November 1999 - Zope

RE: Troubles downloading.
by Rob Page 03 Nov '99

03 Nov '99

> 11/2/99 I have been trying on and off to download zope for an hour now > (7-8 PM MST) and am having no luck, obviously something is wrong with > the site (it's also very slow). Anyway I was trying to download the > windows version but I really want to use it on openbsd. Does > your linux > version work on openbsd? Try it again -- I think Ken might have been doing a bit of maintenance. Re: OpenBSD -- I've heard that people have gotten it compiled although there are some bsd-isms to be aware of. Hopefully others on the list will chime in. --Rob

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RE: [Zope] Info on Zope and Databases
by Rob Page 03 Nov '99

03 Nov '99

Ian: > I having a bit of a look at zope and database connectivity. One thing > that I'm not sure about is if I have two platforms. An Oracle > database, and a web server. Does the ZOracle module need access to > oracle libs ie does oracle have to be installed on the web platform. Yes, all of the Database Adapters (DAs) _wrap_ underlying database libraries. In the case of the ZOracleDA it wraps the Oracle client libraries. These libraries must be installed separately on the machine. The test to see if a machine is ready for Zope DA software is to test whether you can run the database vendor's command line tool (in Oracle's case this is sqlplus, for Sybase isql) and successfully connect to the database server. > Another thing is there any interest in a ZODBC module for > Unix ( I don't think that there is one ). Just a wish of mine. I think there is some work going on in this area somewhere in the Zope community.... can't recall exactly where tho. HTH, Rob Page

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ZClass Properties
by Kevin Howe 03 Nov '99

03 Nov '99

How do I add the default "Properties" tab to my ZClass - by this I mean the built in page which allows the addition of new properties of different types, such as "string", boolean, etc.? This would be instead of using a Property Sheet. Anyone? Cheers KH

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Various questions (long).
by Otto Hammersmith 03 Nov '99

03 Nov '99

I posted this Friday, but it seems to have gotten lost in the ether. Appologies if it shows up twice (checked the archives and it's not there so...). Hello all, FWIW, I've copied the UserDB product (1.3.0) from the old Zope.org site and created a package. It's cataloged now, but the URL is http://www.zope.org/Members/otto/userdb. I've downloaded the beta ZDiscussions product (very nice, BTW) and it has brought up a question about ZCatalog and classes that inherit from it. If an object inherits from ZCatalog does that mean it's sub-objects are only cataloged there? For example, if I create a ZDiscussion topic how can I have a site wide search interface that will also search the ZDiscussion items in that topic. I've done some experimenting and I've found out I can have a ZCatalog catalog the discussion itself, which is somewhat useful... but there doesn't seem to be a way to catalog the items outside the discussion. Wouldn't it make more sense for ZDiscussion to not inherit from ZCatalog but allow provide a search interface limited to searching discussion? It should be easy to limit the search based on meta-type, but I don't see a way to limit it to a single discussion. Also, to allow the possibility of keeping the discussion out of the default catalog it should be possible to create a new catalog as a sub-object of the ZDiscussion. On the other hand would it make sense (or is is possible already) to "chain" ZCatalogs? Just a few thoughts... :) My second question is on AUTHENTICATED_USER. What properties does it have? The DTML User's Guide says "This object currently provides no public attributes" but the source for ZDiscussions clearly uses some functions and attributes like getName() and 'email'. Is this something that UserDB gives you? (I haven't had the chance to play around with that much, yet.) TIA. -Otto. ______________________________________________________________________ Get Visto.com! Private groups, event calendars, email, and much more. Visto.com. Life on the Dot. Check it out @ http://www.visto.com/info

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German Zope ML
by Sven Kirmess 03 Nov '99

03 Nov '99

I've created a German ML for Zope. The Address is: zope-de(a)onelist.com You can subscribe by sending a mail to the following address: mailto:zope-de-subscribe@onelist.com Sven -- PGP-Key-ID: 0x881BF222

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Re: [Zope] Acquiring root index_html method in lower level folder
by Bruce Elrick 03 Nov '99

03 Nov '99

Milt Martin wrote: > > yes, they are dtml methods... > as a newbie, i have not figured out why to use documents yet... > This is what I have and it works as expected: root index_html (DTML Method) (uses <dtml-var body>, <dtml-var mainmenu>, <dtml-var standard_html_header>...) body (DTML Method) (contains general site welcome text) mainmenu (DTML Method) (traverses objectValue(['Folder', 'DTML Document', 'Squishdot Site']) to produce submenus and uses the Breadcrumbs code to enhance navigation) Graphics (Folder) (contains images for the site) various image files Lessons (Folder) body (DTML Method)(describes the lesson area) Lesson1 (DTML Document)(Straight HTML lesson on using Linux) Personnel (Folder) body (DTML Method) (Describes the Personnel part of the site) Add (Folder) Address (Folder) Home (Folder) Office (Folder) Worksite (Folder) PhoneNumber (Folder) Show (Folder) ... etc... The index_html is acquired everywhere from the root folder, as is the mainmenu method. Anywhere I put a body method, different body text shows up, for example .../Personnel/index_html shows Personnel's own body text. Through the wonders of acquisition, .../Personnel/Add/index_html shows Personnel's body text (until I choose to replace it by creating a body DTML method in Personnel/Add/). The index_html includes image links using <dtml-var "PARENTS[-1].Graphics.logo_200x48_png">; I avoid using aquisition because then browsers don't realize that the graphics they see are the same (i.e. they don't use cached versions) Anyway...near as I can tell, I am doing the same thing you are and it works...maybe you can see a difference that is the cause of your problems, though. Cheers... Bruce > -----Original Message----- > From: Bruce Elrick <belrick(a)home.com> > Date: Tue, 02 Nov 1999 14:30:13 -0700 > Subject: Re: [Zope] Acquiring root index_html method in lower level > folder > > > Milt Martin wrote: > > > > > > >From a Zope newbie... > > > Given: > > > "root" folder > > > index_html method which refers to menu_bar and body_content > > ^^^^ > > are you sure that index_html is a DTML method and not a DTML > > document? This > > should work (and it does, because I do this), but only if index_html > > is a > > method, because when it is acquired by the "about" folder it takes on > > the > > context of the folder. If index_html was a document, it has its own > > context > > when acquired and will pick up its methods from the origal location > > (as you > > seem to be experiencing). > > > > > > > menu_bar method > > > body_content method > > > "about" folder > > > body_content method > > > -- Bruce Elrick, Ph.D. Saltus Technology Consulting Group Personal: belrick(a)home.com IBM Certified Specialist Business: belrick(a)saltus.ab.ca ADSM, AIX Support, RS/6000 SP, HACMP

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RE: [Zope] Zope.org performance (Was Re: [Zope] Front door on the Zope web site)
by Paul Everitt 02 Nov '99

02 Nov '99

Paul wrote: > "Jay, Dylan" wrote: > > and make fixing the zope.org site a top priority. Going to > the MS site and > > seeing how slow it is gives me no faith in ASP. Same > applies here. The Zope > > site MUST run fast if people are to trust in it no matter > what the technical > > reason for its extremely slugish performance may be. I've > given up looking > > at it (>1min is my limit). > > Believe me, it couldn't be a higher priority. We ordered a > new machine > for on Friday and the stupid computer company sent it 3 day instead of > next day. Sigh. It should be in today. Zope.org will then run by > itself on a modestly powered machine. We haven't put it on the new machine yet, but we did do two other things late last week: o Amos put in some HTTP caching information. The hope is that images cache correctly and pages cache for anonymous for around ten minutes. o Increased object cache size. We had it dialed *way* down (200 objects!) while we were doing some debugging and didn't raise it. We increased the number. Thus, before we bring up the site on the new, dedicated machine: o Did anybody notice any performance improvements on Saturday or over the weekend? o Did anything seem to break? --Paul Paul Everitt Digital Creations paul(a)digicool.com 540.371.6909 ----------------------------------------- The Open Source Zope application server http://www.zope.org/

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RE: [Zope] Pointer-to-Object Properties
by Toby Dickenson 02 Nov '99

02 Nov '99

> -----Original Message----- > From: Thomas B. Passin [mailto:tpassin@mitretek.org] > Subject: Re: [Zope] Pointer-to-Object Properties > > From: Toby Dickenson <tdickenson(a)geminidataloggers.com> > > >> From: Michael Bernstein [mailto:mbernstein@profitscape.net] > > > >> It would be very beneficial to be able to 'point' to > >> arbitrary objects as if they > >> were sub objects, thus enabling one-to-many, many-to-one, and > >> many-to-many > >> relationships not constrained by the object heirarchy. > >> > >> Classic example: Many author objects, many book objects. > >> Authors can have written > >> several books, and certain books are collaborations with more > >> than one author. It > >> does not make sense for books to be contained within authors, > >> or authors to be > >> contained within books. > >> > >> While this simplistic scenario would allow us to either > >> assign a list property > >> with book titles to an author object, or a list property > >> containing authors names > >> to a book object, and live with the small amount of > >> duplicated data > > > >I think the key observation here is that the additional information > >should be sufficient to identify the foreign object.... then the > >pointed-to object can be located by searching a Catalog. > > > > Many-to-many relationships are always tricky. As others have > pointed out in > this thread, it is highly desirable to have some means to > maintain data and > referential integrity. In SQL this is done by declaring > create-delete-update > rules for each foreign key relationship. > > Also, you want to make keep the properties of the two types > of objects in the > many-to-many separate, to minimize coupling. In the case of > books, one way to > do this is to have a book maintain a list of its authors, and > each author to > maintain a list of its books. Then a book and an author only > need to know about > lists, not about authors and books. You can delete a list > item without deleting > its parent object. But now, if a parent object is deleted, > how do you make sure > all references to it in various lists are also deleted? Not > so easy! Back to > data integrity again. A small step up from this is to replace the second list (a list of authors in a Book object) with a Catalog. The Book can determine all of it's authors by searching the index of 'book-list' properties. With this change you never break data integrity by changing the list, although it is possible to break it by deleting a Book.

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O'Reilly to publish Zope Book
by Michel Pelletier 02 Nov '99

02 Nov '99

Greetings, I'm pleased to announce that Dan York, the Linuxcare Certification Program Manager, and myself, have come to an agreement with O'Reilly and Associates to author a Zope book. The book will be published under a not-yet agreed upon Open Content license. This means that during the evolution of the book, you will be able to view and download the material for your own information needs. We hope that this also means you will kindly help point out mistakes or gaping holes in the material before it is printed by the publisher. One of our goals is that this book will benefit from the same community involvement that has made Zope such a great success. Since before I started working at Digital Creations, I've had a Zope book in mind. Of course, I wasn't the first to think of it; Paul and Hadar had in mind a 'Bobo Book' (Bobook?) for a while. My original material was called 'The Zen of Zope' and was defiantly high-fiber, developer oriented material. I met Dan York at the LinuxExpo this year. I gave him a tour through Zope and he showed me the kinds of things that Linuxcare was doing to support the linux community. When he found out I was working on a book, he was interested immediately in co-authoring it. Dan has published books with Que in the past, and is key in authoring training and certification materials for linux and linux courseware. Dan and I began working on a 'new' outline to present to publishers. When we started talking to publishers, we realized that our outline was much too complex, and that what Zope really needed was a gentle introductory book. Advanced or reference books may come later, but first there must be a simple, introductory book that will stand the test of time and multiple releases of Zope! This is where Paul stepped in, he helped take our outline and bring it down to the level that it needs to be at. I'm hoping that lots of community members will have a hand in the final product, even if their contribution is just a comment on the work. Comments will be strongly encouraged! There is no set title or release date for the book. It will not be any time soon, of course, and we will give everyone several months warning before publication time. O'Reilly cannot take advanced orders for books, so please don't contact them with your credit-card in hand, the people on the order lines won't even know what your talking about. ;) -Michel

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Volatile Properties in ZClasses?
by Tom Schwaller 02 Nov '99

02 Nov '99

Hi, Take a look at the BannerAd ZClass: (http://www.zope.org/Members/lalo/BannerFolder) Updating the "hits"-property when the banner is loaded, has the effect, that the Banner-Object is backuped by the Zope magic, which is quite annyoing when having a high-traffic site. So, how can one generate volatile properties, which do not get backuped (I tried it whith _hits, but ZClasses do not likte them ;-) --> Zope Error). Is there a reason for not allowing _Variables in ZClasses and how does one solve the Problem in this case (seems like a generael problem) -- Tom Schwaller http://www.linux-magazin.de

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