As we mentioned in an earlier post, Applied Web Vitals is developing a line of website templates for the Adobe Contribute platform. These Contribute templates will be designed for plug-in-play use and will incorporate the latest SEO standards as well as clean, light XHTML and CSS code.

We anticipate our market for Contribute website templates to be end users and developers alike. Our basic Contribute template will be an excellent starting point for further development and third party application integration by web developers.

At this point, we would like to invite input on features and functions. Please share your wish list of top features with us. We also invite fellow Adobe Dreamweaver template gurus out there to chime in . . . and/or participate in development. Contact us to discuss getting in on the ground level of development.

Applied Web Vitals is a web design and development company. Please feel free to contact us to explore your next design, redesign or site enhancement project.

We are pleased to share the launch our most recent client site, The Teak Hut at theteakhut.com. This South Carolina company has been in operation for a number years as a brick-&-mortar business. Several months ago, Applied Web Vitals was consulted to explore the move to e-commerce. At the same time, The Teak Hut decided to go for a full site redesign to better reflect the quality of their product–indoor and outdoor teak furniture.

Through a close dialog with the client, the site was mapped and a design, modeled after select premier online retailers, was mocked up for review and an enthusiastic approval.

TheTeakHut.com was built on the Dreamweaver template structure to give the client full site management control with Adobe Contribute. With our developed template platform in place, The Teak Hut was able to take the reins right out of gates and begin adding and removing content, creating new pages and optimizing their keywords for search engine placement.

The shopping cart application of choice was Ecommerce Templates, a robust and versatile cart that could be customized to meet The Teak Hut’s needs. Integrated throughout the site, a smooth shopping experience was achieved by seamlessly weaving the dynamic shopping cart functionality into every page on the site.

With sixty unique product categories and a very large, and growing, list of products, the ability to integrate the online shopping cart with the company’s Quickbooks POS system was an absolute must. The project required several e-commerce customizations and third part integrator, and in the end a one-of-a-kind solution was tailored for The Teak Hut.

For additional information on e-commerce websites

For additional information on Adobe Contribute, 2

Applied Web Vitals is a web design and development company. Please feel free to contact us to explore your next design, redesign or site enhancement project.

Applied Web Vitals is planning to release a line of website templates for the Adobe Contribute CS3 platform. The line of fully developed templates will be designed for plug and play use, for quick installation and launch.

Contribute CS3 is a website editing software program for the PC and Mac, developed by Adobe Systems Incorporated. Contribute is designed to edit and “contribute” to sites originally built with Adobe Dreamweaver templates. The program allows users to update content, add pages, files and media without any technical expertise or HTML knowledge.

When built on a robust Dreamweaver template structure in conjunction with other select web technologies, Contribute enabled websites are given the legs of a full content management system (CMS). Based on clean HTML/XHTML, CSS and search engine optimized code, Contribute sites are offered some great advantages over other popular CMS platforms.  Notably, traditional content management systems rely on server side technology and database counterparts that make customization and ongoing system management time intensive, technically complex and costly. Contribute sites on the other hand, once put into place, get better mileage between maintenance and have the huge advantage of simply having less parts to break—1. a premium Adobe program that comes with support and 2. straight forward server files—it doesn’t get any more simple than that.

Read how Adobe Contribute CS3 has helped Hopalong Animal Rescue save time, keep their website up-to-date and ultimately save the lives of more animals.

Applied Web Vitals’ Contribute CS3 website templates will incorporate a host of common small business website features and will come SEO and cross-browser compatible.  Years of best practices, scripts and cutting edge techniques will make this line of Contribute CS3 website templates an exciting addition to the market.

Our primary audience is the small business, but anyone with a website should find this look into web management quite helpful. First, and to be redundant, if you don’t have ready and easy access to the content on your website, it’s time to upgrade! It’s that simple. Technology has progressed and the ability to edit web pages without technical skills now exists—at an affordable price.

If you’re paying someone else, an html developer perhaps, to update your content, then a CMS will quickly pay for itself. Or maybe you’re simply at the mercy of someone with technical skills to update content. No matter. Consider the opportunity cost, which for a small business translates to real money, real quick—sometimes before the close of business.

Fundamentals
Content Management Systems (CMS) are the website platforms that allow for end-user administration and automated content organization. A website built on a CMS can be edited by someone without web programming skills.

There are countless content management systems out there, each with there own merit as well as limitations. CMS functionality can be custom built into a website or provided through the integration of a CMS software application. Per software, both server-side and client-side applications exist. Server-side software reside entirely on the server and is accessed via a web browser. Client-side is accessed via workstation-based software.

Our CMS of choice for standard websites is the Adobe Contribute platform. Contribute is a workstation (PC or Mac) software application that incorporates hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) for Internet browsing and file transfer protocol (FTP) for file uploading.

The two standout features of Contribute are 1) breadth of design freedom and 2) ease of page editing.

1. With the CMS functionality built into the software application and not into server page structure itself, the developer is offered design freedoms that are either unavailable or costly to achieve in other content management systems. Consequently, page code can be kept clean and light for fast loading and cross-browser compatibility. [Note: Adobe Dreamweaver is used by the site developer and Adobe Contribute is used by the “contributor” or client.
2. Contribute initialy operates like a browser to navigate, then functions much like Microsoft Word to edit a web page. This WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) functionality incorporates easy to identify icons and menu options that virtually everyone understands and have become accustom to. The process from start to finish: browse the website, make the changes, and click Publish.

ADVANTAGES of Contribute are numerous:

• Developed by Adobe Systems, Inc., the software is well-built and continually upgraded, more than justifying the $169 one-time software license fee
• Creating and saving drafts prior to publishing is a feature that many people find indispensable
• Permissions enable administrators to define who can edit and publish content on a website or within a specific web page.

Whether you opt to go with Contribute or another CMS, we recommend making the move. Not until you’ve actually taken control of the content on your website, will you realize that you’ve been sitting in the passenger seat this whole time. Take the wheel with a CMS and see what your website can really do for your business.

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Applied Web Vitals is a web design and development company. Please feel free to contact us to explore your next design, redesign or site enhancement project.