November 1999 - Zope

Help! UNDO bug...
by Sachin Shah 10 Nov '99

10 Nov '99

You'll like this one: So when I SAVED my VERSION, I typed in a series of comments in the provided text box. Part of my commentary included the "<TITLE>" tag. Well apparently zope (or rather my browser) doesn't like it when you include random tags. Now when I click on the UNDO tab, instead of providing me with a listing, it (IE5 *and* NS4.7) prints the first 2-3 lines and then ... nothingness. This baffled me for quite some time until I copy-pasted the UNDO html to a separate document, and started to eliminate entries... until I narrowed it down to the culprit <TITLE> tag. Now I don't know if this is a BUG or a FEATURE. If it is a feature (in the sense that it will process any HTML) it is a fairly annoying one. That's not my concern though...I have learned my lesson. My concern is: *how do I edit the UNDO database and edit that entry to remove the <TITLE> tag??? Cause until then, I can't access any of my undo information! Sachin (Thanks to all that replied to the list and to me personally regarding "Tracking Mailing Lists with Zope" post.) /------------------------------------------------------------- | Sachin Shah, sachin(a)rescomp.berkeley.edu | Lead Marketing, Publications & Web Design | | "There is a very fine line between 'hobby' | and 'mental illness.'" -- Dave Barry \-------------------------------------------------------------

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Property Sheet Questions
by Stephen Pitts 10 Nov '99

10 Nov '99

I've been playing around with Zope, and this thing is incredible! I'm really interested in the OOP design, because now I can teach clients how to manage their own web sites. Right now, I'm creating a zopified version of a Links page. A Link ZClass has two properties, an id and a WebAddress (Zope didn't like it when I called this property URL, is there a list of reserved words somewhere?) Unfortunately, the property sheet only shows the WebAddress property. Is there any way I can make it show the id property? I created my own property sheet, but it doesn't have the tabs on the top like the regular zope ones. Is there some boilerplate code somewhere that I can add to the top of my property sheet to do that? When I created my property sheet (called editForm, boilerplate HTML form inside of a table that was patterned after the Link_addForm method), I set the ACTION of the form to edit, this DTML method of Link: <dtml-call "propertysheets.propsheet.manage_changeProperties(REQUEST)"> <dtml-call "manage_renameObject(_.None,REQUEST['oldid'],REQUEST['id'])"> <dtml-call "RESPONSE.redirect(PARENTS[1].absolute_url()+'/manage_main')"> What's the correct incantation to rename a ZClass instance from within the instance? I get an error message "Object with id (id of Link) already exists" Thanks for any and all assistance...Zope is zoporific! -- Stephen Pitts smpitts(a)midsouth.rr.com webmaster - http://www.mschess.org

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ZOracleDA
by Karl Putland 10 Nov '99

10 Nov '99

Has anyone had experience with building DCOracle for NT??? I've got V$6.0 avail to compile it, I just am not to sure what to do first. Many thanks in advance... Karl Putland kputland(a)wisen.com

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Exclude domains from viewing
by Janko Hauser 10 Nov '99

10 Nov '99

Using the UserDB product to authenticate is it possible to make a folder only viewable from a special domain? I have problems because this should work for the default anonymous user, which is not registered in the UserDB. TIA, __Janko

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RE: [Zope] Zope Devs in SF Bay Area?
by Michael Simcich 10 Nov '99

10 Nov '99

Right, I'm looking for a consultant or group of consultants that might be interested in working on a couple of projects with me. I am very new to Zope but it looks like a good fit. I'd rather tackle these projects with someone who has a bit more experience under their belt than I do <g>. The icompression site looks nice, it must me your work? Michael Simcich AccessTools -----Original Message----- From: Loren Stafford [mailto:lstafford@icompression.com] Sent: Tuesday, November 09, 1999 2:24 PM To: Michael Simcich Cc: lstaffor(a)dynalogic.com Subject: RE: [Zope] Zope Devs in SF Bay Area? I'm in Mountain View. But I gather you're looking for consultants. I'm full-time employed. Still, what have you got in mind? -- Loren Stafford http://www.dynalogic.com > -----Original Message----- > From: zope-admin(a)zope.org [mailto:zope-admin@zope.org]On Behalf Of > Michael Simcich > Sent: Tuesday, November 09, 1999 13:53 > To: zope(a)zope.org > Subject: [Zope] Zope Devs in SF Bay Area? > > > Any here know of any Zope developers in the SF Bay Area? Or any > place a list > of such would be available? I didn't find anything like a Zope developer > list on the Digital Creations website, but wonder if there > shouldn't be one. > > Thanks > > Michael Simcich > AccessTools > > > _______________________________________________ > Zope maillist - Zope(a)zope.org > http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope > No cross posts or HTML encoding! > (Related lists - > http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-announce > http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-dev ) >

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Re: [Zope] Zope vs. ColdFusion for e-commerce development
by Thomas B. Passin 10 Nov '99

10 Nov '99

I should say about my Cold Fusion experience that 1) I have three sites running, 2) they are all version 3.1, 3) they are all very low volume sites (not e-commerce), and 4) I don't use cookies or do much fancy stuff. On the other hand, I do pass in cgi variables and test for their existence and values, compute result strings, and turn triply-nested database queries into nicely formatted tables. I reuse frames and fragments of pages, as well as javascript blocks. I have never had any Cold Fusion failures on any of the sites in two years, running on Win 95 or NT. Perhaps version 4 is something to be cautious of. Tom Passin -----Original Message----- From: Thomas B. Passin <tpassin(a)mitretek.org> To: zope(a)zope.org <zope(a)zope.org> Date: Tuesday, November 09, 1999 6:00 PM Subject: Re: [Zope] Zope vs. ColdFusion for e-commerce development As a Cold Fusion user, I would say Cold Fusion is great, but it does depend on what you expect to be doing. If you were anticipating developing a lot of custom tags for Cold Fusion in C++, or a lot of Java applets, I'd say that Zope would be interesting since you can basically develop in Python, which is good, fast, and easier than C++. On the other hand, it you were going to do basically standard stuff like hit ODBC databases and create frames, forms, and pick lists, and manage session variables, I'd say Cold Fusion is for you. I don't think that the price should be much of a consideration (but don't forget $300 for Cold Fusion Studio, which I highly recommend), since the cost of your time in getting up the learning curve will be dominant in either case. Possibly you could make do with the $1000 version, especially at first, to lower the cost. Cold Fusion is much better documented than Zope, and I think simpler as well. As for the tagged language aspect, which both CF and Zope have, CF's tags are much simpler to understand and use. But if you think you are going to need a lot of custom programming, it could be a whole other ball game. Zope could be great. Tom Passin From: Ben Galbraith <ben(a)galbraiths.org> Zope Folks, I'm with a new e-commerce startup and we're currently evaluating the development tools we'll be using to create our website. The platform will either be Sun hardware running Solaris 7/Apache, or Intel/Linux boxes. We initially evaluated four solutions: mod_perl, PHP (using Apache module support), ColdFusion, and Zope. We've eliminated mod_perl because of maintenance nightmares, PHP because, well, we just did, and now we're down to ColdFusion and Zope. Initially I favored Zope, but there are a few concerns I have about it. First off, the size of the ColdFusion development pool and it's development history suggest greater stability and a more mature feature set. Second, it seems that ColdFusion offers all the functionality that Zope does and then some. Third, ColdFusion seems to offer similiar performance. Fourth, the database connectivity seems to be equal to Zope's. Fifth, their tag-based programming language seems to offer equivalent functionality to Zope's. Sixth, I can find more ColdFusion developers than I can shake a stick at, but I have to explain to everyone I meet what Zope is. So, as my lack of information leads me to believe, there are only two drawbacks to ColdFusion as compared to Zope: (1) I have to pay $3.5k for each license, and (2) Zope has a superior model for delegating ownership to different people for the website. Could you correct any misconceptions I have and explain to me why I should choose Zope over ColdFusion? I want to select the tool by Wed. or Thurs., so a quick reply would be appreciated. Thanks! Ben

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Re: [Zope] Zope vs. ColdFusion for e-commerce development
by Thomas B. Passin 09 Nov '99

09 Nov '99

As a Cold Fusion user, I would say Cold Fusion is great, but it does depend on what you expect to be doing. If you were anticipating developing a lot of custom tags for Cold Fusion in C++, or a lot of Java applets, I'd say that Zope would be interesting since you can basically develop in Python, which is good, fast, and easier than C++. On the other hand, it you were going to do basically standard stuff like hit ODBC databases and create frames, forms, and pick lists, and manage session variables, I'd say Cold Fusion is for you. I don't think that the price should be much of a consideration (but don't forget $300 for Cold Fusion Studio, which I highly recommend), since the cost of your time in getting up the learning curve will be dominant in either case. Possibly you could make do with the $1000 version, especially at first, to lower the cost. Cold Fusion is much better documented than Zope, and I think simpler as well. As for the tagged language aspect, which both CF and Zope have, CF's tags are much simpler to understand and use. But if you think you are going to need a lot of custom programming, it could be a whole other ball game. Zope could be great. Tom Passin From: Ben Galbraith <ben(a)galbraiths.org> Zope Folks, I'm with a new e-commerce startup and we're currently evaluating the development tools we'll be using to create our website. The platform will either be Sun hardware running Solaris 7/Apache, or Intel/Linux boxes. We initially evaluated four solutions: mod_perl, PHP (using Apache module support), ColdFusion, and Zope. We've eliminated mod_perl because of maintenance nightmares, PHP because, well, we just did, and now we're down to ColdFusion and Zope. Initially I favored Zope, but there are a few concerns I have about it. First off, the size of the ColdFusion development pool and it's development history suggest greater stability and a more mature feature set. Second, it seems that ColdFusion offers all the functionality that Zope does and then some. Third, ColdFusion seems to offer similiar performance. Fourth, the database connectivity seems to be equal to Zope's. Fifth, their tag-based programming language seems to offer equivalent functionality to Zope's. Sixth, I can find more ColdFusion developers than I can shake a stick at, but I have to explain to everyone I meet what Zope is. So, as my lack of information leads me to believe, there are only two drawbacks to ColdFusion as compared to Zope: (1) I have to pay $3.5k for each license, and (2) Zope has a superior model for delegating ownership to different people for the website. Could you correct any misconceptions I have and explain to me why I should choose Zope over ColdFusion? I want to select the tool by Wed. or Thurs., so a quick reply would be appreciated. Thanks! Ben

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Help needed for a s(i|a)mple site
by Gregor Hoffleit 09 Nov '99

09 Nov '99

Hi, I thought I could acquire the Zen by readings the docs, following the list and just doing it, but I'm afraid I have to ask for some guidance. Please bear with me. I'd be glad if I would get at least a few hints, thanks in advance. I'm trying to set up a simple (sample?) Zope site, and thought I should try and use ZClasses. The site should replace an existing static web site. This current site features a two-level folder structure. Each folder can keep one (index_html) or multiple pages. The pages have a navigation bar at the left like a tree, only that all leaves (i.e. folders) are always visible and that the folder of the current page is highlighted. If there's more than one page in a folder, a second navigation bar is displayed on the right, just a list of the pages in the folder with the current page highlighted. Using Zope I hope to make editing the pages and adding folders a mostly trivial, idiot-proof issue. I thought I could use ZClasses to customize the user interface for the editors of the pages, so that the editors are presented only with a very limited set of options, e.g. adding a new folder, adding a page in the current folder, and, something that's not easy possible with the current user interface: rearranging the order of the subfolders in a folder and the order of the pages in a folder. Now I'm very much lost how to model this with ZClasses. I thought about this: First a ZClass "SPage" that's derived from DTML Document. Then another ZClass "SFolder" derived from ObjectManager. SFolder would contain SPage or SFolder objects. Any SFolder object should contain at least one SPage object, index_html. Is that reasonable ? Is that possible (until now I failed to implement this containment relations) ? Then, where in this scheme would I put the rendering logic (i.e. standard_html_header and footer) ? Would I put them in SPage or in the product root ? Now if I wanted SPage objects to use structured text, how could I modify the ZClass so that the structured text (let's say it's stored in a property "raw" of the class) is rendered when I access the SPage object, like it's done with DTML Documents ? Implementing a index_html DTML method ? Didn't work as expected. Or, how do I tell SFolder objects to render itself using the SPage object named index_html ? Shouldn't it do that automatically ? The worst thing yet is the highlighting in the navigation bars. I have to implement something like (pseudo-code) <table> <dtml-in "sisterpages()"> <tr> <td><dtml-if "thispage_id==id"><dtml-var arrow></dtml-if></td> <td><a href="<dtml-var "absolute_url()">"><dtml-var title_or_id></a></td> </tr> </dtml-in> </table> but in my current implementations of this code the highlighting would fail e.g. if the SPage b in SFolder a was called not as "/www/a/b" but as "/www/a/b/index_html/index_html". I have the impression that this is might be a quite normal application of Zope, nothing special, but something that's of immediate use for migrating web sites into a Zope setup, and that this might serve as a nice sample product for Zope newbies. Perhaps some kind souls will give me a few hints, thanks in advance, Gregor

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Zope : Numbering a tree
by Kent Sin 09 Nov '99

09 Nov '99

How can I number a tree generated by tree-tag like this: 1. 1.1 1.2 1.2.1 1.3 .... Rgs, Kent Sin

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Data.fs contains corrupted transaction
by bruce＠perens.com 09 Nov '99

09 Nov '99

I have a Data.fs file containing a corrupted transaction. Unfortunately, about 3 days of postings were lost from technocrat.net, fiawol.com, and squishdot.org because of this. Would anyone like to look at the file and see if there is some Zope bug involved? Also, is there any way to recover the file? If it can be made usable, I can bring it up in a separate Zope instance and copy some objects over to my regular Zope instance. Thanks Bruce Perens

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