January 1999 - Zope - Zope lists

RE: [Zope] - Slashdot on Zope
by Paul Everitt 19 Jan '99

19 Jan '99

Kevin wrote: > This is the application that I have been looking at Zope for. > I am thinking > of something that is a cross between Slashdot and c|net. (Or you can > think of it as Slashdot with a category hierarchy.) We have a couple of consulting gigs in the hopper that hilight common threads through different community sites. If we can do a good job of capturing the requirements, then documenting the interfaces for managed content, then the project can be used pretty widely. As for the category hierarchy, the opportunities available thanks to Tabula are pretty awesome. > Yes! I'd be interested in using/contributing to this. After > seeing someone > else's message, I took a look at HTML::Mason for perl, and > that just does > not have the same power that Zope does. OK, should you choose to jump in, can you provide a summary of the features and limitations of Mason? --Paul

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- FYI: Addition to roadmap -- Zope Classes
by Paul Everitt 19 Jan '99

19 Jan '99

Oops, I forgot a pretty important one: Zope Classes out to see the light of day in the next two months. Zope Classes allow you to build a collection of Zope objects that are the constructors for new objects. Users will see a new item that they can add to their folders, but the "class" is really an instance in the object database. "Class" behavior is managed by forms and objects in the Zope Control Panel, which change the state of all instances of that Zope Class. How can this be used? Say I want to create a simple Feedback application. I would create a Folder that contained an addFeedbackForm Document object that collected information from the user and an addFeedback Document that took the information, emailed it to the administrators, and stored it as an entry in the Folder. I might also create a little management interface Document that let me set some central properties, browse the feedback items, and compute some totals. I would also create some special forms that collected the information for new Feedback Folders and set the initial state. I could then package this Folder up as a Zope Class and make it available to all Folders in the system (or ship it to someone else's system). People would now have "Feedback Folder" as a list of possible things they could add. But unlike Zope Products, there is no lib/python/Products/ directory on the filesystem with the Python code. All the logic is handled by DTML scripting from objects stored and managed in the object database. Moreover, new Feedback Folders are instances of a Zope Object (a Python instance), not a Python class. Thus, "class" information has a nice GUI in the Control Panel for changing central information, such as the email address for feedback information. Also, you can change the global look and feel of pieces of content by changing the Document in the Control Panel. Of course I might have this all wrong, and Jim will correct me :^) --Paul Paul Everitt Digital Creations paul(a)digicool.com 540.371.6909

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- Using "tree" with an object
by Gabe Wachob 19 Jan '99

19 Jan '99

OK, another question. I have an XMLFile (derived from Document). It has a domtree attribute which contains the XML document as a DOM tree. I have a index_html.dtml file which is displayed as the default view. I would like to use the  construct to interactively view the XML files (as trees), hiding and displaying structure as the user pleases. I was going to do this by hand, but I thought using the  construct would be kewl. Well, I'm having more problems with DTML. How do I use the  construct with the object's domtree attribute (that is, with any object referred to by my Document-subclasses XMLFile)? I've tried just inserting "domtree" in the name attribute (no success) of tree, I tried "self.domtree" (no success), I've tried "_.getitem(document_id, 0).domtree" (no success), I've tried the below (no success):    I really don't know what I'm doing -- the documentation on how to refer to objects contained within a Document (for example) in the context of DTML seems incomplete. Finally, how do I write my own HTML response forms? Do I *have* to use MessageDialog? Also, where are MessageDialogs documented?? If I don't have a REQUEST or RESPONSE as an explicit parameter to my methods, what does ZPublisher do with the stuff returned by a published method? Am I asking too much for all this documentation? -Gabe

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RE: [Zope] - Authorization aside...
by Jeff Bauer 19 Jan '99

19 Jan '99

> I'm planning on having a similar facility in the Medusa handler. Also, I'm > pretty sure PCGI allows you to set environment variables in the info file, > though I'm not sure if they will override standard CGI environment > variables... Yes on both counts. PCGI info files will override environment variables, a feature which has a potential for misuse. The pcgifile sanity checker will issue a warning to the unwary. Best regards, Jeff Bauer Rubicon, Inc.

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RE: [Zope] - Slashdot on Zope
by Paul Everitt 19 Jan '99

19 Jan '99

Gabe wrote: > Zopespot is the community or the "this" ? Zopespot is my working name for a "Slashdot" project name. > > 2) When Ken gets here, make him the shepherd for the project. > > Sorry for being a relative newcomer to zope, but who is Ken, > and where is > here (Zopesport, this email list, where you are physically)? Ken Manheimer's current job is part of the Python team at CNRI. Specifically, he runs the python.org website and the community efforts such as the SIGs, as well as being a leader of the Mailman development effort. > Great!!! Any timeline on this? Will the zopespot software be > opensource, > gnuish (or at least zope-licenish)? At this point I'll just say that we aren't ruling out making its license Zope-ish. > Do you have a URL on Tabula? I've seen it mentioend several > times, but I > have not had the time to go look it up, and I can't get > through to egroups > (I promised myself I wouldn't say anything negative about > them in public... I don't and I'm quite sorry about it. The docs are essentially done but they won't get online this week. It's hard, we are all pretty freaking busy around here right now :^( > Hey, I'm with ya there. Unfortunately, I have certain needs (ie to get > something up on a web site) that can't wait too long. Right > now, my other > option is setting up a RDBMS (sybase, perhaps) and getting > that slashdot > perl code working better -- far from my first choice. The easiest way to influence our prioritization of things is through consulting contracts or other arrangements that allow us to rearrange projects. > I'm more than willing to help out on this Zopespot project! > I'd be even > more motivated if I could get something out of it soon ;-) Hey, I'm with ya on that one, brother! I'm itching to get my sketches of the new zope.org site online. --Paul Paul Everitt Digital Creations paul(a)digicool.com 540.371.6909

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- A little problem...
by Magnus Lie Hetland 19 Jan '99

19 Jan '99

I don't know if this might be of general interest, but I would greatly appreciate any help. I am at the moment trying to set up a Zope server on a machine on which I don't have root access. The only problem is getting it to run on port 80. The admin mentioned something about making a suid root c-program that bound to- and turned over port 80 to a non-privileged Zope process. (I guess suid-zope would be a *bad idea*, since it's interpreted.) But I don't know how I can hand over a socket like that... Especially not how Zope would handle it... Any ideas? -- Magnus Lie Hetland www.pvv.org/arcadia <arcadia(a)pvv.org>

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RE: [Zope] - Slashdot on Zope
by Paul Everitt 19 Jan '99

19 Jan '99

Skip wrote: > This is something Mason can do. It's also possible to achieve this > functionality with a proxy server. You would like to be able > to identify > which files are really static and don't change from one call > to the next (or > change infrequently enough). I like that idea a LOT. Of course, cache header management (which Zope currently doesn't do right at all) becomes more important. --Paul Paul Everitt Digital Creations paul(a)digicool.com 540.371.6909

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- Moving the database...
by Magnus Lie Hetland 19 Jan '99

19 Jan '99

I tried to move the Data.bbb.* files from my old Zope server to my new one (from Solaris to FreeBSD) but it didn't work. I installed TinyTables, which I had installed on the original one, I set all the permissions, but still it wouldn't work. The server just died before I could get anything out of it. When I put back the original database, it worked again... -- Magnus Lie Hetland www.pvv.org/arcadia <arcadia(a)pvv.org>

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Re: [Zope] - Authorization aside...
by skip＠calendar.com 19 Jan '99

19 Jan '99

Magnus> .. I still get problems with proxying... Whenever I have a Magnus> relative link somewhere in my Zope pages, they always end up on Magnus> the server machine, and not the proxy, because Zope insists Magnus> (naturally) on using the server machine as base URL. Now... Is Magnus> there any way I can change the base URL? (There should be...) Magnus> Otherwise... Will there be in the future? I ran into this problem as well. The solution for me (using ZopeHTTPServer behind Apache) was to tell it explicitly what its SERVER_NAME, SERVER_PORT and SCRIPT_NAME environment variables are, then use them to construct URLs in my DocumentTemplates. Note that since I'm only using ZopeHTTPServer I don't have to worry about incorrect BASE tags showing up in my documents' <head>s. Skip Montanaro | Mojam: "Uniting the World of Music" http://www.mojam.com/ skip(a)calendar.com | Musi-Cal: http://concerts.calendar.com/ 518-372-5583

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- Passing around state information
by Konrad Hinsen 19 Jan '99

19 Jan '99

I am working on a small project based on ZPublisher (and I don't even want to think about how much work it would be without it!). One problem I have come across is how to provide some kind of "state information" or "pervasive user option". Almost all pages on my site have content that can be presented in various formats; essentially this is a user option. But it would be tedious for the users to specify this option over and over again. Ideally, they would make their choice once (on the starting page) and then forget about it. But somehow the information has to be passed on to the rest of my site. One solution would be cookies, but I'd like to avoid them for two reasons: many users disable cookies in their browsers, and I don't know how to use cookies with Zope. Another solution would be to attach the option to each and every URL and always pass it around. But I can't see how to do that with forms; I'd have to persuade the form to return a value that it has received itself via its URL, but which is neither displayed nor entered by the user. Any ideas? -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Konrad Hinsen | E-Mail: hinsen(a)cnrs-orleans.fr Centre de Biophysique Moleculaire (CNRS) | Tel.: +33-2.38.25.55.69 Rue Charles Sadron | Fax: +33-2.38.63.15.17 45071 Orleans Cedex 2 | Deutsch/Esperanto/English/ France | Nederlands/Francais -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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