July 1999 - Zope - Zope lists

Question about timezones
by Itamar S.-T. 11 Jul '99

11 Jul '99

When I try to use the Calendar product, I get errors like these: Error Type: DateTimeError Error Value: Unrecognized timezone: How do I convince Zope my timezone is acceptable? I also can't figure out how to print the current time/date - all the docs in DTML assume you have a date stored in a variable. -- Itamar - itamars(a)ibm.net -----------------------------o-------------------------------------o Sealingwax Greeting Cards | The only good morning is a dead one | http://www.sealingwax.com/ | --Richard Stallman |

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Using DTML methods to provide HTML
by Anders Qvist 11 Jul '99

11 Jul '99

In a DTML document called "authors" I have this situation:  six_fieldpage is a DTML method which uses two parameters, title and body and returns an entire HTML page. authors_body is a DTML method in the same folder and looks like this:    When trying to look at authors, I get the following error: Error Type: KeyError Error Value: get_all_authors  In Zope/manage things looks like this (to convince you, I have not misspelled anything): / /reviews authors (Authors and their Work) authors_body (Build author list) authors_body_titles (Build list of all titles by one author) get_all_authors (Retr list of all authors) get_titles_by_author (Retr all titles by one author) index_html (Test) reviews_db_connection (Da DB Connection) sixfield_menu (Sixfield style menu) sixfield_page (Sixfield style Page) sixfield_textblock (Sixfield style Textblock) If I understand the error correctly, authors_body is not 'acquired' in the usual zope sense, but rather executed in a more traditional Python context. This raises two questions: 1) How do I make this work? 2) Is this the right way to do things or am I abusing the Zope design? Anders "Quest" Qvist NetGuide Scandinavia -- Why suffer scarcity? Look for the Open Source and enter a world of plenty!

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Problem refering to a subfolder object
by Kam Cheung 11 Jul '99

11 Jul '99

A very newbie question: How can I refer to a subfolder object? Basically, what I am trying to do is. given a string, I want to detect whether an image with the same name as the string exists or not in a subfolder, if it does, it display the object, if not, it will show a default image. Here is what I have tried, but doesn't work: Let's say, a document has a string called "section" and the value of it is "abc".  <IMG SRC="images/global/">  <IMG SRC="images/global/default">  That doesn't work. I did find a way to do it by doing:    <IMG SRC="images/global/">  <IMG SRC="images/global/default">    But I think there must be an easier way to do that. Kam On Cheung

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RE: [Zope] Improving the folder view
by Paul Everitt 11 Jul '99

11 Jul '99

Alexander writes: > As my folders grow in size, I become increasingly annoyed and > frustrated > with the folder object view's propensity towards disorganization. :-) Yep, I agree. > Is an improvement of this system planned? Unfortunately, no, but it should. A little while back we spent some time looking at usability but never completed it. For instance, we tried to clean up the error messages and provide helpful hints for certain errors. Also, we tried to make the various "Add xx" screens more informative. Unfortunately (a) we stopped halfway, (b) all of the error messages provide the same hints, and (c) not all of the add forms are informative. I'd appreciate your views on the error messages (as well as everyone else's). > I have a few suggestions myself. > > - First of all, only icons are used to distinguish between types of > objects. Even GUIs that aspire to object-orientation do not make this > error; MacOS, Windows, KDE etc. all provide a separate column > displaying > objects' types. Yep. > - Secondly, items are currently shown like so: "Id (Title)". As in: > "acl_users (User Folder)". As the list grows, this system becomes > exceedingly difficult to "read fast". Reading stuff fast is > important as > the amount of stuff your brain has to sift through grows. If we can > assist the brain in being able to sort this data, we should > do it. So we > should put the ID and title in separate columns. I also agree on this, though I couldn't put my finger on why it was so cumbersome. > - Finally there is the sorting. Zope currently sorts case-sensitively, > which means if you have "Article", "Documents", "acl_users", > then that's > exactly the sort order you'd get. The logical sorting method would be > "acl_users", "Article", "Document". In most GUIs it is also Hmm, I contend that this sorting method isn't as common in other systems. Windows does because it comes from a heritage that makes no case distinction. Unix sorts things based on case-sensitivity. > common to -- > at least as an option -- group directories together at the top. So if > Documents and acl_users were folders, the order would be "acl_users", > "Documents", "Article". That might be appropriate. > In case there is doubt in your minds about the practical > effect of such > changes, I've prepared a demonstration, here:: > > http://www.mop.no/~alex/soaptest/oldversion.html (this is how things > are done today) > http://www.mop.no/~alex/soaptest/newversion.html (this is > the proposed > reorg) I like yours better. > While we're at it, columns for "last modified" and "author" would be Can you add those as well to your demo? Also, do you envision chopping off long titles with the "..." operation? If so, could you add that to your demo as well? > nice, too. I envision a system where you would define columns and sort > settings in the control panel somehow. Of course, this raises the > question of whether such settings should be available on a per-user > basis or as one global setting that applies to all managers. Yes, it does raise that issue :^) Of course you could just set a cookie. Why don't you try adding <th> column headers that are clickable? Clicking them would (a) set a cookie for the preference and (b) change the sort order. While we're in such territory (and linking to your last post about the disappearing add button), what are some ideas on overhauling the add list? Here are two proposals: 1) Filter the items based on what roles you have. 2) Only list the "core" things and have an entry for a "wizard". This would take you to a page where all add-able things are grouped by Product, with text explaining what they are. --Paul

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PCGI error 103 when running caching nameserver?
by Craig Allen 11 Jul '99

11 Jul '99

I recently set up a caching nameserver on my local Linux machine that seems to be working OK. But when I try browse to a page via Apache/PCGI/Zope, I get an error in Netscape and I get messages like this in my pcgi.log: pcgi-wrapper: pcgiVerifyProc failed (103) unable to verify if process is running Maybe I need to add something to my nameserver config, but any clues out there? Everything works fine again when I go back to using my ISPs DNS. Thanks, Craig -- Craig Allen - Managing Partner - Mutual Alchemy Web Architecture - http://alchemy.nu

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zope2 standard_error_message
by Robin Becker 11 Jul '99

11 Jul '99

I'm not able to change the standard error message rendering. I can change what it's supposed to be, but this doesn't seem to affect the rendering. puzzled :) -- Robin Becker

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Survey: Gadfly usage
by Christopher Petrilli 10 Jul '99

10 Jul '99

OK, as we're having to go through all the DAs to fix/break/etc the multi-threaded support, I have a few questions for people about their usage of Gadfly... 1. Have you ever used Gadfly? If so, please describe in 30 words, what you used it for. 2. Did you find it useful? 3. Was the fact that it was included important to you? 4. Do you believe we should continue to include Gadfly in Zope? 5. Do you believe we should move Gadfly to an add-on distribution? Thanks! Chris -- | Christopher Petrilli Python Powered Digital Creations, Inc. | petrilli(a)digicool.com http://www.digicool.com

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Another bechmark - 2.0.0a3
by Itamar S.-T. 10 Jul '99

10 Jul '99

I decided to run torture.pl against Zope 2.0.0a3 using ZServer, with 40 clients running concurrently. Notice that the results were faster than Zope 1.10.2 on ZopeHTTPServer using only 10 clients, my previous test. Last time however I ran against the "Welcome to Zope" page, while this time I ran against a much smaller page (200 bytes.) So the speed difference may be a result of this. I'll try again tommorow. The reason that I didn't run against the Welcome page is that when I run Zope2 from ZopeHTTPServer I do get this welcome page, but when I run from ZServer (python z2.py) I don't. What did I do wrong? Do they store their databases in different locations? GET, 1000 chars of garbage in query string Transactions: 4000 Elapsed time: 143.493 sec Bytes Transferred: 5431436 bytes Response Time: 1.62 sec Transaction Rate: 27.88 trans/sec Throughput: 37851.53 bytes/sec Concurrency: 45.2 Status Code 200: 3954 Status Code 500: 46 This resulted in lots of: Server Error: exceptions.KeyError, uaL: file: /itamar/Zope-2.0.0a3-src/lib/python/ZPublisher/HTTPRequest.py line: 246 errors from ZServer. Someone should really check this out. I then ran with 0 chars of garbage - simply GET the page 100 times, 40 clients: Transactions: 4000 Elapsed time: 113.816 sec Bytes Transferred: 684000 bytes Response Time: 1.10 sec Transaction Rate: 35.14 trans/sec Throughput: 6009.73 bytes/sec Concurrency: 38.7 Status Code 200: 4000 I have no idea why so little bytes were transferred, except noting that the page I tested was tiny - 200 bytes or so (standard "This is index_html" DTML doc.) -- Itamar - itamars(a)ibm.net -----------------------------o-------------------------------------o Sealingwax Greeting Cards | The only good morning is a dead one | http://www.sealingwax.com/ | --Richard Stallman |

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RE: [Zope] Improving the folder view
by Alexander Staubo 10 Jul '99

10 Jul '99

>-----Original Message----- >From: Paul Everitt [mailto:Paul@digicool.com] >Sent: 10. juli 1999 21:11 >To: 'Alexander Staubo'; Zope Mailing List (E-mail) >Subject: RE: [Zope] Improving the folder view > > > >Alexander writes: >> As my folders grow in size, I become increasingly annoyed and >> frustrated >> with the folder object view's propensity towards disorganization. :-) > >Yep, I agree. > >> Is an improvement of this system planned? > >Unfortunately, no, but it should. A little while back we spent some >time looking at usability but never completed it. For instance, we >tried to clean up the error messages and provide helpful hints for >certain errors. Also, we tried to make the various "Add xx" screens >more informative. Unfortunately (a) we stopped halfway, (b) all of the >error messages provide the same hints, and (c) not all of the add forms >are informative. I rather assumed you'd be concentrating on this later on when things were nearing completion. ;-) Ideally I think Zope's management screens should not be hardcoded as DTML+HTML, as they are now, but in a sort of metaformat/metalanguage. Why? Well, several reasons. First, every once in a while something comes up that means most management pages must be changed or "cleaned up" or "brought up-to-date" somehow. Secondly because this way we could, at some point in the future at least, extend Zope management to some non-web system (eg., MMC on Windows, or Java, or whatever). Thirdly because what I envision would guarantee consistence across all management interfaces. I realize it's a huge step, and it might not be worthwhile, but I think it's a worthy "research" subject. Essentially this "metalanguage" would simply describe the "manageable" information in a generic way using a rich syntax that would be able to encompass any kind of information you'd possibly want to present. The language would be parsed and converted to HTML on the fly to generate a nice "wizard" appearance. I realize this idea might be too vast in scope, but the payoff would be great. Think about it: If you could embed help strings in this language, you would be able to show a piece of helpful information about every kind of management information in the system. (Btw, you could use JavaScript "mouseover" to trigger these help strings, for instance inside a separate, smaller frame.) You could probably have a per-user setting that turned off the help stuff if necessary. And users could customize their management interface -- anything from which columns to include, level of detail, even language, if this was supported by the metalanguage framework. Or maybe I should keep my mouth shut. ;-) >I'd appreciate your views on the error messages (as well as everyone >else's). I cited a number of issues on zope-dev. (See my post on July 6, subject "RE: [Zope-dev] DocumentTemplate packaging suggestion".) >> I have a few suggestions myself. >> [snip] > >> - Finally there is the sorting. Zope currently sorts >case-sensitively, >> which means if you have "Article", "Documents", "acl_users", >> then that's >> exactly the sort order you'd get. The logical sorting method would be >> "acl_users", "Article", "Document". In most GUIs it is also > >Hmm, I contend that this sorting method isn't as common in other >systems. Windows does because it comes from a heritage that makes no >case distinction. Unix sorts things based on case-sensitivity. Fine, but that is not necessarily an argument in favour of user-friendliness. ;-) >> common to -- >> at least as an option -- group directories together at the top. So if >> Documents and acl_users were folders, the order would be "acl_users", >> "Documents", "Article". > >That might be appropriate. > >> In case there is doubt in your minds about the practical >> effect of such >> changes, I've prepared a demonstration, here:: >> >> http://www.mop.no/~alex/soaptest/oldversion.html (this is >how things >> are done today) >> http://www.mop.no/~alex/soaptest/newversion.html (this is >> the proposed >> reorg) > >I like yours better. > >> While we're at it, columns for "last modified" and "author" would be > >Can you add those as well to your demo? Done. >Also, do you envision chopping >off long titles with the "..." operation? If so, could you add that to >your demo as well? I think perhaps titles should simply be allowed to wrap. Don't you agree? After all we can't predict the size of the user's window. Maybe he has a huge window. I vote for wrapping. >> nice, too. I envision a system where you would define >columns and sort >> settings in the control panel somehow. Of course, this raises the >> question of whether such settings should be available on a per-user >> basis or as one global setting that applies to all managers. > >Yes, it does raise that issue :^) Of course you could just set a >cookie. Why don't you try adding <th> column headers that are >clickable? Clicking them would (a) set a cookie for the preference and >(b) change the sort order. Good point. I'd like to patch Zope to do this, but I haven't actually been able to get it to run on our Linux box, and you guys haven't responded to my problem reports, and so... (mumble mumble) That's annoying. But it would be stupid of me to submit a patch for 1.11.0pr1, which is what I'm sitting with now. >While we're in such territory (and linking to your last post about the >disappearing add button), what are some ideas on overhauling the add >list? Here are two proposals: > >1) Filter the items based on what roles you have. Sort of like skip_unauthorized on metatypes, then? >2) Only list the "core" things and have an entry for a "wizard". This >would take you to a page where all add-able things are grouped by >Product, with text explaining what they are. This is a good idea. Another possibility is using JavaScript and DHTML to arrange object types in a cascading popup menu. This is entirely feasible, though the HTML would have to check if the user was running a DHTML-complient browser, and if not, revert to the old-style menu. -- Alexander Staubo http://www.mop.no/~alex/ "What the hell, he thought, you're only young once, and threw himself out of the window. That would at least keep the element of surprise on his side." --Douglas Adams, _The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_

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server stats/log analysis
by Robin Becker 10 Jul '99

10 Jul '99

I have just about converted my schoolkid site to run ok with Zope 2. During the conversion from tclHTTPD I noticed a couple of minor nits. I developed everything in a sub directory. I was annoyed to find that various bits of the root don't like being deleted. standard_html_footer etc. I miss the statistics eg how much has been downloaded in bytes and the individual doc usage counts. Any body out there know of a medusa log file analysis? This would allow checking for possible misuse by the kids when (as I'm sure they will) they attempt to break the site. -- Robin Becker

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