January 1999 - Zope - Zope lists

- zen zope
by David Brown 26 Jan '99

26 Jan '99

It's really nice when that insight catches up with you, and you realize that if you just move your angle of perception a couple of degrees, you'll see that moose that just wandered into the room. After sending off some mail to this list (and getting very useful responses -- thank you to everybody that responded) about Frontier and Zope and Templates and the Apparent Lack Thereof, I ignored it for a while. And I played a little bit (unsuccessfully) with ZServer, periodically looking at the website. I noticed the HOWTO on changing the default object from index_html to whatever you wanted. I also noticed that it DIDN'T really change the default, it just modified index_html to load whatever page you wanted. I suddenly felt both smart and stupid at the same time. I can use index_html as my "template", with index_html loading the page I want rendered. So now my index_html loads index.html. I can create subfolders, with their own index.html, and they all inherit from the index_html, with the style that I want. Blam. There it was. Funny, I've been getting paid to do OOP all these years (with Smalltalk, Java, and C++, but Smalltalk the most), and I didn't see the obvious. dave (finding zen, line by line)

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- Problems with AOL browser
by Michael Grinder 26 Jan '99

26 Jan '99

Someone using an AOL browser tried to access a Zope website that I built and receives the following error message: Sorry, an error occurred Traceback (innermost last):File/home/brian/temp/build/tmp- build/Zope-1.9.0.linuxZ-X86/lib/python/Zpublisher/Publisher.PY,line 803.inparse_cookie Invalid Parameter:=z6800101&userid= I think this is an older version of AOL running on Windows 3.1. Anyone know what the problem might be and if there is a fix for it. Michael Grinder

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- img src question
by Michael Bernstein 26 Jan '99

26 Jan '99

When I call an image from the index_html method in the root by using <img src="Images/myimage.gif">, the image is retrieved as http://localhost:9673/Images/myimage.gif But when I go to a subdirectory that does not have it's own index_html, it inherits the index_html method from it's parent, but retrieves the image as http://localhost:9673/Subdir/Images/myimage.gif, forcing the browser to re-download the image. How do I get Zope to evaluate the images URL as relative to the root, instead of chaining the Folder off of the current Directory (BTW I just realized that it works this way because folders are methods too, and thus subject to acquisition, very cool) Ok, so what is the solution to getting the browser to cache images for reuse? Michael Bernstein.

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- newbie questions
by Quinn Dunkan 26 Jan '99

26 Jan '99

Well, I'm actually using Bobo right now, but this should be applicable to ZPublisher (here's a question: I understand that bobo users encouraged to switch to ZPublisher... are there any "issues" to be aware of? Is there a document that describes how one might make such a switch as painless as possible?). Anyway, I've been messing around with Bobo for a while now, and have a few questions: I have a few email forms that I want a method to pretty up and send to the appropriate person. Here's how I'm doing it now, but I know there's a Right Way that involves dtml and all that. I await enlightenment, RTFM, etc. Unfortunately, I didn't know about REQUEST at the time (and still can't find any real clear documentation on it...), and so I had to code up my own little publisher that just calls a python object with a dictionary of the form values. I have two methods, d_echo() and d_mail() which are called with a function and a dictionary. They both call the underlying form method which just prettifies the dictionary data (takes a dictionary and returns a string). So I can write: <form action=/cgi-bin/d_echo/mail_forms/mr_form> and d_echo() will call mail_forms.mr_form(dict) and return whatever it returns. Similarly, /cgi-bin/d_mail/mail_forms/mr_form will return "mailed!" and mail whatever mail_forms.mr_form(dict) returns. Ok, now that's ugly enough. Now we get to the prettification methods: My current approach is to say: def mr_form(a): msg = untab("""\ %(name)s %(email)s %(comments)s """) return msg % MsgDict(a) Where MsgDict wraps a dictionary except returns "fieldname: value" when it finds the value and "fieldname: (not given)" when it doesn't. Now this doesn't work when things get marginally more complicated, so if I want an address printed out right, and not like address: 123 road city: centerville (a great place to raise your kids up) state: etc. I did this: def mr_form(a): msg = untab("""\ %(name)s Address: %(adress)s %(city)s, %(state)s %(zip code)s """) dict = {} for i in "address", "city", "state", "zip code", "country": if dict.has_key(i): dict[i] = dict[i] else: dict[i] = "(no %s given)" % i return format(msg % UnionDict(dict, MsgDict(a))) which is worse yet, but works. UnionDict overlays dictionaries by looking in each one successively, and format() breaks lines over 70 columns. Ok, so what's the right way to do this? I may seem stupid for recreating all sorts of functionality that may already exist in dtml, but I read and read and read the docs and source-code (even the howto on zope.org for "Creating a Mail Form", but it assumed I was using full-fledged zope, which I'm not (I'm just the cgi programmer, I can't switch the whole site to zope even if I'd like to)). I imagine there are a lot of people in my situation who aren't designing a brand new site from scratch but would still like to use ZPublisher/ZTemplate without all the other stuff. I think it would be useful to have a clearly marked portion of the docs that say "These pertain to ZP/ZT-only sites." The stuff in "Zope Developer Information" (basically the old bobo docs) would be good there, perhaps with less scary names. Here's another question: I know dtml supports both ssi-like and python string-like syntax, but everyone seems to use the ssi-like. I prefer python syntax since it looks less cluttered to me (and I think it's a good thing that my dtmls don't resemble ssi)... is there any particular reason to use one over the other, or is it purely personal preference? One of the things Bobo/ZPublisher touts is the ease of using things like pcgi, fcgi, etc. I've been using fcgi, but I wasn't able to find a cgi-template style script for it, so I wrote my own. Granted, it was trivial (provided I did it right), but it would still be nice if it was included, or the documentation said where I could download it. thanks!

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- Standard Variables in DTML
by David Brown 25 Jan '99

25 Jan '99

First, it would be nice if there were an exhaustive list of variables that can be accessed within a DTML document. If there is such a list, could someone direct me there? I used to use Frontier, but switched to Zope becuase: a. I like to hack b. I like that Zope runs under Linux c. Python rocks d. It's free, and since this is just for fun, I didn't want to pay for Frontier (which is a wonderful product, and I would seriously consider it if I were doing this for anything other than my own amusement). One of the things I liked about Frontier was the template stuff, and I'm slowly figuring out how to do the same sort of thing in Zope, by modifying "standard_html_header" and "standard_html_footer" to set up my own theme, but that's not really the right way to do it. I wish I could set up something closer to Templates in Zope, and perhaps I will, but it would be cool if someone beat me to it. Also, I like including the actual document name in the footer of my pages so that if something looks weird, I know where to start looking. And since this is something I want in all my pages, it seems logical to put it in "standard_html_footer". I looked through the DTML reference, and found the  should work, but it -- as it probably should -- returns "standard_html_footer". I'd really like to be able to get the name of the "master" document. Will I have to mine the REQUEST headers for that info, or is there a more straightforward way of doing this? dave (zope newbie, python newbie)

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Re: [Zope] - Objects in sub-folders
by Wiebe Kunst 25 Jan '99

25 Jan '99

Thanks a lot; I indeed did forgot casesensitivity. Wiebe -----Original Message----- From: Robert OConnor <rocon(a)pivot.net> To: Wiebe Kunst <wkunst(a)eunet.no> Cc: zope(a)zope.org <zope(a)zope.org> Date: 25. januar 1999 21:32 Subject: Re: [Zope] - Objects in sub-folders >Hi Wiebe, > >Amos gave a good reply and in part he wrote: > >>...So the question is, how to refer to an image within a document. The >answer >>is with its URL. >> >><img src="/myFolder/myImage/foo.gif"> >> >>That's all there is to it. > >Let me add one thing that may trip you up: > >The Caracter Case: > >This > >><img src="/myFolder/myImage/foo.gif"> > >Is NOT the same as >><img src="/Myfolder/Myimage/Foo.gif"> > >I wish there were a way to ignore case >in all cases! > >-bobo connor > >

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Re: [Zope] - ZServer reactions?
by simon＠joyful.com 25 Jan '99

25 Jan '99

Amos Latteier <amos(a)aracnet.com> writes: > I haven't heard any reactions so far to the new ZServer alpha release which Amos, haven't had a chance to explore fully but here's what happened when I installed just now on windows 98: - winzip wouldn't extract 0-length __init__.py files, not your problem - haven't got http access working yet - "http://localhost:9673/Main" gives me a "Cannot find server or DNS Error" page in internet explorer - I tried browsing the server with dired/efs and it WORKS LIKE A CHARM AND IS BLINDINGLY FAST and I'll calm down now, but YOU GO DC HACKERS! :) -Simon

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Re: [Zope] - Secure Server
by bruce＠pixar.com 25 Jan '99

25 Jan '99

From: "Robert OConnor" <rocon(a)pivot.net> > How does ZOPE integrate with a > "SSL" secure server such as > > Red Hat Secure Web Server 2.0 > http://www.redhat.com/product.phtml/WB2000 I have successfully installed Zope on this product. I had to add 4 lines to a configuration file, only slightly modified from the WEBSERVER.txt document that comes with Zope to match the pathnames used by Red Hat. Another 4 (identical) lines made Zope work through the SSL port. Thanks Bruce -- The $70 Billion US "budget surplus" hardly offsets our $5 Trillion national debt. The debt increased by $133 Billion in the same year we found a "surplus". More debt is predicted for 1999. See www.concordcoalition.org . Bruce Perens K6BP bruce(a)pixar.com 510-620-3502 NCI-1001

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Re: [Zope] - Objects in sub-folders
by Robert OConnor 25 Jan '99

25 Jan '99

Hi Wiebe, Amos gave a good reply and in part he wrote: >...So the question is, how to refer to an image within a document. The answer >is with its URL. > ><img src="/myFolder/myImage/foo.gif"> > >That's all there is to it. Let me add one thing that may trip you up: The Caracter Case: This ><img src="/myFolder/myImage/foo.gif"> Is NOT the same as ><img src="/Myfolder/Myimage/Foo.gif"> I wish there were a way to ignore case in all cases! -bobo connor

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- Objects in subfolders
by Wiebe Kunst 25 Jan '99

25 Jan '99

This is properly an enormous stupid question, but I just can't figure it out. In a folder I have another folder for images within I want to store images. In a document in the main folder I want to refer to images in the images folder. What's the DTML/HTML code for accomplishing this ? Wiebe

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