August 2005 - Zope-Announce

Release: AlphaFlow 0.9.3
by Christian Zagrodnick 30 Aug '05

30 Aug '05

gocept is proud to announce the release of AlphaFlow 0.9.3. The next generation Workflow Engine for Zope and Plone. AlphaFlow was designed from the beginning to be as simple, flexible and customizable as possible. The basis is an activity based workflow concept. It is fully integrated into Plone and supports a wide range of workflow patterns. Major changes in AlphaFlow 0.9.3 include: * Configuring a workflow instance is now part of the workflow itself: Bob chooses that Alice should write a document. After finishing Alice chooses Mary to review it. * The workflow can assign arbitrary roles to a user on a content object: When Alice is due to write the document, she gets the Author role. * Enhanced email capabilities: Send a message to users with a certain role. * Major performance improvements due to optimizations and caching. * A work item can start other work items just before it is started, allowing a much more natural workflow design. * Includes early preview of the visual workflow editor (Requires FireFox 1.0+ for SVG). * Improved documentation and code examples (see doc/examples) illustrating how to use AlphaFlow. See the AlphaFlow Homepage (http://www.gocept.com/go/alf) for more information and downloads. -- Christian Zagrodnick gocept gmbh & co. kg · schalaunische strasse 6 · 06366 koethen www.gocept.com · fon. +49 3496 3099112 · fax. +49 3496 3099118

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Zope 3.1.0 RC 2 released!
by Stephan Richter 28 Aug '05

28 Aug '05

The Zope 3 development team is proud to announce Zope 3.1.0 candidate 2. Zope 3 is the next major Zope release and has been written from scratch based on the latest software design patterns and the experiences of Zope 2. It is in our opinion that Zope 3.1 is more than ready for production use, which is why we decided to drop the 'X' for experimental from the name. We will also continue to work on making the transition between Zope 2 and Zope 3 as smooth as possible. As a first step, Zope 2.8 includes Zope 3 features in the form of Five. Now that we have a release that we would like to declare stable next week, we are looking for translators, who translate Zope 3 into their favorite language! We are utilizing the Rosetta system from Ubuntu for managing those translations. If you are not familiar with Rosetta, please send us a mail to zope3-dev(a)zope.org and we get you set up. Downloads http://zope.org/Products/Zope3/ Installation instructions for both Windows and Un*x/Linux are now available in the top level 'README.txt' file of the distribution. The binary installer is recommended for Windows. Zope 3.1 requires Python 2.3.5 or 2.4.1 to run. You must also have zlib installed on your system. Changes Since 3.1.0c1 - Removed an untested missfeature that can cause infinite loops in principalfolder's Principal class. - Switch to METAL 1.1, which solved a serious bug. - Grant view cleaned up. - Add missing id attribute to select widget. - pytz has been updated. - Some code optimization in the HTTP factory of the publisher and ftesting framework. - Multiple headers having the same name are correctly handled now. - Now SQL operation parameters will be properly encoded before executing. - More carefully handle case when SQL parameters is a tuple or a list of a tuples. - All request factories can now be configured. - Script and Installation documentation improvements. - Fixed several bugs in API doc. Also provided some flexibility with the UI. - Fix to source widget hasInput and associated changes - Updated Build System. - Fix I18n bugs. Updated Russian and German translations. Most Important Changes Since 3.0 - New Pluggable Authentication Utility (PAU), which is similar in philosophy to the Zope 2 PAS. The following features are available in the in the basic PAU facility: + Credentials Plugins: Basic HTTP Auth, Session + Authenticator Plugins: Principal Folder, Group Folder For a detailed description of the pluggable authentication utility, see 'zope/app/authentication/README.txt'. - Major simplifications to the component architecture: + Removal of the concept of a service. All outstanding services were converted to utilities: Error Reporting, FSSync, Authentication. + Site Managers are global and local now; adapters and utilties are directly registered with the site manager. Now global and local component registration and lookup behaves very similar. + Local registrations can now only have two states: active and inactive. This simplified the code so much, that 'zope.app.utility', 'zope.app.registration' and 'zope.app.site' were all merged into 'zope.app.component'. + Implemented menus as utilities. The API also supports sub-menus now. + Implemented views as adapters. Skins and layers are now simply interfaces that the request provides. - Added an integer-id facility for assigning integer identifiers to objects. - Added basic catalog and index frameworks. - Added "sources", which are like vocabularies except that they support very large collections of values that must be searched, rather than browsed. - Created a new granting UI that allows advanced searching of principal sources. - Implemented a generic user preferences systsem that was designed to be easily used in TALES expressions and via Python code. Preferences can be edited via 'http://localhost:8080/++preferences++/'. A demo of the preferences can be found at:: http://svn.zope.org/Zope3/trunk/src/zope/app/demo/skinpref/ - ZCML now supports conditional directives using the 'zcml:condition' attribute. The condition is of the form "verb argument". Two verbs, 'have feature' and 'installed module' are currently implemented. Features can be declared via the 'meta:provides' directive. - Improved API doctool: Code Browser now shows interfaces, text files and ZCML files; the new Book Module compiles all available doctext files into an organized book; the new Type Module lets you browser all interface types and discover interfaces that provide types; views are shown in the interface details screen; views and adapters are categorized into specific, extended and generic; user preferences allow you to customize certain views; 3rd party modules can now be added to the Code Browser. - Improved I18n-based number and datetime formatting by integrating 'pytz' for timezone support, implementing all missing format characters, and reinterpreting the ICU documentation to correctly parse patterns. - Added '++debug++' traversal adapter that allows you to turn on debugging flags in 'request.debug'. Currently the following flags are defined: source, tal, errors. - Improved logout support. - Added the HTTP request recorder, which lets you inspect raw HTTP requests and responses. It can be used to create functional doctests without requiring third-party tools such as TCPWatch. - Developed a generic 'browser:form' directive. It is pretty much the same as the 'browser:editform' directive, except that the data is not stored on some context or adapted context but sent as a dictionary to special method (by default). For a complete list of changes see the 'CHANGES.txt' file. Resources - "Zope 3 Development Web Site":http://dev.zope.org/Zope3 - "Zope 3 Dev Mailing List":http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope3-dev - "Zope 3 Users Mailing List":http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope3-users - IRC Channel: #zope3-dev at irc.freenode.net Acknowledgments Thanks goes to everyone that contributed. Enjoy! The Zope 3 Development Team

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CMF 1.5.4-beta released
by Jens Vagelpohl 28 Aug '05

28 Aug '05

The CMF developer community and Zope Corporation are pleased to announce the release of version 1.5.4-beta of the Zope Content Management Framework (CMF). This release is intended for testing purposes only; we do not recommend deploying it to production servers. The final release of version 1.5.4 is expected to land within the next 10 days. What is the CMF? The Zope Content Management Framework provides a set of services and content objects useful for building highly dynamic, content-oriented portal sites. As packaged, the CMF generates a site much like the Zope.org site. The CMF is intended to be easily customizable, in terms of both the types of content used and the policies and services it provides. Where do I get it? Download it from http://zope.org/Products/CMF/CMF-1.5.4-beta Points of interest include: - "Windows ZIP file", http://zope.org/Products/CMF/CMF-1.5.4-beta/CMF-1.5.4-beta.zip - "Unix tar/gzip archive", http://zope.org/Products/CMF/CMF-1.5.4-beta/CMF-1.5.4- beta.tar.gz . - "Release notes", http://zope.org/Products/CMF/CMF-1.5.4-beta/README.txt - "Change history", http://zope.org/Products/CMF/CMF-1.5.4-beta/CHANGES.txt - "Installation instructions", http://zope.org/Products/CMF/CMF-1.5.4-beta/INSTALL.txt Where do I go to learn more? The CMF mailing list (zope-cmf(a)zope.org) has many participants who are active in supporting the CMF. ...to report bugs? The "CMF Collector":http://zope.org/Collectors/CMF is the place to report bugs (please search for existing reports of your issue first!) --------- Jens Vagelpohl jens(a)dataflake.org

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Stepper1.0.0 Released!
by Chris Withers 25 Aug '05

25 Aug '05

This is a framework for performing asynchronous tasks on Zope servers. It is written as a Zope Product and can be used in several different ways: - for running sequences of migration code from the console. - for running batch processes via cron - for unit testing pieces of migration code or batch processes - for sharing asynchronous code between multiple contexts such as a migration run and a plone customisation policy. It is compatible with both Windows and Unix. For more information, please see: http://www.simplistix.co.uk/software/zope/stepper cheers, Chris -- Simplistix - Content Management, Zope & Python Consulting - http://www.simplistix.co.uk

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[ANN] iungo released to the wild...
by Maik Jablonski 23 Aug '05

23 Aug '05

Hi to all, today I decided to release iungo to the world-wild-world... iungo was already announced at the German Zope User Group (DZUG) some weeks ago, but today I started and finished translating most of the docs to english for a broader audience. The tutorial is still missing, but I'll do this in the next days too. What is iungo? -------------- Based on the web-application-server Zope iungo provides a solid system to build up object-oriented web-databases, easy-to-use-wikis, content-, document- and knowledge-management-systems. iungo targets users and developers, who trust in the "Keep it simple"-philosophy and want to maintain control over their work. iungo tries to connect people with information. Features? --------- - Strict separation of content and application: your content can be moved between different zope-instances and iungo-versions without the fear of breaking anything. - Folderish-Content: In the web all "entities" are links, not folders, documents or files... no more headaches for users what content-type to use... in the default iungo-install there's only one for all...;) - Placeless-Content: All objects have a unique id (autogenerated per default) and can be moved around within the repository without breaking any links between objects. - KISS (Keep it simple stupid): It's easy to develop a custom layout with a basic knowledge of DTML or ZPT. - Expandable: Create new content-types for webdatabases with some clicks in the ZMI. Where can I find more info about iungo? --------------------------------------- http://www.iungo.org/ If you have questions, feel free to ask me: maik.jablonski(a)uni-bielefeld.de Keep zoped, Maik

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SaneBrains 1.0.0 Released!
by Chris Withers 23 Aug '05

23 Aug '05

SaneBrains patches ZCatalog's brain objects such that they don't unnecessarily catch exceptions. The brain objects are patched such that: - the getObject method never tries to catch any exceptions, it just uses a simple restrictedTraverse to turn the path stored in the ZCatalog into an object - the _unrestrictedGetObject method never tries to catch any exceptions, it just uses a simple unrestrictedTraverse to turn the path stored in the ZCatalog into an object As a bonus, this product also allows you to do the following from untrusted code (ie: Python Scripts): from zExceptions import Unauthorized For more information, please see: http://www.simplistix.co.uk/software/zope/sanebrains cheers, Chris -- Simplistix - Content Management, Zope & Python Consulting - http://www.simplistix.co.uk

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Zope 3 training - early bird reminder
by Brian Lloyd 16 Aug '05

16 Aug '05

Hi all - Zope Corporation will hold the next session of Zope 3 for Developers training September 19-21 in Fredericksburg, VA. This three day course will familiarize developers with Zope 3 software from introductory through advanced concepts. The take-away materials provide tools for further learning, since it will not be possible to cover every topic in the sessions. We will demonstrate the flexibility and effectiveness of Zope as an Open Source web development Platform. Course Objectives To understand: * Zope's component architecture, * Creating Zope components and applications, * Building web interfaces, * Controlling security, * Using powerful Zope framework features e.g., events, metadata, schemas, testing, * Configuring and installing Zope The course is intended for developers who want to build web applications using the Zope 3 web-application server. Students should be familiar with the Python programming language and the concepts associated with web application development. While not required, students will benefit from having some familiarity with Zope 2-based application development. We offer several opportunities to meet with Zope's engineering teams, including with Jim Fulton, our CTO. Prerequisites Download Zope 2.7 and take the built-in tutorial: http://zope.org/Products/Zope/2.7.0 Take the Python Tutorial: http://docs.python.org/tut/tut.html For more information or to register, please contact training(a)zope.com. For the early-bird rate, you must register by August 19th, 2005. Brian Lloyd brian(a)zope.com V.P. Engineering 540.361.1716 Zope Corporation http://www.zope.com

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[Ann] DMpdb: a "pdb" extension which understands Zope's additional traceback info
by Dieter Maurer 14 Aug '05

14 Aug '05

"DMpdb" is a tiny Python package which extends and improves Python's "pdb". Especially, it provides the module "Zpdb" which defines a debugger class that understands Zope's "__traceback_info__" and "__traceback_supplement__" (and display this valuable information). -- Dieter

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[ANN] IncrementalSearch2 0.1, ManagableIndex 1.0, AdvancedQuery 1.0
by Dieter Maurer 13 Aug '05

13 Aug '05

IncrementalSearch2 0.1 ====================== This is an efficient (low level) search engine for the execution of "and", "or" and "not" queries. Unlikes Zope's standard search (implemented in its "ZCatalog"), "IncrementalSearch2" determines the search hits incrementally (one hit at a time) and interleaves hit determination with index lookup. It avoids the construction of large intermediate results and often touches far fewer index objects. The result: reduced search times and lower cache load. The gain in search time can be several orders of magnitude (for highly specific "and" queries). The gain is much lower, when the search contains large "or" subqueries. We measured gains in the order of 20 to 35 % in this case. Pure "or" queries are slightly slower than when executed with the traditional search -- about 5 %. To be effective, the indexes involved in the search must support "IncrementalSearch2". Currently, this holds only for "ManagableIndex". "IncrementalSearch2" is (in some sense) the C implementation of "IncrementalSearch". It drastically improves the speed for "or" queries. Currently, "IncrementalSearch2" is only tested on Linux for ZODB 3.2 (Zope 2.7.x). It may not work on different platforms or for different ZODB versions. I provide the source only (i.e. you must compile the C extension). ManagableIndex 1.0 ================== "ManagableIndex" deliveres a set of highly efficient, flexible and customizable indexes: "FieldIndex", "KeywordIndex", "PathIndex", "RangeIndex", "WordIndex". All of them are custumized via the Zope Management Interface (that's where their name comes from). They are much more flexible and orthogonal than Zope's standard indexes and are more reliable (unlike for Zope's indexes, there are no known problems). If installed, they use "IncrementalSearch2" which can drastically speed up searches. Developpers can use "ManagableIndex" as a framework for the easy construction of new indexes. AdvancedQuery 1.0 ================= "AdvancedQuery" is a (high level) search engine extending the search capabilities of Zope's ZCatalog. While "ZCatalog" can combine subqueries for individual indexes with "and" only, "AdvancedQuery" allows them to be arbitrarily combined with "and", "or" and "not". The effects: higher search power, much more readable queries, much more uniform and orthogonal index design. "AdvancedQuery" also extends "ZCatalog"s sorting capability. While "ZCatalog" allows sorting only via a single index, "AdvancedQuery" supports multi-level sorting (i.e. via more than one index). Furthermore, it sorts incrementally (only as far in the result list as you access it). This can drastically reduce sorting time. "AdvancedQuery" uses "IncrementalSearch2", if it is installed. Provided the indexes support "IncrementalSearch2" as well, this can drastically reduce search time (see above). Download -------- More information and download: <http://www.dieter.handshake.de/pyprojects/zope> -- Dieter

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[ANN] Zope 2.8.1 final released
by Andreas Jung 11 Aug '05

11 Aug '05

Hi all, on behalf of Zope Corporation and the Zope community I am pleased to announce the release of Zope 2.8.1. You can download Zope 2.8.1 from http://www.zope.org/Products/Zope/2.8.1/ Some new features of Zope 2.8: - ZODB 3.4 with MVCC (multi version concurrency control) support. MVCC solves nearly every problem with ZODB read-conflict errors which is very important for high-traffic Zope sites. - Extension Classes were rewritten as Python new-style classes making all features of Python new-style classes available in Zope objects. This includes support for cyclic garbage collection. - Integration of Zope 3 technologies through Five (see http://codespeak.net/z3/five/) For more information on what is new in this release, see the CHANGES.txt files for the release: http://www.zope.org/Products/Zope/2.8.1/CHANGES.txt See also: http://www.zope.org/Wikis/DevSite/Projects/Zope2.8/OverView Please bring all the bugs you have found to the Zope bugtracker: http://collector.zope.org/Zope":http://collector.zope.org/Zope For more information on the available Zope releases, guidance for selecting the right distribution and installation instructions, please see: http://www.plope.com/Books/2_7Edition/InstallingZope.stx Please also keep in mind that Zope 2.8.1 requires Python 2.3.5. Zope 2.8.1 is not certified for any Python 2.4.x versions. So using Python 2.4 is neither recommended nor supported and any related questions or problems are likely to be ignored until 2.4 is an officially support Python version for Zope. -- Andreas Jung (andreas at zopyx dot com)

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