

Use “Repeating regions” e.g. http://www.ccdu.co.uk/news.htm for when users can add and remove similar areas.

Create editable regions within headings if you want to restrict the user to a certain style for that area (again see the repeating regions and the h1 and h2 tags in http://www.ccdu.co.uk/news.htm). Create editable regions with paragraph tags if you only want one paragraph.

The user can choose headings (h1 etc) in Contribute so provide styles for a number of these and advise which to use where.

As you develop, make sure the site is editable in Contribute. Sometimes it renders the site differently and editable areas become inaccessible. You can use design-time stylesheets (Dreamweaver, Text/CSS Styles/Design time) to apply styles only when editing in Contribute.

Use template parameters and expressions for more complex things e.g. hiding and showing areas of different pages, complex navigation. See http://www.adobe.com/devnet/dreamweaver/articles/template_parameters.html

Tip: when setting parameters don’t edit the source directly. Instead use in Dreamweaver use Modify/Template properties, otherwise changes don’t get reflected in the document.

Be prepared for anything the user might attempt to enter. For instance make sure links, lists, images etc. look OK in editable regions. Styles intended for other parts of the site may affect them.

Settings

You can change lots of useful settings once you have set the site up in Contribute in Edit/My Connections/Contribute. These options are useful for keeping the site clean and manageable.

First it asks you to choose the editing style – choose Dreamweaver-style (otherwise it will use <br>s instead of paragraphs). Then choose “Edit Role Settings”

Useful options in here are:

• Editing – restrict what the user can do. Best to lock it down as much as possible. Choose “Only allow text editing and formatting”.
• Styles and Fonts – usually best to set to “Document-level CSS” and to only allow “Include HTML heading styles”. Turn off “Allow users to apply fotns and sizes”, “Allow users to apply font color”.
• New pages – for restricting what templates users can use to create new pages (if any)
• File placement – quite important. Make it so that files (images etc) are stored in one place only. Change any option that says “placed next to web page”. Sites become unmanageable otherwise.

When you apply these settings they are stored in the mysterious _mm and _notes folders that Contribute creates. Don’t upload these to the live server – apply the setting once the site is already up there.