Contribute 101

How Setup Your Personal Site at UMD

You need to create a connection to your website on each computer on which you will use Contribute to edit the website. However, you only need to do this step once per computer - NOT every time you sit down to edit your website.

These steps will allow you to create a connection to your personal web space at UMD. Most people with accounts at UMD also have space reserved for their own web pages. You find this space at http:www.d.umn.edu/~<your userID>. For instance, Bruce Reeve's user ID is breeves and his website is at: http://www.d.umn.edu/~breeves

The little "~" sign is important - don't leave it out. Because everyone's personal webspace starts with a tilde ("~"), we often call these your "tilde site" to distinquish from official, departmental pages.

To create a new connection to a website:

1. Start the Contribute program.
2. From the Contribute start page, choose "Create a connection" **
3. On the welcome page of the connection wizard, click the "Next" button
4. On the user information page of the connection wizard, enter your name and full email address (with the "@d.umn.edu" part). This would allow any collaborators to know when you have a page checked out and contact you to request permission to edit it. When working on your "tilde" site, this will most likely be a reminder to yourself that you checked out a page when on a different computer and did not check it back in!
5. Click the "Next" button
6. On the website home page of the connection wizard, enter the address of the main page of your site (including "http://" ) OR click the "Browse" button and navigate to the main page of your website
7. Once you have the correct address for your main page, click the "Next" button
8. On the connection information page of the connection wizard, from the drop down box, pick "FTP"
9. In the fields that appear, enter these settings:
   • FTP server name: www.d.umn.edu
   • FTP login: <your userID>
   • FTP password: <your systems password>
10. Click the "Next" button
11. On the group information page of the connection wizard, click the group "Administrator" and click the "Next" button
12. Click the "Done" button to finish

** If you do not see the Contribute start page when you first start the program, you can still create a new connection:

1. From the "Edit" menu, choose "My Connections"
2. In the dialog box, click the "New" button
4. On the welcome page of the connection wizard, click the "Next" button
5. On the user information page of the connection wizard, enter your name and full email address (with the "@d.umn.edu" part). This would allow any collaborators to know when you have a page checked out and contact you to request permission to edit it. When working on your "tilde" site, this will most likely be a reminder to yourself that you checked out a page when on a different computer and did not check it back in!
6. Click the "Next" button
7. On the website home page of the connection wizard, enter the address of the main page of your site (including "http://" ) OR click the "Browse" button and navigate to the main page of your website
8. Once you have the correct address for your main page, click the "Next" button
9. On the connection information page of the connection wizard, from the drop down box, pick "FTP"
10. In the fields that appear, enter these settings:
    • FTP server name: www.d.umn.edu
    • FTP login: <your userID>
    • FTP password: <your systems password>
11. Click the "Next" button
12. On the group information page of the connection wizard, click the group "Administrator" and click the "Next" button
13. Click the "Done" button to finish