Cannot publish new .htm file with Contribute

Question

A client of mine is having an issue with a webpage he
maintains daily using the Contribute package, and one major problem
has come up while trying to add new features to his presentation.
Instead of linking directly to a file as has been done in the past,
his primary web designer has created a new pop-up style (on demand)
window that presents video in one portion and an advertisement in
the rest. Unfortunately, this option did not come with an
associated template - he merely configured the page to link to a
.txt file as Contribute would not let the user (Administrator)
upload a new .htm file.
My question if anyone might have a few moments to respond, is
whether or not this is a feasible thing to manage? .txt files work
in Internet Explorer browsers, but fail on more standards compliant
options such as Firefox or Apple's Safari (3.0 beta tested on PC,
other versions tested on MacOS X) in which case they merely result
in the presentation of a plaintext file in a pop-up window.
Can a new template be created in Contribute, and files
generated from this? Is this a technical quick-fix situation, or a
more involved problem that requires Dreamweaver or other template
creation options?
Sorry to be rather vague on this one, it's a particularly
complex situation (with a bit of a time crunch) on the user end,
and I'm hoping to track down any information I can.
- J. Johnston

Answer 1

Sorry about being rather vague there, I had the client
sitting with his head literally peeking over my shoulder and that
made things a little trickier to actually parse a few times in my
own head before posting.
I went through and learned a bit about roles yesterday when I
was trying to tackle this issue, so what you're suggesting does
sound like what I tried to do. However, there were two issues that
I ran into that remained a problem. First, I couldn't tell what
role his Contribute was configured to use on his website. It
appeared to be Administrator, and the one user account set up in
the roles listing is his, but even with this set, I still got the
error message saying I didn't have permission to create new .htm,
.html, .php, etc. pages on the site.
His website was initially created by a rather poor designer,
whose idea when confronted with being unable to upload .htm files,
was to use the .txt extension - because "Internet Explorer treats
.txt as HTML, so what's the loss?"
The essence of what the client is trying to accomplish, is
this: He produces video content for a local news website, and
uploads a handful of videos every weeknight. In the past, his
webpage has simply offered a link where users clicked on an image
and immediately downloaded a .wvx file which loaded up Windows
Media Player (or Quicktime with Flip4Mac installed) and played his
playlist of advertisements and news content. His new method
involves clicking a link, which pops up a new window, which plays
the video file embedded with an advertisement next to it in a
table. These pop-up pages are the ones that don't seem to want to
transfer up through Contribute.
I hope this clarifies things a little, and I really
appreciate your help.