CSS Layout Issues in Edit Mode

[irritated developer]

I am an experienced coder and built my site using CSS layout. The site is well
engineered, but when going into edit mode in Contribute, the layout breaks in a
way that will make editing harder. Once thing that I noticed is that some of my
CSS is used, and some isn't. For instance, the BODY margin set to zero is not
honored.

Is it possible to write a Contribute specific style sheet, and to reference it
separately with condition comments or javascript?

I see a lot of threads with this issue, but never a resolution. When a User
goes into edit mode, and 2 columns that are supposed to be side by side
suddenly layout vertically, I would consider this an isse big enough to be
addressed.

Any thought?

[Glasgow Boy]

My experience is very similar.

I bought Contribute so the staff of my ski club could update my carefully
coded and designed site. I find it impossible to add a new section with my
css-defined subhead and and text in a div with my predefined style. All one can
do is minor edits within a body of text, but woe betide you if you put in a
cariage return - the style dissolves in smoke.

It seems that Adobe inhereted a dud from Macromedia, but they had no right to
release it as CS3 when the product is of no use to a real web designer. I can't
believe Adobe could lend their name to such rubbish. I feel cheated and think I
have a right to my money back.

David

[phxwebdev]

I completely agree with Glasgow. This product is a real stinker, but my company
still insists on offering it to clients with lower development budgets--those
who cant afford our full-blown CMS solution. Ugh.

[irritated developer]

I'm glad to see that others have had the same issues. I am surprised that Adobe hasn't addressed these issues.

[wlbbox_2002]

Contribute isn't intended to be able to edit every site, however well
constructed they may be.

What it is intended to do is be able to support sites that are built with
having Contribute editing in mind. For that, it's quite a solid tool.

This means that the style sheets should constantly be checked in Contribute
during their development and that the directory structure should be constructed
in a way that supports Contribute Administration file placement options, etc.

[irritated developer]

"Adobe Contribute? CS3 software uses Dreamweaver CS3 templates, ensuring
accurate updates to websites designed with Dreamweaver."

So by inference we assume that Dreamweaver CS3 does NOT create CSS layouts?

[tunghoy]

Dreamweaver CS3 handles CSS layouts just great -- I use it all the time (though
we don't use their templates; we design the pages ourselves). The problem is
that Contribute doesn't understand them.

It seems that Contribute's developers don't understand CSS as well as DW's
developers, or they do understand it, but decided not to bother implementing it.

For Adobe to expect web developers to code pages specifically to accommodate
Contribute is preposterous. Is this the best they can do?

[Unregistered]

Totally agree with all the comments above.... The software is crap.

We support a couple of older websites that use Contribute.
I believe I may have found a poor fix. Chances are that you are linking your stylesheets within the HEAD tag (normal practice). Contribute has problems rendering linked stylesheets whilst in edit mode.

Fix: I had to paste all styles directly into the HEAD tag of each document. You could also paste them inline within the document.

This seems to have fixed the problem. Hope it helps.