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RE: [Zope-dev] Re: Transaction support on MySQL
by Rik Hoekstra 27 Sep '99

27 Sep '99

<snip> > I have a dynamic PDF generation library and a minimal html to PDF > conversion script (enough to support Structured Text) all written in > Python. No table support yet. > > You can get it from: > http://starship.python.net/crew/pavlos/ > > It was originally intended to provide PDF support for Zope but it is a bit > slow, unless some caching scheme is used. > > There is one more PDF library for python by Andy Robinson but I do not > remember the URL. > > Pavlos > The freely available (for non-commercial purposes, check out the licence) pdflib by Thomas Mertz also has a python binding. It is intended for pdf publishing on www sites and it is fast. URL http://www.pdflib.com Rik

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__init__.py does not work
by Victor Zhai 27 Sep '99

27 Sep '99

When I creat a instance of Class Person. Zope says: Zope Error Zope has encountered an error while publishing this resource. Resource not found Sorry, the requested Zope resource does not exist. Check the URL and try again. Troubleshooting Suggestions The URL may be incorrect. The parameters passed to this resource may be incorrect. A resource that this resource relies on may be encountering an error. For more detailed information about the error, please refer to the HTML source for this page. If the error persists please contact the site maintainer. Thank you for your patience. My Person.py file like this: ----------------------------------------------------------------- __version__='$Revision: 1.13 $'[11:-2] import Persistence import ZODB manage_addUserDbForm = HTMLFile('addUserDb',globals()) def manage_addUserDb(self, name, age, REQUEST=None): """Add a Person instance to Zope """ self._setObject(name,Person(name,age)) if REQUEST is not None: #Display the Folder that contain the new Person return self.manage_main(self,REQUEST) class Person(Persistence.Persistent): """A Persistent Person """ def __init__(self, name, age): self.name = name self.age = age ------------------------------------------------------------------- My __init__.py like this: -------------------------------------------------------------------- __doc__="""Person product $Id: __init__.py,v 1.3 1998/07/16 13:26:54 brian Exp $""" __version__='$Revision: 1.3 $'[11:-2] import Person from ImageFile import ImageFile meta_types= ?'name':'Person', 'action':'manage_addPersonDbForm' ?, methods=? 'manage_addUserDbForm': Person.manage_addUserDbForm, 'manage_addUserDb': Person.manage_addUserDb, ? misc_=?'UserDb_icon': ImageFile('UserDb_icon.gif', globals()), 'User_icon': ImageFile('User_icon.gif', globals()), ? __ac_permissions__=( ('Add Person Dbs',('manage_addUserDbForm','manage_addUserDb')), ('Change PersonDbs',()), ) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- addUserdb.dtml file like this <HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE>Add Person Db</TITLE> </HEAD> <BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" LINK="#000099" VLINK="#555555" ALINK="#77003B"> <h2>Add User Db</h2> <FORM ACTION="manage_addUserDb" METHOD="POST"> <TABLE CELLSPACING="2"> <TR> <TD ALIGN="LEFT" VALIGN="TOP"> <STRONG> Authentication Type </STRONG> </TD> <TD ALIGN="LEFT" VALIGN="TOP"> Username is: <INPUT TYPE="TEXT" NAME="name" VALUE="Victor.zhai"> <BR> Age is: <INPUT TYPE="TEXT" NAME="age:int" VALUE="26"> </TD> </TR> <TR> <TD></TD> <TD><BR><INPUT TYPE="SUBMIT" VALUE="Add"></TD> </TR> </TABLE> </FORM> </BODY> </HTML> ================================================================================== "WorldSecure Server <ogilvy.com>" made the following annotations on 09/27/99 06:21:21 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Privileged/Confidential Information may be contained in this message. If you are not the addressee indicated in this message (or responsible for delivery of the message to such person), you may not copy or deliver this message to anyone. In such case, you should destroy this message and kindly notify the sender by reply email. Please advise immediately if you or your employer does not consent to email for messages of this kind. Opinions, conclusions and other information in this message that do not relate to the official business of the Ogilvy Group shall be understood as neither given nor endorsed by it. ==============================================================================

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Re: Transaction support on MySQL
by Bjorn Stabell 27 Sep '99

27 Sep '99

Evan wrote: > Unless you want to generate PDF or Postscript files on the fly, you are > *not* going to get what you want from a browser-based application, > regardless of the server. Neither Zope nor any other Web App can > control how your browser will print an HTML page (AFAIK). There is a PDF package for Perl, but I don't know of any for Python. If there are, then you can relatively easily generate PDF on the fly. Another option is to use Flash; although I'm not sure you can control the size very well, you can control the relative position very well, and Flash 4 can even get data dynamically from the server so the Flash file can remain the same while the data it shows can easily be changed. It would be cool if someone developed a system that used PDF or Flash instead of HTML as the default presentation format, but that got all the data from (text) objects in Zope. Both PDF and Flash support hyperlinks, so it should be doable. Bye, -- Bjorn Stabell <bjorn(a)stabell.priv.no>

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Re: [Zope-dev] Transactions support on MySql
by Ping Lau 27 Sep '99

27 Sep '99

> Ping wrote: >> 1. From what I read, Zope supports transactions. If I >> want to use MySql as my backend database, can Zope >> still support atomic operations since MySql does not >> support transactions? > > Evan wrote: >Zope will still support transactions on *Zope objects*. Your MySQL >database will not participate in the transaction, so all SQL statements >executed will remain in effect even if the Zope transaction aborts. >You might be able to handle this with explicit logging in MySQL, if the >changes aren't too complicated. Another alternative I have in mind is using ZODB to store my business objects. Has anyone used ZODB as the backend? How stable is it? In terms of doing query, does Zope have a similar SELECT statement in RDBM? Regards, Ping

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Philosophy.__of__(Acquisition).questions
by Evan Simpson 26 Sep '99

26 Sep '99

I thought I understood Acquisition, until I read the docs at http://www.digicool.com/releases/ExtensionClass/Acquisition.html. *Really* read them, until my brain hurt, then I went and had a lie down, then tried again. Now I'm *really* confused! Let me take the example from the docs: We have a tree that includes paths a/x and a/b/c. Whenever we ask an object which supports acquisition for an attribute which turns out to support acquisition, we are given a wrapper which preserves the context. Using 'of' to mean 'in the context of', the general transformation rule is (path/top/attr) -> (path/attr) of (path/top) if attr is not an element of top, or (path/attr) -> (attr of path) if it is. Here are some access paths and the resulting wrapper objects: a/b b of a a/b/c c of (a/b) -> c of (b of a) a/x x of a a/b/x (a/x) of (a/b) -> (x of a) of (b of a) a/b/c/x (a/b/x) of (a/b/c) -> ((a/x) of (a/b)) of (a/b/c) -> ((x of a) of (b of a)) of (c of (b of a)) Once a wrapper is written in 'of' notation, you can read off the acquisition order from left to right, skipping repeats. Thus, for 'a/b/c', the acquisition order is c, b , a, while for 'a/b/c/x' it is x, a, b, c. The addition of x reverses the acquisition sequence for the previous step! If x were contained in b instead, then we would have a/b/c/x -> (a/b/x) of (a/b/c) -> (x of b of a) of (c of b of a), giving sequence x, b, a, c!! This seemed horribly unintuitive to me, since I thought that an acquired object was only given the context of the object which started the acquisition search. This would lead to the same result for 'a/b/c', but 'a/b/c/x' would give x, c, b, a. Jim Fulton kindly explained, in another thread, how the acquired object's context is searched before the acquiring object's. Fine, that's fully consistent with all of the above. Now I try it out in Zope. I make nested folders 'a/b/c' in the root. I put DTML method 'x' in 'a', and have it display <dtml-var prop>. I give a, b, and c properties named 'prop', containing 'a!', 'b!', and 'c!' respectively. I call '/a/b/c/x' and it prints 'c!' What the hell? According to the docs, shouldn't it print 'a!'? Ok, let's try making DTML Method y in c with body "<dtml-var x>". Same result. How about "<dtml-with x><dtml-var prop></dtml-with>"? Same thing. Help??

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Transactions support on MySql
by Ping Lau 26 Sep '99

26 Sep '99

Hello, I am a newbie. I have a few questions to ask. 1. From what I read, Zope supports transactions. If I want to use MySql as my backend database, can Zope still support atomic operations since MySql does not support transactions? 2. The project I will work on requires a lot of very customized reports to be printed on blank paper as well as pre printed form. I have used Delphi from my previous project. I used the report writter came with Delphi to design & print all sorts of report on all kinds of papers (blank, pre printed form, labels, etc). How can I produce reports for printing to pre printed form? 3. My project also requires barcode (Code39) printing on labels feed from dot-matrix printers. Where can I find barcode module or class for Zope? I would like to say thank you in advance for your answers, tips, or pointers. Regards, Ping __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Bid and sell for free at http://auctions.yahoo.com

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Barriers to Zope popularity: Part 2: source control
by Jay, Dylan 25 Sep '99

25 Sep '99

Having been using Zope for the past 8months or so I see two potential reasons as to why more people at my work havn't taken to Zope. Barrier 1: WYSIWYG editing (see previous mail) Barrier 2: Source Control. Initially I was concerned about the whole ODB thing. Now I trust it to some extent however source control is more than just backup or versioning. Its about tracablity in a development process. I work with a software development group and all our code is under source control and any work done can be traced to a person and a time. Zope can't do this. Any file based web server allows this (however then you don't get the distributed editing etc). Possible solution: Allow some sort of hooks into the versioning mechanism. What would be nice is in the case of a save or undo of a version, those changes could be mirrored in source control. How? - Some sort of export on changes. This goes into a designated dir that represents the site. A script then gets run that does the equivilent commit into the soruce control program. Different adapters with different scripts for CVS, ClearCase etc. - Have somesort of folder/XML format? Instead of just one big XML file like export gives you then maybe a folder heirachy with special files to represent the properties of Zope folders. This would allow for much better diffs in the source control prog. - Allow imports from such a format when you need to reverse changes or do something funny from source control. - I think only restricting this to versions is ok because non versioned changes might pickup all the changes that occur with user data, counters etc. And with a policy that all changes have to be through a version (is this enforcable in zope???) then all is well. All the "user" data changes such counters etc could be accounted for in source control by doing a periodic whole site export and having this committed to the source control system thus ensuring that whats in source control is a reasonably accurate representation of the site. I know there are many more barriers but these are two I've been thinking a lot about and I think are quite important.

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RE: [Zope] Re: [Zope-dev] RE: [Zope] Barriers to Zope popularity: Part 1: wysiwig editing wysiwig editing Part 1: wysiwig editing wysiwig editing
by Jay, Dylan 25 Sep '99

25 Sep '99

> -----Original Message----- > From: Martijn Pieters [mailto:mj@antraciet.nl] > Sent: Thursday, September 23, 1999 22:09 > To: Dody Gunawinata; Phil Harris > Cc: Jay, Dylan; zope(a)zope.org; zope-dev(a)zope.org > Subject: [Zope] Re: [Zope-dev] RE: [Zope] Barriers to Zope popularity: > Part 1: wysiwig editing wysiwig editing > > >Much of the documentation is designed with *advance* > developers in mind. > >It's time for Zope for Dummies. > > > >Dody > > What many people forget here is that Zope is a Web > Application Platform. It > is, first and foremost, designed as a framework for applications. > > All the DTML Methods and Folder objects and whatnot, are > standard objects > to help you design an interface, they are part of and build > upon the Zope > framework. Together with the ZODB, security, the web interface, the > marshalling of variable types and RDBMS integration, Zope > makes one heck of > a Web Application Platform. > > Zope was designed for Web Application Developers, not designers. The > documentation follows this design. I actually feel that > dummies should stay > away from Zope. Frontpage is for dummies. I disagree. I believe the ideal place Zope could end up is as being something that was as simple to use as frontpage and as powerful as ... well as it already is. I'm not saying that the "simpler" users should be able to as powerfull things as "programmer" type users can but it should not be unaccessable to them. They should be able to edit and add basic documents. I don't want to be the only one who does all the editing of documents with zope. I think the solution I suggested with embedding the DTML inside an expanded (rendered?) document is very workable. It would allow a novice user to edit a DTML document that is potentially in many parts without destroying the DTML.

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Using the SiteAccess Product for Virtual Hosting
by Evan Simpson 25 Sep '99

25 Sep '99

Now that I've thrown the first version of SiteAccess out into the wide world, and had a rest, I suppose a bit of documentation is in order. Here's an example of how virtual hosting is supposed to work with this Product. I actually use a PythonMethod for this, for obvious reasons, but I suspect many people will not want quite that much alpha code in their life at once, so I'll present (untested) DTML Method examples. In the Zope root, I place a DTML Method called RewriteRule with the following body: <dtml-with "_(site = {'www.tk.com': '/tk', 'shop.tk.com': '/tk/shop', 'www.other.org': '/other'}.get(HTTP_HOST, _.None) )"> <dtml-if site> <dtml-call "REQUEST.set_path(site + PATH_INFO)"> <dtml-call "REQUEST.set('SiteRootURL', 'http://'+HTTP_HOST)"> </dtml-if> </dtml-with> If I wanted IP:PORT based rewriting, I'd use: <dtml-with "_(site_pair={'10.0.0.10:80': ('/tk', 'www.tk.com'), ...}.get(HTTP_SOCKET_IP+':'+HTTP_SOCKET_PORT, None) )"> <dtml-if site_pair> <dtml-call "REQUEST.set_path(site_pair[0] + PATH_INFO)"> <dtml-call "REQUEST.set('SiteRootURL', 'http://'+site_pair[1])"> </dtml-if> </dtml-with> In each of the Zope folders '/tk', '/tk/shop', and '/other', I add a SiteRoot object. I give them descriptive titles, but they don't really need any configuring. In the Zope root, I choose 'Set Access Rule' from the drop-down list, and type 'RewriteRule' into the form and OK it. At this point, any request with HTTP_HOST 'www.tk.com' will be rewritten to go through folder '/tk' first, but won't include it in URLn's or absolute_url() calls. I lie. This is what *will* happen when the product is done. At the moment, what you'll get is an AttributeError complaining that the REQUEST object doesn't have an attribute 'set_path', because I haven't written it yet. Also, SiteRoots don't do anything but print a diagnostic message when traversed. I could use some design help. Would REQUEST.set_path be the Right Thing, here? Probably, and it's not my main concern. I'm much more worried about how exactly SiteRoots should accomplish their tasks. After digging through the Zope source, it seems that *at least* REQUEST.steps and REQUEST['URL'] need to be changed, and absolute_url re-implemented, but there's a whole tangle of twisty little CGI and Zope variables, all almost alike, holding bits and pieces of the URL. Frankly, I think it would be valuable if all that were cleaned up, but I don't feel like I know enough to do it right.

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Re: [Zope] Barriers to Zope popularity: Part 1: wysiwig editing wysiwig editing editing wysiwig editing
by Martijn Pieters 24 Sep '99

24 Sep '99

At 21:35 23-9-99 , jonathon wrote: >On Thu, 23 Sep 1999, Martijn Pieters wrote: > > >At 03:50 23/09/99 , Dody Gunawinata wrote: > >>I think "DOCUMENTATION" is more than anything else, the greatest barrier > >>to people using Zope. > << paragraphs deleted >> > >>Much of the documentation is designed with *advance* developers in mind. > >>It's time for Zope for Dummies. > > >What many people forget here is that Zope is a Web Application Platform. It > >is, first and foremost, designed as a framework for applications. > > That doesn't negate the need for Documentation. > > >marshalling of variable types and RDBMS integration, Zope makes one heck of > >a Web Application Platform. > > True. To use a Web Application Platform, one has to know the tools. > The easy way to find out what those tools are, and how to use them, > is by going through the documentation. > > >Zope was designed for Web Application Developers, not designers. The > >documentation follows this design. I actually feel that dummies should stay > > If one is an experienced Web Application Developer, the > documentation _might_ be, but probably isn't acceptable. > > If one is supposed to manage the content on a website, and > not an experienced Web Application developer, the documentation > is at best, inadequate. > > >away from Zope. Frontpage is for dummies. > > What has Frontpage to do with Zope? They are completely different > applications. > > One other point: > Documentation can never contain too many examples. Sorry I wasn't clear. I was ranting on about the WISYWIG tools, like Frontpage. My experience is that people are overlooking the fact that Zope is not an alternative FP Server-side extensions. -- Martijn Pieters, Web Developer | Antraciet http://www.antraciet.nl | T: +31 35 7502100 F: +31 35 7502111 | mj(a)antraciet.nl http://www.antraciet.nl/~mj | PGP: http://wwwkeys.nl.pgp.net:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0xA8A32149 ---------------------------------------------

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