Design and Deploy web sites with Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 1002004 and Contribute 3 training from the source [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Chapter 13. Customizing Contribute's Help System

What You Will Learn

In this lesson, you will

Modify the Contribute Start page

Examine the How Do I panel structure

Personalize the How Do I panel's main topic screen

Remove unnecessary How Do I topics

Add new company-specific topics to the How Do I panel

Approximate Time

This lesson takes approximately one hour to complete.

Lesson Files

Media Files

None

Starting Files

LessonFiles/Lesson_13/images/logo_start.gif

LessonFiles/Lesson_13/images/helpIcon.gif

Completed Files

FinalFiles/Lesson_13/Configuration/Content/Tasks/bg100

FinalFiles/Lesson_13/Configuration/Content/Tasks/Tasks.xml

FinalFiles/Lesson_13/Configuration/Content/Tasks/TasksLayout.xml

FinalFiles/Lesson_13/Configuration/Content/CCWelcome/welcome.dwt

If you've been a user of Macromedia developer tools for any length of time, you have a surprise waiting for you the first time you open a boxed version of Macromedia Contribute. Aside from the CD-ROM, the only other item in the box is a six-panel, fold-out Quick Start Guide. Unlike other developer-based products (such as Macromedia Dreamweaver or Macromedia Flash), Contribute doesn't come with a hefty user's manual. All the help contentand it's quite extensiveis stored electronically and is accessible through Contribute's menus and interface.

What's particularly interesting from an organizational perspective about Contribute's help system is the fact that certain aspects of it are customizable. The more intricately companies incorporate Contribute into their workflow, the more likely they are to want to personalize it to some degree. The drive to customize Contribute is even more compelling for companies investing in the Macromedia Web Publishing System, which includes Contribute 3, FlashPaper 2, Studio MX 2004, and Contribute Publishing Services. Every organization is very different from every other one, having its own specific templates, standards, and ways of working. With Contribute, you can customize the portions of the help content to train your users to work more efficiently in your own organization.

Contribute opens up two highly visible aspects of its help system for personalization: the Start page and the How Do I panel. The Start page is the very first page the user sees when starting Contribute. You can alter the Start page to include your company's name and logo as well as to provide links for company-specific assistance. The How Do I panel is located on the lower portion of the Contribute sidebar. The default version of the How Do I panel provides quick tips on performing basic Contribute tasks; you can make modifications so that the same panel will guide your users through company- or industry-specific operations.

Customize the Contribute Start page to give your users quick access to your company's internal resources.

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In this lesson, you'll learn how to further integrate Contribute into your organization through personalization. You'll see how to co-brand the Start page so that your corporate logo and links to the company's details prominently greet users when Contribute launches. After a discussion of the How Do I panel's operation, you'll learn how to create help topics on your own and expose them in Contribute.

Keep in mind that the changes you make in these areas are not published on a Web sitethey're embedded in each person's installation of Contribute. In the final section of this lesson, you'll see how to set up your personalizations for a custom Contribute installer, ready to be rolled out to your content contributors.