December 2000 - Zope

New install - no management screen?
by Glenn Gillis 31 Dec '00

31 Dec '00

After installing 2.2.4 on a Windows 2000 workstation to begin learning Zope I'm having trouble getting the management screen to display. When connecting to http://localhost:8080/manage I can log in successfully, created a new user with the "manager" role and get the tree (control panel, acl users, etc) in the left hand pane. But when selecting the root folder (whether logged in as the super user or the user I created) the right hand pane refuses to display anything but the "Welcome to Zope! Congratulations, your Zope is up and running..." page. I don't see anything similar to this problem in any other posts, FAQs, etc. Anyone have any suggestions? Thanks in advance, Glenn

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Belated Birthday!
by Spicklemire, Jerry 31 Dec '00

31 Dec '00

Hey Zope Folks, Maybe I missed it, but did anyone else realize that Zope's 2nd birthday snuck by without a party?! Maybe the DC Gang are planning something based on an official ship date of some specific version, but anyhow, Happy Birthday, Zope! ** || |\/| |\/| ( \/ ) Later, Jerry S.

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RE: [Zope] Zope vs. Enhydra
by sean.upton＠uniontrib.com 30 Dec '00

30 Dec '00

I agree that people should only build what they need. The nice thing about Zope being open-source is that it evolves well to its communities use cases; I would argue that Zope-based solutions would adapt to user communities that are not a bunch of software engineers working for software companies. I used to work as a developer for an R&D company and now work for a dot-com doing the same sort of work, but my priorities are very different. Zope, frankly, is a more pragmatic solution than committing to the Java platform for a variety of problems faced by those of us not working for software vendors, and I think is better suited to an open-source user community. Two particular things: One: Enhydra seems ideal if you have investment in the Java paradigm (i.e. you have Java coders in house). The thing is that Zope has a lot of strengths in the ODB that you can't get with your typical OO Java servelets combined with an RDBMS back-end. For complex relational data, the Java app server approach might make sense, but the thing that sells me on Zope is the fact that their are problem domains that are a total misfit with a relational data paradigm, like online content publishing (media sites), intranet collaboration (workflow objects associated with discussions associated with content created via content management) - not to mention the entire problem domain of XML in general. So, java app servers make sense if you meet all of the following criteria: - have data structures that are tabular, or have a small set of relations to other data - have a full-time DBA - have a full-time Testing Department (test manager, testers) and Formal Software Testing - have at least a senior Java programmer or two - Have a fairly technical project manager that understands how the app server works, in order to divide up work - Fully implement formal documentation standards, including UML, requirements & design docs, and EXTENSIVE API documentation - willingness to work on a deadline that is not as tight, putting quality always before expediency In other words, java app servers might make perfect sense for those working in an R&D company, ISV, or other vendor selling software, but it creates complexity when you want to extend this to an open development model because the learning curve is steeper, and it's easier to screw something up. If you work with limited resources, and are not building a product that is going to have an expected sale value, but rather only internal use value (i.e. you are a web company trying to get a site up versus a software company selling a $25,000 shrink-wrapped box). When in that position, you need content management built-in; you need portions (like the interface layer) to be as easy as possible (Why should one be required to compile an html file into a DOM binary - why not just use an ODB???); you also are not going to have a testing department, you will have a stricter deadline, have less technical project management, and no docs, and more employee retention problems. The attitude is get it done, with the best possible balance of doing it "right" and getting it up live. Zope fits the bill for most folks who have to work in a pragmatic world of building and constantly refining software for their own use. I'm not saying that we shouldn't have formal docs, testing, etc of software, but that some of us have to maximize quality under certain constraints that guarantee that the Java app server approach would be flawed; Zope fits (python is easy to work with, the presentation layer concepts in Zope are improving, etc). Zope also maps to open-source ideas better, because it allows for a less centralized formal development model, and the idea of constant refinement. In the future, especially in certain vertical markets (like mine, publishing), the folks that comprise your community will not be trained software engineers - they will be folks like librarians, part-time web developers, designers, project managers, and production engineers/sysadmins - and in that open source world, we need to be able to create scalable software systems, but not raise the barriers to entry to make them inhuman. Zope isn't perfect in this regard, but at least it's leaps and bounds better than the alternatives. Two: Perhaps the biggest gripe I have about the "why-not-zope" arguments is simply that they make the assumption that Zope is somehow a product, and so they complain about what it cannot do, rather than realize that zope's primary asset is a strong community and a strong, swift software process; I have seen Zope evolve quite rapidly over the last year-and-a-half; I use that as empirical evidence that Zope grows with its community member's use-cases. Gripes about things like through the web editing, cvs, etc will likely be things of the past in the not too distant future. I think Zope has some advantages over both other approaches in that it has an approach that targets a different set of uses. While we can argue about Zope's fitness being a "general-purpose" app server, but when it fits the needs of its users, or adapts in order to do so, what's the point? Sean -----Original Message----- From: Terrel H. Shumway [mailto:tshumway@octavian.ICS.UCI.EDU] Sent: Friday, December 29, 2000 11:10 PM To: corey(a)axcelerant.com Cc: zope(a)zope.org; tshumway(a)octavian.ICS.UCI.EDU Subject: Re: [Zope] Zope vs. Enhydra Flame bait? Catch this: I have recently been reaching the disillusionment phase with Zope, so please take it all with several grains of salt. I happened upon an article in the ArsDigital Systems Journal that I thought was a fairly neutral review of Enhydra. http://www.arsdigita.com/asj/enhydra/index.adp The more thought-provoking part of the article was a reference to a fairly disparaging view of application servers in general. http://www.arsdigita.com/asj/application-servers What got me to ArsDigita was AMK's Zope frustrations. http://www.amk.ca/python/writing/why-not-zope.html (BTW, some of these issuses are being addressed.) Which also lead me to Chuck Esterbrook's musings http://pywx.idyll.org/advocacy/why-not-zope.html http://pywx.idyll.org/advocacy/why-not-zope-2.html Chuck Esterbrook created webware as his answer to Zope's limitations and complexity. http://webware.sourceforge.net/ Titus Brown advocates use AOLserver and Python (instead of TCL) http://pywx.idyll.org/advocacy/ IBM developerworks has a couple of Enhydra articles (which I have not read yet) http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/enhydra.html http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/w-friend.html?dwzone=web In summary: Don't build what you don't need -- do the simplest thing that could possibly work. Evaluate potential solutions in terms of business value to YOUR customers, not in terms of market hype. HTH -- Terrel Shumway _______________________________________________ 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] can't change zclass meta type
by Dieter Maurer 30 Dec '00

30 Dec '00

Geoffrey L. Wright writes: > > I can't seem to completely change a zclass meta type. When I make a > change on the "basic" tab of the zclass, my change seems to take, and > the new meta type is displayed in the form. > > But when I try to add an instance of this metatype, I still see the > old meta type name in the dropdown. When I try to reference objects > by metatype in my code, the new name does work, so it appears that the > new metatype is ... mostly ... applied. > > Is this a bug? Or is the some other location where I also need to > change this info? New Meta Types must register with Zope to be available in the dropdown list. Apparently, this registration is not changed when you modify the meta type -- a bug. File a bug report into the collector. I would expect, the bug will get a low priority. Thus, if its fix is essential for you, you may look at the code and fix it yourself. A patch for the collector would be great in this case. Dieter

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Slow response with 2.2.5
by Stephen Simmons 30 Dec '00

30 Dec '00

Hi Brian, I have noticed a problem with 2.2.5b1 running under Win98. The ZServer seems to wait for 5 seconds or so before serving each page. My fresh installation of 2.2.4 has no noticable delay. To duplicate this, go to a Windows 98 machine and: - Install Zope-2.2.4-win32-x86.exe and start Zope - Try http://localhost:8080 and see the Zope welcome screen appear almost instantaneously - Shutdown Zope - Upgrade to 2.2.5 by installing Zope-2.2.x-to-2.2.5b1-win32-x86.tgz then starting Zope - Try http://localhost:8080 and wait for 5 seconds for the Zope welcome screen to appear This was observed on a brand new IBM Thinkpad T21 (700MHz PIII, 128MB) running Win98SR2 while not connected to any network (No cable modem while on holiday!). Regards, Stephen ___________________________________________ Stephen Simmons, stephen.simmons(a)healtharena.net HealthArena B.V., Amsterdam, The Netherlands phone +31 20 486 0555; mobile +31 6 1505 3086; fax +31 20 486 0559

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Re: [Zope] Zope eating CPU/RAM - how do I find the culprit?
by Jon Prettyman 30 Dec '00

30 Dec '00

Are you using ZSQLMethods by any chance? -jon cg(a)cdegroot.com (Cees de Groot) writes: > Our production Zope machine has developed a habit over Christmas where > it starts eating CPU and RAM (one Python thread on 100% CPU time, and > I've seen kernel messages indicating that Zope was killed because it > hit an out-of-memory condition which means it sat on ~500Mb RAM). > > I'm completely in the dark about what causes this (probably some of > my own code, I installed some new bits a couple of days ago), but what's > worse: I really don't know how to set about finding the problematic > code. Is there a way to find out what code a thread is running? > > -- > Cees de Groot http://www.cdegroot.com <cg(a)cdegroot.com> > GnuPG 1024D/E0989E8B 0016 F679 F38D 5946 4ECD 1986 F303 937F E098 9E8B > > _______________________________________________ > 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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� ��
by journal＠new_acropol.ru 30 Dec '00

30 Dec '00

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Hotfix_2000-12-08 and MailHost
by Salvatore Sciacco 30 Dec '00

30 Dec '00

Hello, after the installation of the 12-08 fix you can't add MailHost anymore. I see that the product use a "legacy" method. Any solution? Thank you in advance. -- Best regards, Salvatore Sciacco mailto:sas@prometeus.net

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Re: [Zope] Zope eating CPU/RAM - how do I find the culprit?
by cg＠cdegroot.com 29 Dec '00

29 Dec '00

jojo(a)farm9.com said: > I've made zope inaccessible two different ways: > - passing bad data to ZDGChart - sending mail when MailHost is down > (i.e. the host it is supposed to connect to is not available) It seems a bug in my virtual hosting code (a Python method that acts as the AccessRule for the root) pushes an empty string on the TraversalRequestNameStack. Could that be the cause? -- Cees de Groot http://www.cdegroot.com <cg(a)cdegroot.com> GnuPG 1024D/E0989E8B 0016 F679 F38D 5946 4ECD 1986 F303 937F E098 9E8B

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Example activity-explicit workflow system
by Albert Boulanger 29 Dec '00

29 Dec '00

For those interested in workflow systems and workflow within Zope, the following workflow system may be useful to try out. It models workflow steps explicitly and a workflow becomes a graph with a visual editor. I have been meaning to send along some resources in this area I have been accumulating. The Endeavors group at UCI developed this and the peer-to-peer system they built, Magi, is now at www.endtech.com as open source. They are still developing the workflow product but an early prototype you can download and play with is at: http://www.ics.uci.edu/pub/endeavors/endeavors.html See also the papers and the web-based workflow thesis at: http://www.ics.uci.edu/pub/endeavors/docs/papers/ There was discussion of graphical system to present workflow. I have looked at several, including the At&T stuff. When I have time, I will send a separate email with some that I have found. One thing to look at which is ActiveX based at the moment is http://www.lassalle.com/ A general purpose Flowcharting/Diagramming ActiveX control. I am very interested in a general, fairly full featured workflow system on top of Zope as opposed to using an external workflow product for a fundamental reason. While one could come up with a way of getting what I need with an external system, it would be messy. I need workflows to be explicit and versioned. We make use of ZODB to version content that end users generate. We don't make use of Zope's versioning but use or own hierarchical version tree which is easy to do in Zope. End users generate new workflows and revisit past workflows. The user sees this versioning as notebook pages using a scientific notebook metaphor. It is much cleaner to use ZODB and ZPublisher to do all this instead of having a version tree in Zope and a bunch of correspondences to outside objects in an external workflow system. Thus, there is a lot of value in having a fairly general workflow system whose representation and publishing uses ZODB and ZPublisher. There seems to be a principle here on how to layer systems correctly on top of ZODB and ZPublisher or any persistant-object web publishing system. One way is very clean and simple and other ways are nightmares. Regards, Albert Boulanger aboulanger(a)vpatch.com

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