April 1999 - Zope - Zope lists

RE: [Zope] Feature requests and questions
by Paul Everitt 22 Apr '99

22 Apr '99

My belated two cents... Andrew wrote: > 1) Have an install that automatically installs a default > webserver that > will run as a background process When ZServer gets out of beta and fully integrated, our story will be better on this. On many of your points I'm more in agreement with you than perhaps some of the other respondents, and this is one of them. Right now we have a bizarre process where you can run ZopeHTTPServer if you want to, but then shut it down to integrate it with Apache. But at that point you're screwed because your files in var are owned by the wrong person. And once you move to Apache (PCGI) you can't simultaneously have ZopeHTTPServer. With ZServer we'll get several usability enchancements: 1) Move away from process activation. The "magic" we have now where Apache starts up Zope is too much of a problem. It is too hard to tell what is happening, who owns what, did my app actually start, etc. 2) You can connect directly to Zope or through Apache simultaneously. 3) Obviously we'll get higher performance and integrated FTP... > 2) have a feature rich install that has all the messaging, ftp, etc. > packages pre-installed so users can just run it I'd like to hear more about this. > 3) an easier way to install new packages - like just clicking > "install" I agree with you on this point as well. It's too mysterious to find out what went wrong when, say, you have the wrong MySQL library. Also, you shouldn't have to restart the server when you add a new package. I don't yet know how to automate putting things in the Products directory. But once there, people should be able to go to the Control Panel and Add Product. If there is a problem, they'll see a message right away. Otherwise, they have the product installed without needing a reboot. > 4) Port Zope to mac!! Heh heh. None of us at DC have experience with C on the Mac. Is MacOS Server close enough? (Jeffrey just got that in the other day.) > 5) Improve the admin interface with useful functions like "export site > to HTML" Amos and I have been talking about a number of alternatives on this one. > 6) implement XML-RPC between two zope servers Personally I think WebDAV between two servers is just as interesting. For instance, imagine a Zope Folder that was actually a proxy object for a remote WebDAV folder, perhaps being served by Apache. You navigate into it without realizing that it is making live (but possibly cached) requests to another Zope/Apache/IIS folder. If it is actually RPC that you want (running a function/method on another machine), that's different than sharing content. > 7) implement a mailing list from within Zope You got lots of responses on that so I won't pipe up. _Except_ to say that the value of a mailing list in the presence of the portal toolkit stuff we are doing for LinuxExpo goes up _dramatically_. > 8) Product requests: > a)web-board > b)mailing list > c)workflow > d)project management Again, well-travelled territory. > 9) Create a "serialized" XML export/import format so that for > example I > could email a zope site to a friend as a single file and have them > "import" it. Sans images of course. Do you want them to import it into Zope or into non-Zope? The last would obviously only work for simple items (folders, images, files, etc.) > Questions > 1) When will the next version of Zope be released? Previously answered. > 2) Could Zope use javascript sometime in the future? the JS reference > implementation is open source as well, it could be incorporated... I don't think this is as crazy a suggestion as others have indicated. >From an implementation standpoint it feels kind of weird. But from a pragmatic angle, there are _tons_ of books on JS, most editors (such as Dreamweaver, which I used for the first time this past weekend) grok it. If we don't do JavaScript, we should at least do PythonScript on the server, where PythonScript is some mythical subset of the language that is considered "safe". DTML was never intended to scale up to, say, writing functions. But it is becoming increasingly clear to me that we need more powerful programming constructs that are actually stored in the database. --Paul

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RE: [Zope] Feature requests and questions
by Ken Manheimer 22 Apr '99

22 Apr '99

To add a bit of step-back view to my prior response Andrew Wooldridge wrote: > Here is a smattering of feature requests: > > 1) Have an install that automatically installs a default webserver that > will run as a background process > 2) have a feature rich install that has all the messaging, ftp, etc. > packages pre-installed so users can just run it > 3) an easier way to install new packages - like just clicking "install" > 4) Port Zope to mac!! > 5) Improve the admin interface with useful functions like "export site > to HTML" > 6) implement XML-RPC between two zope servers > 7) implement a mailing list from within Zope > > 8) Product requests: > [...] The are all appealing, and many are valuable, ideas. Part of the problem we're trying to address in the zope community is having a way to organize the terrific stuff people produce, so we can all really exploit the potential the the system *and* the community, together, offers. This concern is, in a substantial part, behind our efforts for better community-site mechanisms in the "new zope.org" project. Ever onwards, Ken Manheimer klm(a)digicool.com

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HOWTO: 'Tree Tag Global Navigation'
by Amos Latteier 22 Apr '99

22 Apr '99

Hello Zope Folks, Ken Manheimer and David Ascher justly complained about the 'Tree Tag Global Navigation' HowTo, and so I've revised it. http://www.zope.org/Documentation/HowTo/DTML/treetag For your convenience the text of the HowTo follows below. -Amos -- Zope's tree tag makes creating tree widgets easy. One obvious use of this facility is to create a global navigation system for a website. How can this be done? There are a number of ways but probably the most easy is to put a tree tag in the 'standard_html_header' DTML Method in the top level Folder. By default new DTML Documents and DTML Methods use the 'standard_html_header' and 'standard_html_footer' to start and end their HTML. This gives you a simple mechanism for creating a consistent look and feel across web pages. It also allows you to change the look and feel in an area of the web site by overriding the 'standard_html_header' and/or 'standard_html_footer' within a given Folder. So now that we have a strategy let's get down to brass tacks. Here's a sample 'standard_html_header' and 'standard_html_footer' that will place the content of a web page inside a table and place a navigation tree in the left table cell. standard_html_header:: <HTML><HEAD><TITLE></TITLE></HEAD> <BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF"> <TABLE BORDER="1"> <TR VALIGN="top"> <TD></TD> <TD> standard_html_footer:: </TD></TR></TABLE> </BODY> </HTML> Well this is fine and good, but what should the 'sidebar' object that draws our navigation device look like, and why not put it directly in the 'standard_html_header'? The reason for decomposing the 'sidebar' information is to allow us to override the 'standard_html_header' and 'sidebar' separately. It is entirely possible that we may want to have a slightly different side bar or HTML header in different Folders. By using different objects we can mix and match without having to rewrite everything if we just want to change one component of a page. As for what the 'sidebar' object should look like, it should be a DTML Document or DTML Method (it doesn't matter), and here's a sample of how to draw a tree widget. sidebar::  <A HREF=""></A>  How does this work? Recall that the tree tag draws a tree widget given a hierarchical collection of objects. The 'expr' and 'branches_expr' attributes of the tree tag tell it how to gather a collection of objects. The content between the open and closing tree tags is rendered for each tree item. In this case the 'expr' attribute tells the tag to start drawing the tree with the object known as 'PARENTS[-1]' which is the root Zope Folder. If this seems obscure, remember that the PARENTS variable is a list of containing objects traversed by Zope on its way to the published object. 'PARENTS[-1]' is Python's way of saying referring to the last element of that list, which is always the top level Zope object, since it is always traversed first on the way to the published object. The 'branches_expr' attribute tells the tree tag how to gather sub-objects given a root object. In this case the expression says to call the 'objectValues' method with 'Folder' as an argument. Recall that 'objectValues' is a standard Zope method which returns an object's sub-objects. The 'Folder' argument tells the method to only return sub-Folders, rather than all sub-objects. The HTML Anchor tag inside the tree tag provides links to each sub-Folder by using the 'absolute_url' method to generate a URL for the Folder, and the 'id' method to generate the name of the link. So in sum, we can see that the tree tag is called in such a way as to start from the top level Zope folder and iterate over all its sub-Folders. This gives us a global navigation widget. There are lots of way to improve this simple navigation system. A more advanced global navigation widget might perform tests on sub-Folders before displaying them, such as testing for authorization, or testing for attributes such as 'private'. This could be implemented by writing a DTML Method or an External Method and using it in place of 'objectValues' in the 'branches_expr' attribute. Another enhancement might check for a 'see_also' attribute on Folders and display related links in addition to a global tree. The global tree could also be dressed up. It could display links to Folders in different colors, or fonts, or include icons for some Folders, or it could use the Folder titles instead of Folder ids as link text.

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tzname unknown?
by Hermann Himmelbauer 22 Apr '99

22 Apr '99

Hi, I installed Python 1.5.2 and Zope. When I tried to fire up the Python server, the following error occurred ImportError: cannot import name tzname Well, it seems that in python 1.5.2 there is no more function "tzname". I currently fixed it by simply hardcoding the function in TimeDate.py, but this is no real solution. Is this a bug in python 1.5.2? Best Regards, Hermann -- Hermann Himmelbauer EMail: dusty(a)strike.wu-wien.ac.at.at Tel.: ++43-2243-26562 Fax: ++43-2243-2230527 Addr.: Martinstr. 18/2, A-3400 Klosterneuburg Austria (Europe)

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ZCGI status?
by richard.jones＠fulcrum.com.au 22 Apr '99

22 Apr '99

I am now using the ZCGI.py module (Zope made easy for Bobo-like apps) in several systems. I've lost the original posting that announced (or contained, I can't remember which :) the module. Does anyone know what the status of the module is? I'd really like to see it included in the Zope distribution - or at least one the zope site somewhere... Richard -- Richard Jones, developer for the Fulcrum Consulting Group. (03) 9621 2100 http://www.fulcrum.com.au/ http://www.bofh.asn.au/~richard/

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RE: [ZDP] CoolFAQ design questions
by Shaw, Howard 22 Apr '99

22 Apr '99

> ---------- > From: Martijn Faassen[SMTP:faassen@vet.uu.nl] > Reply To: M.Faassen(a)vet.uu.nl > Sent: Thursday, April 22, 1999 11:30 AM > To: zdp(a)zope.org > Subject: [ZDP] CoolFAQ design questions > > Hi there, > > Joe Van Andel asked the following question: > > I'm not quite clear on how Z-Tables will be used for CoolFAQ. Is > each Q&A > > going to be stored in an entry in the Z-Table? How do you plan to > > represent the "natural" outline structure that most FAQs would want: > > Topic 1 > > Q1.1 > > Q1.2 > > Subtopic a > > Q1.2.1 > > Subtopic b > > Topic 2 > > Q2.1 > > Q2.2 > > I leave the floor to Martijn Pieters, our Z Tables advocate, or anyone > else who wants to answer. This'll help me increase my Z Tables Zen > too. > :) > Well, Z Tables is supposed to be an SQL database on top of Zope, right? http://www.sths.org/genus/uber/renderall is the address of a page I am currently working on. It should look something like Animalia - Kingdom CHORDATA - Phylum UROCHORDATA - Subphylum VERTEBRATA - Subphylum MAMMALIA - Class EUTHERIA - Subclass PRIMATES - Order ANTHROPOIDEA - Suborder HOMINOIDEA - Superfamily HOMINIDAE - Family Australopithecus - Species Homo - Species sapiens - Genus sapiens - Subgenus PORIFERA - Phylum Fungi - Kingdom Monera - Kingdom Plantae - Kingdom BRYOPHYTA - Division Protista - Kingdom which is an outline structure similar to that mentioned above. It is generated by a recursive var inclusion that pulls from an SQL database. To put it simply, every item has a link to its parent. If you want an item to appear in multiple branches, you need a many-to-many table. Usually such a mapping is Xtable <- Mappingtable -> Ytable, but here it would be Xtable <- Mappingtable -> Xtable. Then I have multiple 'animals' linked each to one item. These could be multiple answers linked to one question, etc. Give it an extra mapping table, and you could have one answer link to multiple questions as well. It is not hard to generate a hierarchical structure in an SQL table, so long as you provide yourself with 'forms' (in this case, webpages) which internally understand the linkages and don't require you to know the id of what you want to link to. > Regards, > > Martijn > > _______________________________________________ > ZDP maillist - ZDP(a)zope.org > http://www.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zdp > Howard C. Shaw III Programmer/SysAdmin St. Thomas High School

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RE: [Zope] Zope on FreeBSD with Python 1.5.2
by Michel Pelletier 22 Apr '99

22 Apr '99

> -----Original Message----- > From: Goodrichs [mailto:nbd95@macconnect.com] > Sent: Thursday, April 22, 1999 1:41 AM > To: zope(a)zope.org > Subject: [Zope] Zope on FreeBSD with Python 1.5.2 > > > OK Zope is up and running, (see previous post). I now have a little > naggging problem with some Products I think is related to > Python 1.5.2. > Three items, Confera, IMAPadapter, NotMail all are broken > with a traceback > during import claiming "non-default argument follows default argument" > > Is this a known problem? Everything else in Zope works > properly as do other > products. Do I need to send specific tracebacks?, start > digging?, or has > anyone else seen this. I haven't looked through the code yet as I just > noticed it, hoping someone has the answer! > Thanks for the report, we have begun some preliminary checking against 1.5.2, but we don't support it yet. I would suggest installing 1.5.1 next to 1.5.2 and using 1.5.1 just for Zope, or, of course, you could send us some patches. ;) Much as I love a new Python release, boy does it add some work. BTW, can you send support(a)digicool.com one of your tracebacks? Say from IMAPAdapter? -Michel > DAve. > > > > _______________________________________________ > Zope maillist - Zope(a)zope.org > http://www.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope > > (For developer-specific issues, use the companion list, > zope-dev(a)zope.org - http://www.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-dev ) >

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RE: [Zope] General information
by Michel Pelletier 22 Apr '99

22 Apr '99

> > Notes is a _huge_ application, taking up significant resources. I > imagine a Zope binary distribution could fit on a floppy if we tried. > The binary is a bit big (4+Mb) but a bzip'ed source release is only 900K. > > Until the Catalog lands, our searchability story is poor. Fortunately > the Catalog, when paired with Z Classes and Property Sheets, > is turning > out to be something that I think surpasses Notes' forms and searches. > This will be shown and LinuxExpo and released thereafter. It will > hopefully appear on zope.org before then. And yes, it will > be below the > line. > 'Below the line', BTW, means 'Open Source'. Note that the indexing machinery that all of our searchability is based on is Open Source right now, and is included in 1.10.2. It is *low level* however, which means you have to get your hands dirty with some Python and you have to have a pretty firm knowledge of indexing and searching in general. The Catalog Paul mentioned will be a nice high level interface so that you can put, for example, a search box on your pages or do directory like organizations, or both, Yahoo! style. There is one feature of Zope that hasn't been mentioned yet in this area, and that is the extensability of Zope+Indexing. This means that you can create an application any way you want, and customize the searchability as well as the functionality of the actually application. You are not forced to follow someone elses searching model, you are free to create any indexes on anything in your application any time you want. You can even index external data sources that come from SQL server or IMAP mailboxes, for example. -Michel > > 5. The search in Lotus Notes is fast... How fast can Zope search? > > > --Paul > > _______________________________________________ > Zope maillist - Zope(a)zope.org > http://www.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope > > (For developer-specific issues, use the companion list, > zope-dev(a)zope.org - http://www.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-dev ) >

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General information
by Tom Deprez 22 Apr '99

22 Apr '99

Hi all, Thanks all for the great feedback you sended to me for my previous questions! Now, I've some other questions to ask, hope I don't offend somebody with these. Since I'm new in all these stuff, I'll ask you the experienced gourus for reliable information about these. I must write a sort of presentation for convincing people that Zope can help us in a great way. So I need some pro & cons of Zope and other sort alike applications. Is somebody willing to help me a little bit with this? I hope so. Thanks already for reading this part. Ok, I'll ask some questions which I think I need for situating and explaning Zope (to people who know about this stuff and to people who don't know anything about it, so it's for a broad audience) Yesterday, I've seen a demo of Lotus Notes, quiet impressive too. Most people have seen this demo too. So I should make a comparison between these two and also a little bit with other same alike applications. I know Zope is Open Source and free. Offcourse this is a great benefit, but I need also some info on usage by experts on the web, usage by people who just want to put an article on the web (no experience however). 1. Other available applications? I know of ColdFusion, Lotus Notes (it's web & database part), ... 2. Why using Zope above the other? Pro's & Con's of these applications and Zope. 3. Looking at Lotus Notes, they don't need an external database. Can Zope's database be also used like the one in Lotus Notes? (ie. Storing records, etc..) How can this be done. Is this database capable of storing large data amounts? Huge pictures? 4. If you need to make a knowledge base from start. Should we better use a database like Oracle, SyBase, PostgreSQL, ... or use the Zope database? 5. The search in Lotus Notes is fast... How fast can Zope search? Other information is surely welcome, because I want to give a good presentation on this subject. Kind Regards, Tom.

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RE: [Zope] Zope on FreeBSD with Python 1.5.2
by Brian Lloyd 22 Apr '99

22 Apr '99

> OK Zope is up and running, (see previous post). I now have a little > naggging problem with some Products I think is related to > Python 1.5.2. > Three items, Confera, IMAPadapter, NotMail all are broken > with a traceback > during import claiming "non-default argument follows default argument" > > Is this a known problem? Everything else in Zope works > properly as do other > products. Do I need to send specific tracebacks?, start > digging?, or has > anyone else seen this. I haven't looked through the code yet as I just > noticed it, hoping someone has the answer! > > DAve. Yes - if you can send a copy of the tracebacks, that will help us track this down. Thanks! Brian Lloyd brian(a)digicool.com Software Engineer 540.371.6909 Digital Creations http://www.digicool.com

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