February 1999 - Zope

RE: [Zope] Product Creation Comments
by Paul Everitt 15 Feb '99

15 Feb '99

Martijn wrote: > Then we add the user interface with DTML. After some initial learning > with DTML, this step is easy too. It's just a question of importing > DocumentTemplate and adding a single attribute to the class > (index_html). Minor stumbling block is that the non Zope > python doesn't > have the Zope modules on its module search path. Adding them resolves > this; I'm not sure however if I fixed it completely (insert completely > vague failures and complaints here :). You should use the Zope debugger for writing Zope Products: http://www.zope.org/Documentation/Reference/Debugger It's the Python debugger with enhancements to jump right to your object being published, with a carefully crafted environment resembling an HTTP request. With this you are back in the (for you familiar) world of Python, Emacs, and pdb. Is this a useful thing for you? > You can test the generated HTML easily in a python test > function, then. > Minor step. > > Then we have a publishable object. We can test it with a test_poll.py > file that creates the object to be published. We can call the Zope > debugger to see if it all comes out okay. No problem. > > Now we try to make the leap from publishable object to Zope > product. The > tutorial says there is a long way between these two; and there is! > > The big gap trouble starts here. Suddenly, we don't import > DocumentTemplate anymore, instead we do a 'from globals > import HTMLFile' > for general DTML support. We also import a number of other things. > Suddenly I can't test anything anymore - not with a python > test function > or with the zope debugger, it seems. I get an error message that > complains about the variable 'trueself' that was omitted from the > request. Ahh, I see. If you *could* stick with the Zope debugger, would this be an answer for you? > So after this I can't test things anymore. I still need to make a > creation form and a product installation method. In the tutorial it > mentions the process of turning publishable product into product is a > bit tedious and that in the future there will perhaps be a more > streamlined process. I hope this future arrives soon, as after this, Obviously we're open to specific suggestions about improving it. > still without apparant ability to test, I need to add a producting > editing form, a product editing method, define Zope permissions, > management tabs, a meta type, and a product icon. The system gives no This is *precisely* the kind of feedback we need. > feedback on any of these. Then finally, I can install the > poll and test > it. We realize that we aren't making it friendly at all for people to write products. In fact, we are probably making it so hard that I should send out medals to those that do it :^) > This is too big a bound for me, somehow. I am able to do all > the steps, > but I keep getting bogged down, starting over, knowing I can't test > anything yet. It breaks the quick Python development cycle; it's even > slower than my C++ development cycle. There are too many steps that > don't seem to fit into my short term memory. Part of the > program design > I do during prototyping. I can't seem to do this with products. It's a shame we haven't articulated it very well because it really is a pretty Pythonic way of doing things. However, it currently is about like writing Python apps without the library reference. > A way to resolve this would be: > > * A lot more practice by me. I'm doing this. :) > > * A way to test each step somewhat better. Feedback from Zope telling > you if you're still on the right course. Hmm, explain. > * A more automated process of poll creation. I'm starting to > think about > what this should look like. I can probably eventually help with > design/implementation, if I keep butting my head at product creation > enough. I believe Amos suggested something like this previously. Basically, something that would ask you a few questions then write out a bunch of prototype code. > * I'm missing something. "Martijn, when I create a product I do so and > then so and it's really easy and quick." > > * products are beyond Martijn's feeble mind and he just > should give up. > :) Never! > I want to see more products for Zope. I want to *make* products for > Zope. If it were easier somehow, there would be more products > for Zope, > which would be good for everybody. Ahh, now you are sweet-talking us. :^) > Enough of my lament. I hope it helps somebody else; otherwise > ignore all > as frustration relief. And again, I do like Zope. It's hard for us to know where to start. We got a <FLAME> yesterday from the exact opposite: more examples with no Python, all DTML. We also get complaints about debugging the process of getting it started (apparently Apache configuration is our business as well). It's hard to know where to start, as it is all important. Do you feel that a format like Amos' tutorial is the best one? Or a bunch of sample products? Or a reference guide? --Paul Paul Everitt Digital Creations paul(a)digicool.com 540.371.6909

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Date/Time - DTML - SQL question
by chalaouxf＠synbio.tpgnet.net 15 Feb '99

15 Feb '99

<color><param>0100,0100,0100</param>Hi All, In the following sql method I select records with 'date' (a float field) superior to an 'dayfloatdate' float field. 'dayfloatdate' is just the date of the day in the float fomat (i.e. 19990215.0) How is it possible to construct '</color><FontFamily><param>Times New Roman</param><bigger>dayfloatdate' before sqlmethod call cause construct 'dayfloatdate' in the sql method seems difficult for me :)<color><param>0100,0100,0100</param><FontFamily><param>Arial</param><smaller> ----------------------- SQL method ----------------------- <FontFamily><param>Times New Roman</param><bigger>select * from table where date > < Bye, FR.<FontFamily><param>Arial</param><smaller> François-Régis Chalaoux Bioinformatics Group Synthélabo Biomoléculaire 67080 Strasbourg Cedex FRANCE Tél : 03 88 60 87 14 Fax : 03 88 45 90 70

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Re: UserDB: docLogout, LoginRequired traceback.
by Anthony Baxter 15 Feb '99

15 Feb '99

> Can someone tell me what the docLogout page does? How does > it get called? I'd like to have the ability to flush the > cookie from the users system (useful for when they're on > a shared system)... ok, I dived into the code for this one... docLogout can be called as acl_users/docLogout, and it will set the magic login cookie to the string "deleted". This is good. > Also, when using cookie-based auth, the docLogin page gets > a LoginRequired exception traceback scribbled below it - is > there any way to fix/stop this? This, I still don't know... On a more fundamental note, I'm trying to mix UserDb and normal User Folders, and I'm not having a lot of luck working out how it works. Let's say I have the following layout of folders: interface/ top/ user/ admin/ top contains generic DTML, SQL methods, and the like, for use by both users and admins. Users have a home page of interface/top/user, which looks in the "user/" folder for configuration information (like what links they are presented with). admins have a top page of interface/top/admin. This has a different set of configuration items (a tinytable, other bits). Now, in the top/ folder, I've created both admin and user roles, and I've put a UserDb in it. I initially wanted to have the UserDb in only the user/ folder, with the assumption that acquiring objects from the top/ folder would "just work" without defining the users in the top/ folder... This didn't work (no idea why, anyone?). I would still like to also have a separate User Folder in the admin directory, since administrative accounts are not stored in the SQL database used by users. But no matter what I do, I always get prompted with the docLogin screen from the top/ UserDb. Thanks for any help with understanding this stuff :) Anthony.

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UserDB: docLogout, LoginRequired traceback.
by Anthony Baxter 15 Feb '99

15 Feb '99

Ok, since DC don't support UserDB, this is addressed at everyone else: Can someone tell me what the docLogout page does? How does it get called? I'd like to have the ability to flush the cookie from the users system (useful for when they're on a shared system)... Also, when using cookie-based auth, the docLogin page gets a LoginRequired exception traceback scribbled below it - is there any way to fix/stop this? Thanks, Anthony

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Dicts in folder attributes
by Shaw, Howard 15 Feb '99

15 Feb '99

Paul told me how to extract a list of column names from a returned SQL result. Now I need my DTML document to have ready access to a dict mapping the potential names to human-readable names, so that whichever columns show up in my result, the DTML knows how to display it. Basically where my table could contain column names like 'DOB' I want to display 'Date of Birth', but without actually knowing whether 'DOB' is present in the output prior to rendering the page. Therefore I want to make a dict like {'DOB':'Date of Birth','SSN':'Social Security Number',...}. But since this is not really data that is solely relevant to that single DTML document, I would rather not have to specify it by an ugly . Is making an External Method class and assigning the results to map to that class my only option? I would prefer a folder attribute, because an External Method requires me to go back to the filesystem to change it; but folder attributes don't seem to have dict as an option. Any ideas would be appreciated. [Note: this would be much easier if there was a non-containing version of 'with'. Something that edited the actual namespace, instead of making an altered namespace available to its contents. It would be much easier to pull in sets of variable references from other DTML documents.]

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Re: Zope digest, Vol 1 #145 - 30 msgs
by Kent Polk 14 Feb '99

14 Feb '99

> From: Mike Pelletier <mike(a)compar.com> > Subject: [Zope] Using __repr__ and DocumentTemplates > > I have an object I would like to be able to render with a DTLM tag like > this: [...] > If I view a page which attempts to render an instance of this class, it > raises a KeyError, indicating that it doesn't know what 'id' in the DTML > refers to. If I change the line to: > > repr = HTMLFile("template") > > and view it explicitly from my browser, I get the results I am expecting. This appears to be related to my earlier, similar question whereby a method which is referenced directly called can reference its object's id, but an indirectly referenced method cannot. I'm still stuck. Kent

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BoboPOS and nested dictionaries
by Jeff Bauer 14 Feb '99

14 Feb '99

Hi all. I'm having a slight problem with BoboPOS and nested dictionaries. BoboPOS 2.0.2. The problem is that changes to a nested dictionary attribute are not being saved. Here are two of my workarounds, discovered just this morning. # Dictionary deletions not saved. Workaround: Delete # the dictionary item, make a shallow copy to a new # dict, and reassign the object attribute to it. del self.treatment_orders[treatment] d = {} for k,v in self.treatment_orders.items(): d[k] = v self.treatment_orders = d Next, to assign a dictionary sub-element, I would usually perform the following kind of operation: self.treatment_orders[treatment]['FREQ'] = frequency However, the changes aren't saved unless I borrow Python's deepcopy feature, and reassign the attribute to the dict copy. from copy import deepcopy d = deepcopy(self.treatment_orders) d[treatment]['FREQ'] = frequency self.treatment_orders = d Before I spend more time on this issue, I'd be interested in learning if there are any known problems with nested dictionaries in BoboPOS. Environment: Python 1.5.2a2, linux2 Best regards, Jeff Bauer Rubicon, Inc.

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Re: [Zope] Hiding Products
by Stefan Franke 14 Feb '99

14 Feb '99

Mike Pelletier wrote: > Jim was (after taunting me for no reason I can tell) very helpful in pointing out that Folderish classes can have their own > meta-types tupple, just like in the __init__.py file, which makes those meta-types unique to that kind of Folderish class. I > haven't tried it yet, but I thought someone else might like to know. Can you post Jim's, errr Paul's <wink> original mail to list in the case it contains more information than your posting, since I'm quite interested in this topic? Stefan

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ZSybaseDA problem
by WWW Admin 14 Feb '99

14 Feb '99

hi all, anybody have an idea where i can find that libtli library which is required by ZSybaseDA and appearently isn't part of sybase open client for linux. i really want to try out tying sybase for linux into zope and would greatly appreciate if anybody could help me solve this problem. regards, webman --------------------------------------------------------------------------- webman | _ beehive GmbH | ASCII ribbon campaign ( ) berlin, Germany | - against HTML email X http://www.beehive.de | & vcards / \

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Re: [Zope] RE: sendmail and variable mailto
by Jeffrey P Shell 14 Feb '99

14 Feb '99

> This won't do. I really need to be able to send mail using only the > received variable, and no folder properties; at least no dynamic ones. the REQUEST variable has the attribute 'form', which contains only the passed-in values in a form. For example,  will _only_ get the email address from the form. I don't understand why you're trying to set the folders property if it constantly gets overwritten with each request. In any case, if two people access a page at the same time and that page modifies a property, the transaction (the entire process from when Zope recieves the REQUEST to when it sends out RESPONSE) is atomic. That is, if Person A hits first, all of his transactions will be carried out and used beforer Person B can. Unless you're using ZServer, Zope really only handles one request at a time. In regards to what I think you're trying to do with the sendmail tag, you don't have to use the 'mailto' and 'mailfrom' parameters. The only parameter you really need is the ID of the mailhost or the IP address of the SMTP host. To do dynamic to's and from's and even subjects, do the following:  to:  from:  subject: congratulations on your furby addiction! message  The sendmail tag process all the headers and uses the "to" and "from" headers evaluated values if mailto and/or mailfrom aren't set. If mailto and mailfrom are used, they don't necessarily show up in the message when its recieved as the mailto and mailfrom values are used to talk with SMTP. It's important to note that the headers and the body of the message must be seperated by a blank line. You can use any header in the header area you wish (like x-mailer: Zope_Is_King 1.10), Zope only cares about the to and from values. And again, only if the mailto/mailfrom parameters aren't in the tag itself. The code in the sendmail tag is rather old and we're open to new patches/mods people make (like using SMTP lib!). The mailto/mailfrom/subject parameters currently only evaluate their values as strings and don't look them up from the namespace. .jPS | jeffrey(a)digicool.com | http://www.zope.org/

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