Adobe, the company that makes Contribute, is asking for suggestions for the next version of Contribute.
Is there any particular nagging issue that you would want us to focus on future release? We would love to hear from first hand Contribute users. We are looking at suggestion on bugs to be fixed, workflow enhancements, feature request, integration, new protocol addition etc.
We already sent in our suggestions (see below), but if you use Contribute and have any ideas for the Contribute team, you should definitely let them know.
Our Suggestions For Contribute Next
1. Sortable Connections List
Because different departments on campus require access to different parts of our website, we have about 100 different connections set up on our publishing server. Screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/RRFK6.png
The table in the “My Connections” window needs to be sortable. Currently it is quite difficult and often time-consuming to find the connection you are looking for. As a bonus, it would be nice to have a search as you type function to this window (like Thunderbird’s “Filter these messages…” feature).
2. Table Accessibility with <caption> <thead> <tbody> <tfoot>
Our stylesheets are set up to style <th> elements that are inside of a <thead> or <tfoot> element differently than those that are inside of a <tbody> element. <caption> elements are also used on a lot of our tables. Additionally, these elements make tables much more accessible. Unfortunately, Contribute users have no way of using these features in their tables. It would be fantastic if you could add some of these features.
Caption could be an option in the insert table dialog box and if the user selects to have a top header, Contribute could put that content inside of a <thead> and the body of the table inside of a <tbody>.
3. Title Attributes
Users should be able to provide title attributes for any element (links at the very least), perhaps through a properties dialog box.
4. Easier Inline Links
Currently users can create inline links if they know to look under the advanced option and if the IDs have already been set up for them, but it would be really nice to offer them an easy to use Link > Spot on This Page… option that would allow them to select an element on the current page to link to and automatically create the ID for them (or allow them to provide an ID to use).
5. The Indent Button Should Not Create a Blockquote Element
Blockquote elements could be styled so they are not indented at all or with extra style, making this confusing for the user. For example, I have seen blockquotes styled to add big quotation marks around the content on many websites. Additionally, blockquote elements carry semantic meaning that does not necessarily apply to content that should simply be indented.
The indent button should either be disabled when the user is not focused in a list or the connection administrators should be able to tell Contribute what classes to use to indent blocks of content. For example, we use the 960.gs CSS framework, so to indent content we give it a class of prefix_# where # is the number of columns to indent.
6. CSS Framework Integration
With the rising popularity of CSS frameworks, it would be great to see some tighter integration in Contribute. It would be great to be able to tell Contribute that we use a particular framework, point Contribute to the framework’s CSS file, and Contribute would incorporate some of the framework’s features into the editing environment.
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