October 2001 - Zope-Announce

ZEO 1.0 beta 5 released
by Jeremy Hylton 30 Oct '01

30 Oct '01

The fifth beta release of ZEO 1.0 was released today. It is available at http://www.zope.org/Products/ZEO. I expect that this will be the final beta release of ZEO 1.0. Zope Enterprise Objects (ZEO) provides the ability for multiple processes to use a single Zope Object Database. ZEO turns the Zope object system into a distributed architecture, allowing multiple processors, machines, and networks to act as one website. The 1.0b5 release fixes one serious bug that was found during use of the previous release. A version with these fixes has been in production use on zope.org for more than a week. The complete change log is: - Fix a bug introduced in earlier beta that caused the storage server to leak two file descriptors per client connection, eventually leading to a crash. - Reduced the amount of memory consumed by the logging infrastructure. - There were numerous small changes to close() methods and the test suite to avoid leaking (much) memory when a single process opens and closes many ClientStorage objects. Jeremy

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DocumentLibrary 1.0b3 Released
by Casey Duncan 30 Oct '01

30 Oct '01

Kaivo and the NLADA are pleased to announce the third beta version of the DocumentLibrary product. This version fixes incompatibilities with Zope 2.4.2 and adds a few new features, including Postscript indexing support. This version is an "official" 1.0 release candidate and if no further bugs are found it will become the stable 1.0 release. Download at: http://www.zope.org/Members/Kaivo/DocumentLibrary Enjoy. /---------------------------------------------------\ Casey Duncan, Sr. Web Developer National Legal Aid and Defender Association c.duncan(a)nlada.org \---------------------------------------------------/

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CollectorReplacment online
by Ken Manheimer 29 Oct '01

29 Oct '01

We finally have a new version of the Zope bug collector in place, at: http://new.zope.org/Collector Note that it's *new*.zope.org not the main www.zope.org site. This is because the new collector is built on the CMF, which is part what will be the new site (once it's commissioned). I realize this has taken longer to land than any of us would like - we're eager to resume collect and addressing the important bugs, and i know some of you have important ones you're yearning to submit. In the interest of reducing further delays, we're jamming this new collector into production - we've done what we could to shake out the major bugs (many thanks particularly to magnus heino for patiently continuing to give it a whirl!), but i expect there are more to fall out as it gets really used. Please bear with us - and submit your Zope bugs! (There's a separate collector for collector-specific issues: http://new.zope.org/Members/klm/ColDev Submit collector bugs and suggestions there. If the collector is so whacked you can't even submit your issue, email the description directly to me. We'll try to deal with it promptly! The collector is an installed product on new.zope.org - anyone with an account there can create an instance of their own to play with, in their member folder, and the product is checked into the Zope public CVS repository (cvs.zope.org) as CMF/CMFCollector.) Happy reporting!-) -- Ken Manheimer klm(a)zope.com

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Zope 2.5.0 alpha 2 announcment
by Matthew T. Kromer 29 Oct '01

29 Oct '01

Zope 2.5.0 alpha 2 has been released - you can download it from Zope.org: http://www.zope.org/Products/Zope/2.5.0a2/ Zope 2.5.0 alpha 2 is a preview of things to come in Zope 2.5. While not feature complete (CoreSessionTracking is not in this release) this provides a good view of some of the change work which has taken place in the Zope trunk. Zope 2.5.0 alpha 2 corrects an error in Zope 2.5.0 alpha 1 which caused the security machinery to generate an error. The distribution is otherwise identical to 2.5.0 alpha 1 -- you can download and apply the following file lib/python/App/Management.py from http://cvs.zope.org/~checkout~/Zope/lib/python/App/Management.py?rev=1.52&c… if you wish to apply the fix to Zope 2.5.0 alpha 1. Particular features of interest in 2.5 alpha 2 * Preview field in Image objects * Editable File objects under 64K for text files * New User management API * User folder password encryption * Path indexes on objects * Security machinery accelerations * Document template rendering accelerations * Page Templates, an alternate page markup * Distutils infrastructure support for addons For more information on what is new in this release, see the CHANGES.txt and HISTORY.txt files for the release: * http://www.zope.org/Products/Zope/2.5.0a2/CHANGES.txt * http://www.zope.org/Products/Zope/2.5.0a2/HISTORY.txt For more information on the available Zope releases, guidance for selecting the right distribution and installation instructions, please see: http://www.zope.org/Documentation/Misc/InstallingZope.html

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Zope's ZPublisher Client meets Python's CGIHTTPServer!!
by Joseph Wayne Norton 29 Oct '01

29 Oct '01

ZPublisherClientHotfix Unfortunately, it is not always possible to do everything in Zope. Sometimes, one needs to interface with another webserver and/or an external cgi program. The ZPublisher Client included with the standard zope distribution fetches and returns pages using the http protocol. This product extends the ZPublisher Client in the following directions: * adds "https://" support if your python has been built and installed with the "Socket module compiled with SSL support" option. * adds "file://" external CGI program support by subclassing (and modifing some behavior of) the CGIHTTPServer.CGIHTTPRequestHandler included in the standard python library. This handler allows zope to fork (non-fork methods are available for non-unix platforms) a child process for executing and returning the result of an external CGI program. * adds a new "helper" method ProxyClient to be used when the ZPublisher Client is acting as a proxy for the original zope request. ProxyClient will extract information from the zope request object (if given as an argument) and then invoke the normal Client method with the extracted information. The extracted information includes items such as the request method, form data, cookies, REMOTE_ADDR, REMOTE_HOST, etc. Please see http://www.zope.org/Members/natsukashi/Products/ZPublisherClientHotfix for further details.

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ZBabel 2.0.0 beta 2 released
by Stephan Richter 29 Oct '01

29 Oct '01

Hello everyone, It is me again. I finally got the chance to work on ZBabel some more this week end. I basically fixed some reported bugs (reported by Danny William Adair) and finished the ZBabel Object implementation. Since I could not find another way to make the ZBabel Objects work, I accepted the fact that I would have to use Tim McLaughlin's GlobalRequestPatch (http://www.zope.org/Members/tmclaugh/GlobalRequestPatch) The code is very clean and well written, so that I feel good using it for now. You will only need the patch, if you want to use ZBabel Objects. The rest of the system will run just fine without the patch. To download ZBabel go here: http://demo.iuveno-net.de/iuveno/Products/ZBabel Regards, Stephan -- Stephan Richter CBU - Physics and Chemistry Student Web2k - Web Design/Development & Technical Project Management

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zQuest 1.1.0 beta 1 released
by Stephan Richter 29 Oct '01

29 Oct '01

Hello everyone, I am proud to announce zQuest 1.1.0 beta 1. This version finally supports Zope 2.4.x+ and runs on the PsycoPG DA for better scalability. Since PsycoPG was not stable until now, I held this release back. But with the latest 0.99.8 version (and the upcoming 1.0.0 release later this week) this PostGreSQL adapter seems to be stable and now ZQuest will also run reliably. But other than that, this release contains a variety of new features, code cleanup and new documentation: - Made a Class Problem Set Print Preview, so you can print out a test for people that can only take it offline. This feature is not yet completely usable, but it is a start. - Have a CSV File download for the Student Grades Overview; this way Spreadsheet Applications can read it! - Create a detailed Grade View for each student, so that the instructor can determine whether a problem set was completed late, in case he wants to give partial credit. - Better Error Handling on all levels. Setup a framework of condition statements in standard_error_message. - Batching Support for Lists. If a list has more than 10 entries the table will be split and you have buttons to move back and forth. - Increase Speed of List generation by optimizing code. There was some horrible inefficient code in the lists that would get all objects with objectValues() (requiring them to be loaded in RAM) and then it would get the attributes for each object separately (that means, the respective SQL Query was executed N times). Now no objects are loaded to RAM and all attributes are retrieved with one SQL Query. - Translated/localized the entire system using ZBabel. zQuest speaks already English, German and Spanish (thanks to José L Gómez Dans). - Support for Zope 2.4.x. - Add message boards for classes. You can now have discussions for each class, for example to announce homeworks, answer students' questions or simply clarify some class materials. - Send E-Mails to the entire class. - Support for skins in the installer. You can now select a skin when creating an instance. Four skins I created for CBU are already included: CBU Physics, CBU Chemistry, CBU Mathematics and CBU Computer Science. Each features another color scheme. - Wrote a "flatten" script that moves all objects from their Transparent Folders into the next real Folder. This should cause a boost in performance, since Transparent Folders really slow things down. There is also an option added to the installer. - Moved to PsycoPG as Database Adaptor, since it is more scalable. It also got rid of this PostgreSQL startup script hack!!! - Provided Installation Instructions. These instructions start with the installation of the operating system and end with creating an instance for zQuest. They are fairly specific and I hope to enhance them as people report issues. You can find the files and the documentation at the usual place at http://demo.iuveno-net.de/iuveno/Products/ZQuest/. The zQuest Installation Guide is in the Documentation section. Regards, Stephan -- Stephan Richter CBU - Physics and Chemistry Student Web2k - Web Design/Development & Technical Project Management

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New release of PatchKit - Now includes PackageUpdate patch
by Adrian Hungate 29 Oct '01

29 Oct '01

I have just released a new version of PatchKit, and this time I have added a new patch to the Control_Panel called PackageUpdate. PackageUpdate is designed to work a little like Microsoft's WindowsUpdate site - It downloads an XML listing of all the products available on www.zope.org, and then compares this with the products found on your Zope server. There are then 4 displays available - Updated (What products that I have installed have been updated), New (What products do I not have installed), Installed (What products do I have installed), and All (Show all products). PatchKit can be downloaded from http://www.zope.org/Members/haqa/PatchKit and there is a change log there with more details of the updates in this version. Note: This new patch requires XMLKit ( http://www.zope.org/Members/haqa/XMLKit ). Adrian... -- The difficulty of tactical maneuvering consists in turning the devious into the direct, and misfortune into gain. - Sun Tzu

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Come and get XMLKit
by Adrian Hungate 29 Oct '01

29 Oct '01

Come and get XMLKit ( http://www.zope.org/Members/haqa/XMLKit ) !!! XMLKit is designed to give you Zope content developers simple, cached, lightweight access to XML, without the overheads of SAX and/or DOM. It is based on python's xmllib, so it is compatible with Zope 2.3.x as well as newer versions based on Python 2. It parses the XML to a simple (If slightly non-standard) DOM, which then gives very rapid access for other products. If you need access to XML, and you don't want to mess around with SAX, then you need XMLKit! Adrian... -- The difficulty of tactical maneuvering consists in turning the devious into the direct, and misfortune into gain. - Sun Tzu

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ANN: Photo 1.2.1 Released
by Ron Bickers 27 Oct '01

27 Oct '01

Only a week after the prior release, Photo 1.2.1 is now available at http://www.zope.org/Members/rbickers/Photo. The change log follows: * Release 1.2.1 (Stable) - Oct. 26, 2001 - Added: creating a display size of 0 width x 0 height will render a display with the same dimensions of the original photo, but will be processed by the engine. This is useful for storing high quality originals, but having a "same size" photo that has been compressed for faster viewing online. - Added: compression quality setting. This is a number from 1 (worst) to 100 (best) that is passed to the engine and determines the compression quality used for rendered displays. The default is 75. - Added: External Method for easier upgrading of all Photo and Photo Folder objects. See UPGRADE.txt for details. - Added: FAQ.txt for FAQs Enjoy! _______________________ Ron Bickers Logic Etc, Inc.

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