[DigitalEl]

I used a built-in .Mac website template to share pictures of my daughter with our out-of-town family. It was a huge hit. Now that my son is just a few months away, I want to do a better, more advanced website.

I tried the Contribute 2.0 demo that's available online and love it. It says what it does and does what it says... But I'm wondering if I'm missing something by using Contribute? Is there a different program I should be trying? I have almost no -- scratch that -- no real web design skills. I've only done websites by using templates. I don't want to spend a ton of time using something complicated... But I'd like the flexibility to do cool things as my skills increase down the road. Will Contribute ultimately limit me?

Any thoughts? And are any of the Contribute books currently available worth their weight?

[philzilla]

keep playing with Contribute, sure.

however, i'd suggest maybe checking out this book: Foundation Dreamweaver MX. then, when you think you're ready, download the trial version of Dreamweaver and see how you fare. (you only get 30 days, so check the book out first)

it's not rocket science, so don't scare yourself unnecessarily. i'm sure you can get the hang of the basics with that book

[kovacs]

Photoshop's automated Web Photo Gallery gives some nice looking results, you don't need to know any code, you don't even have to know anything about photoshop, it's not worth buying photoshop for but if you already have it, you may want to give it a try. Contribute has some nice templates, but the app itself has too many bugs and visual glitches IMO. A third option is iPhoto in combination with Galerie 3.0...

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/19953

[Krusty]

I'm actually having some fun with contribute as well. Still trying to decide if I REALLY need it enough to pay for it though. Four tips for DigitalEl

1) Download the special .mac templates
2) Go to your install folder for Contibute (Macromedia Contribute 2:Configuration:Content:StarterPages). In this folder are all the templates. Grab them and make a copy somewhere else on your hard drive. They really are good, useful templates that you might use one day.
3) Go to versiontracker and download TacoEdit and CSSEdit
4) You now have lots of nifty macromedia-created templates that you can tweak with TacoEdit and CSSedit.

[DigitalEl]

Thanks for all your input people. I think I'll probably spring for Contribute. Even if I get a year worth of use out of it, $79 isn't so bad. And yes, Krusty, those special .Mac templates in Contribute are pretty useful. However, is there a gallery of third party templates out there somewhere, like for Keynote?

[typoon]

Originally posted by kovacs:
Photoshop's automated Web Photo Gallery gives some nice looking results, you don't need to know any code, you don't even have to know anything about photoshop, it's not worth buying photoshop for but if you already have it, you may want to give it a try. Contribute has some nice templates, but the app itself has too many bugs and visual glitches IMO. A third option is iPhoto in combination with Galerie 3.0...

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/19953

You don't need to buy Photoshop to do this. You could use iPhoto or Photoshop Elements to make a web picture gallery. I know that Elements works pretty well and is MUCH less expensive than Photoshop.