Alternatives to 'Contribute' CMS Software

[ambassador]

When a non-technical individual must manage a website's content via something like the Adobe/Macromedia 'Contribute' or 'DreamWeaver' software; but 'Contribute' and 'DreamWeaver' are themselves not desired, what are the alternatives?

In this case, programs that operate like Joomla and Wordpress are not desired. The alternatives being sought must operate exclusively on a common notebook computer when in the 'CMS' mode, and must have a built-in FTP feature that permits transferring the associated static HTML pages to a typical shared hosting service like LunarPages or HostGator.

Are there alternatives to 'Contribute' and 'DreamWeaver' that accommodate this scenario?

[Force Flow]

Sharepoint Designer 2007, maybe?

[ambassador]

A cursory search found the SharePoint software on a Microssoft website - it is free there. Is SharePoint like FrontPage?

[Force Flow]

Yes, SharePoint Designer is the new frontpage.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...2-d9e710d44f42

SharePoint (the word by itself) or "SharePoint Server" is Microsoft's CMS solution.


I'm not sure if you need a SharePoint server in order to use/upload content, as I haven't used it myself.

[ambassador]

The associated Microsoft download page states:

... Office SharePoint Designer 2007 provides ... on the SharePoint platform ...

1. Is the 'SharePoint platform' something that must reside on the LunarPages or HostGator server?

2. Is 'SharePoint Designer' the only alternative (refer to the original post)?

[Force Flow]

No idea. It's a free download, so you can give it a whirl.

Kompozer is another alternative...it's somewhat similar to dreamweaver

[AlexDawson]

SharePoint Designer is a free WYSIWYG editor based on FrontPage, you don't need sharepoint server to be installed to use it, but I wouldn't touch a WYSIWYG editor because of the crappy code they pump out. Honestly I would go with Wordpress (if you want web based content management) or something like KompoZer if you REALLY can't bare the thought of learning some basic code. But it would be of great benefit to learn the fundamentals.

[cmspro]

Use Konductor (http://www.konductor.net) - it uses native Dreamweaver .dwt's - similar to Adobe Contribute - for templates, but it is way better from both a designers point of view and end users. My clients love the UI and unlike Contribute, you can manage database driven menu's and forms.

Definitely worth checking out. Here is a 90 second clip of FireFox dot com being cut (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EdgJbH0wzc), should give you a pretty good run-down.

Hope that helps!

Later,
Dee.

[dotnature]

There are also flat file and xml based cms's that support word or notepad ftp or html updates.