December 1998 - Zope

- Style question: Use of properties?
by Andrew M. Kuchling 30 Dec '98

30 Dec '98

I'm not clear on what purposes object properties are commonly used for in Zope, and would appreciate some guidance from experienced Zopeheads. Here's the application: I want to mock up a customizable display of channels, similar to what my.netscape.com does. I've started by creating a channels/ folder, which would contain little DTML objects, one for each channel c1, c2, c3, ... Users would be represented as a personal folder of their own. Now, here's where the uncertainty shows up: currently, I've created a property named "clist", of type "tokens", that contains something like "c1 c2 c3". The selected channels can then be displayed by this DTML:      This displays the contents of c1, c2, c3. However, this won't scale if I want a more complex display; for example, if I wanted multiple columns with different channels in each column, I'd really want a list of lists instead of a single list of tokens. So... is using a property the right course of action for storing such user-customizable info? Or should I instead get the object representing the folder, and attach my own channel_list attribute to it? -- A.M. Kuchling http://starship.skyport.net/crew/amk/ The tendency to believe that things never change, the inertia of daily existence, is a staple of living. It has always been a delusion. -- Donald A. Wollheim

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Re: [Zope] - Why I don't think Zope will work for me
by Roman Milner 30 Dec '98

30 Dec '98

>>>>> "PE" == Paul Everitt <Paul(a)digicool.com> writes: >> Not really. FTP is not acceptable as it unencrypted. ;) That PE> Do you think your position is the common view, or do you feel PE> that most web site tools and ISPs use FTP as the publishing PE> protocol? Just a little note here. All of our external web servers are only available via ssh. I would think that this is becoming more common. I suppose one solution would be to use the pcgi backend with apache and make a secure connection to apache to edit the pages or upload new data? ^Roman

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RE: [Zope] - Why I don't think Zope will work for me
by Paul Everitt 30 Dec '98

30 Dec '98

Andreas wrote: > filesystem (if I'm allowed too). Even better I can upload an > .tar.gz of > the whole site at once, ... You can do this with Zope and the database as well. Just write something that takes an HTTP upload file and unravels everything into Zope objects. > Not really. FTP is not acceptable as it unencrypted. ;) That Do you think your position is the common view, or do you feel that most web site tools and ISPs use FTP as the publishing protocol? Instead of arguing about different approaches to solving the problem, I woner if anyone agrees what the problem is? Does the original poster want to be able to use his editor of choice? His site management tool of choice? Load a bunch of things at one time by working offline and doing batch update? I expect us to support all of those things. I would also like to see the community work on some sample packages. But our approach will be to stay within the object system. Treating the information as data that can be manipulated outside of the object system, outside the business rules and transaction manager, winds up busting a lot of the value that Zope tries to deliver. > Actually, I've come up with a tiny Zope replacement :) If you're using Zope, then you're using Bobo. You've come up with a Zope package and we certainly encourage you to share it with everyone. Just because Zope includes an object database DOES NOT mean that everyone has to use it. Just because Zope includes integration with relational database DOES NOT meant that everyone has to use relational databases. Just because Zope includes integration with Apache DOES NOT mean that Zope only supports Apache ... I'd be thrilled to see someone contribute a package that lets administrators optionally merge in data stored on the filesystem. --Paul Paul Everitt Digital Creations paul(a)digicool.com 540.371.6909

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RE: [Zope] - Encryption
by Paul Everitt 30 Dec '98

30 Dec '98

Magnus wrote: > It still would be nice to have a standard tool that worked > with Zope (at > least IMO.) I guess it would be possible to follow the route > of pgp and > have two versions etc... No? I personally feel that if we have FTP covered, we can then focus on WebDAV. The WebDAV spec requires Digest Authentication. That answers much of the problem, unless people really feel that encrypting the payload is as important as encrypting the authentication. Digest authentication has no export restriction. It is a standard with free implementations. SSH2, with its non-free license, is a big problem. WebDAV represents an extension of the Web object model in a way that Zope is uniquely positioned to exploit. Still, there is no one approach that suits everyone, just as there is no one Python GUI. Since Zope is free and open source, I'm eagerly awaiting contributions that reflect people's unique requirements. > And personally -- I usually sit at the machine where the webserver is > located, so it would be very nice to be able to edit the > document methods > directly in emacs... (I guess it would be possible to make an > emacs-lisp > program that interacted with Zope, but it seems a bit unneccesary...) Personally I think this is the *right* way to do it. I believe *strongly* in objects and I feel that editing the data directly is a violation of encapsulation. *But*, Zope is a free, open system and others can do what they want, including discarding the object database (as both Andreas and Skip have done). --Paul Paul Everitt Digital Creations paul(a)digicool.com 540.371.6909

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- stx
by Magnus Lie Hetland 30 Dec '98

30 Dec '98

I noticed on some page on the Zope site (I don't remember which) that it included a Structured Text document with a fmt="stx" parameter to some DTML tag... AFAICS this is not a standard format... How do you do something like this? (I am very interested in having document methods written in other languages than HTML and then translated automatically...) -- Magnus Lie Hetland www.pvv.org/arcadia <arcadia(a)pvv.org>

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RE: [Zope] - Why I don't think Zope will work for me
by Dave Goodrich 30 Dec '98

30 Dec '98

Well I don't know if you are missing it or not. Because you can edit an item inside Netscape doesn't mean you must. Zope allows uploading of documents, I have been using BBedit or Jed to work in DTML, and uploading through netscape, You could also just paste changes into the edit window. I've been using DB storage for many years now (other than but similar to Zope)and I prefer it over a file system. For access control, session awareness, and undo abilities, a db works very nicely. It is also much easier to assign properties, behaviors and other object values to a db object, than a flat file item. An opinion :^) DAve. > -----Original Message----- > From: zope-admin(a)zope.org [mailto:zope-admin@zope.org]On Behalf Of > Curtis Galloway > Sent: Tuesday, December 29, 1998 2:47 PM > To: zope(a)zope.org > Subject: [Zope] - Why I don't think Zope will work for me > > > Zope is very cool. Zope has many useful features. But I > believe that storing > most of your useful data inside an opaque object database is > a fatal flaw. > > I learned through painful experience that having your project > data in text > files in a filesystem is a Good Thing. You can use standard > UNIX tools to > manipulate these files. You can use EMACS or vi or any other > tool to edit > them. And most importantly, you can use CVS or RCS or any > other similar tool > for source control. > > I just don't see how you can build a large project with > multiple developers > using a Netscape browser as your editing tool, unless I'm > missing something > very obvious about the way Zope works. > > --Curtis > > >

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RE: [Zope] - Why I don't think Zope will work for me
by Theodore Patrick 30 Dec '98

30 Dec '98

It is already available as a module for ZOPE! You can upload files locally into zope from a file system. There are some setbacks but it works. See: http://www.zope.org/Documentation/HowTo/FSImport Enjoy! It works You can also import and export zope folders as products. It is a relatively simple operation -----Original Message----- From: Magnus Lie Hetland [mailto:Magnus.Hetland@idi.ntnu.no] Sent: Wednesday, December 30, 1998 8:20 AM To: 'zope(a)zope.org' Subject: RE: [Zope] - Why I don't think Zope will work for me What about having an export/import to/from file system? That way, you *could* use the file system for editing, version control etc., except that you would import into zopes DB before publishing it to the web... -- Magnus Lie Hetland www.pvv.org/arcadia <arcadia(a)pvv.org>

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RE: [Zope] - Why I don't think Zope will work for me
by Brian Lloyd 30 Dec '98

30 Dec '98

> Curtis Galloway wrote: > > > > I learned through painful experience that having your > project data in text > > files in a filesystem is a Good Thing. You can use > standard UNIX tools to > > manipulate these files. You can use EMACS or vi or any > other tool to edit > > them. And most importantly, you can use CVS or RCS or any > other similar tool > > for source control. > > > > I just don't see how you can build a large project with > multiple developers > > using a Netscape browser as your editing tool, unless I'm > missing something > > very obvious about the way Zope works. > > (Jim) > We do it all the time. Of course, I'd much *rather* use emacs as > my editing tool. When Zope has FTP support, then this will > be possible. > Actually, when FTP support lands, a number of interesting > scenarios will > be possible. Note that possible future WebDAV support would also solve many of the issues you note above: o _requires_ a secure connection as part of the spec o DAV has specific support for versioning and distributed authoring by multiple users. There are some interesting future possibilities -- it's not unthinkable that you could have WebDAV-enabled Zope objects based on a real cvs repository. o At a minimum, WebDAV clients should give you a better editing environment, if not let you choose your editor yourself. Brian Lloyd brian(a)digicool.com Software Engineer 540.371.6909 Digital Creations http://www.digicool.com

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RE: [Zope] - ZODBCDA for Linux?
by Paul Everitt 30 Dec '98

30 Dec '98

Anthony wrote: > Nonetheless, if you're willing to spend the money, you can get ODBC > drivers for Linux and other Unixen. Combining these with iODBC and > mxODBC means you can get to the databases from python. Just a quick FYI...I'm working on a better strategy for covering other databases. It ain't a great joy to support m versions of n databases on q platforms. --Paul Paul Everitt Digital Creations paul(a)digicool.com 540.371.6909

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Re: [Zope] - ZODBCDA for Linux?
by Anthony Baxter 30 Dec '98

30 Dec '98

Christopher G. Petrilli wrote: > This has nothing to do with Linux (this is a common question for > Python in general)... it has to do with needing an ODBC driver for > the OS. As far as I know, there are only commercial drivers for UNIX > implementations. You'll notice it's only available for Win32, that's > because Win32 has the ODBC drivers if you've installed Access, etc... Nonetheless, if you're willing to spend the money, you can get ODBC drivers for Linux and other Unixen. Combining these with iODBC and mxODBC means you can get to the databases from python. (I also am awaiting either the release, or the "how to write a database adaptor" docs :) Anthony -- Anthony Baxter, NextTelecom. email:anthony@interlink.com.au, voice: +61 416 271 170

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