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Macromedia to announce new web content software
By Nick dePlume, Publisher and Editor in Chief

November 5, 2002 - Macromedia is on the verge of announcing new content management software aimed at webmasters managing sites for clients. Sources said the product will be unveiled next week.

The company released initial details of this new product, the name of which is unconfirmed, at its DevCon developer conference at the Walt Disney World Swan & Dolphin resort in Orlando, Fl. last week. Sources said that the software is based on code from Macromedia´s Dreamweaver web development program, and allows a web designer to give clients the ability to quickly change information and content on their Web site. The goal is the eliminate webmasters´ hassles of dealing with minute changes that clients need made to their page.

Using the new software and an encrypted key, a client can log in and change text and images on pages authorized by the web designer. The client could also be authorized to add new pages and make other modifications, as per the many different levels of access controls, all set by the webmaster. Taking advantage of Dreamweaver templates, the client can be restricted to the specific changes they´re allowed to make.

The product will also boast integration and compatibility with other types of documents, so that clients can drag Word, Excel, or PowerPoint files onto the Web site, and they will be translated and formatted automatically.

Macromedia´s new product will reportedly be released and/or publicly announced on or about November 11. While the initial release will be for Windows XP only, sources said that a Mac OS X-compatible release is due in the Spring.

At DevCon, the new software was greeted with enormous positive response from attendees. The company distributed free t-shirts with a "C" on the back -- the first letter of the software´s title.

Mera info om detta nu. Såhär skriver MacCentral:

Macromedia announces Contribute, Mac OS X version coming
by Dennis Sellers, [email protected]
November 11, 2002 7:00 am ET

Macromedia Inc. will announce on Monday a new product called Macromedia Contribute -- a desktop application designed to provide an easy-to-use way for non-technical users to update Web pages and add pages to existing Web sites, Product Manager Erik Larson told MacCentral.

When the product ships next month, it will be Windows only. However, Macromedia is developing a Mac version, which will be Mac OS X only.

"We´ve taken the core technology of Dreamweaver MX and, over the past 18 months, built this new product that anyone can use," Larson said. "You can browse through a Web site, click the edit control, make changes and publish back to the Web. There are administrative controls so administrators can control who can change what. The whole goal is to keep Web sites up to date and reduce costs and inefficiencies. We´ve found that Web designers and developers are spending around 20 hours a week doing mundane content updates."

With Macromedia Contribute, you´ll also be able to import content from Microsoft Word and Excel. The data will be published as "clean, standard HTML," Larson said. The product, which will have an introductory price of US$99, can be set up to work with any existing Web site immediately without any changes to the site or servers.

"Once it´s up and going, Webmasters can control what sections of a site people can edit, can automatically lock out all server code on a page, and more," Larson said. "End users won´t be able to change something they don´t understand."

Contribute is also compliant with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act. Under this section, federal Web sites are required by law to make all content and programs offered on their Internet and intranet sites accessible. The product automatically conforms to these standards.

When Contribute ships next month, Macromedia will also release an update of Dreamweaver MX designed to integrate with the new product. The tweaked Dreamweaver will be Mac and Windows compatible. Though no timetable is given on the Mac version of Contribute, it´s in development now, Larson said.

"We´re working on it as hard as can," he added. "Half our team are Mac fanatics, and Macromedia is highly dedicated to the Mac platform."

When Contribute for Mac OS X ships, it will include Opera Software´s Opera browser as the embedded browser. The Mac OS X version of the Opera browser is still in beta testing; see our September 25 story for details.

"Usability studies have found that people like concrete metaphors, and the easiest way to view a page you want to change is, of course, a Web browser," Larson said. "On Windows, Internet Explorer was the obvious choice since it´s part of the operating system. On the Mac, there wasn´t a similar browser we could incorporate into Contribute. So we made a deal with Opera Software to use their browser, because it´s small and fast. However, the API -- the way Contribute ´talks´ to Opera -- isn´t proprietary so other Web browsers could be embedded, as well."