July 2000 - Zope - Zope lists

request for advice
by Seb Bacon 24 Jul '00

24 Jul '00

Hello folks, I'm just beginning to design my first big Zope application. I'm writing to ask zopististitiatatas for some advice, since I'm a bit of a newbie and I want to make sure: [a] I reuse as much code as possible [b] I make my code as reusable as possible [c] my application is stable and scalable 1. Background to the application I'm building an extranet product in Zope. Much of it will be centered around a 'VersioningObject'. An example of such an object might be an image, a Word document. The objects will have a preview view associated with them. For word docs, this will be a html-ised version, for photos it will be a thumbnail. Perhaps in the future each object will also have rudimentary online editing facilities. The objects will all support versioning. This means each object can be superceded by another object of the same type. The version number will be incremented. Versions will also have Confera forums associated with them, and ACLs. Now as I see it, I want a VersioningObject to be a Folderish object that can contain a set of Versions, which are just a load of File objects of the same type. The folder has a method which slects its most recent child file object and displays it by calling its preview method. Older versions are read-only and are listed by title only. 2) My questions: i) I'm worried about the sheer volume of binary data that would accrue in the VersioningObject: a single VersioningObject might be a Word doc of 25Mb. If it has 10 versions and there are 10 such objects, that's 2.5Gb in the ZOBD. I presume this would be a bad idea performance-wise; any suggestions? ii) I'm interested in using ZPatterns because I reckon they sound like they might enhance the reusability etc. of the code; I know there have been some pointers recently, but which ZPatterns could I benefit from? or are they too arcance to worry about for now? iii) Is there any other miscellaneous advice? e.g. has anything like this been done already? Thanking you all, ladies and gentlemen. Seb.

3 2

more catalog issues
by ed colmar 24 Jul '00

24 Jul '00

Strange... Now my 2.2 catalog is giving me the problems were supposed to be bugs in zope (catalog) 2.1.5 and lower... Inconsistancy, and missing indexes...??? When I update the catalog it corrects itself. hmmmm Any clues as to why my objects get cataloged incorrectly to start with? Is there a better syntax to use than 'catalog_object()'? Thanks for any pointers! -e-

2 1

Catalog contains items, but no results
by ed colmar 24 Jul '00

24 Jul '00

Hmmm, more catalog strangeness.. I've finally gotten my product to add objects to a catalog correctly (with the correct URL) Whee! On my 2.2 development machine all appears fine, but on the 2.1.6 production server all searches come back with no results. When I look in "cataloged objects" in the management interface, there are many objects with correct URLs...??? Obviously I could just upgrade the production server, but I'm curious if there's something inherently wrong with my code. This is a sample of a call that I make to the Catalog. base_url=self.site_url() self.Catalog.catalog_object(ob,base_url+'/Promoters/'+id) Thanks for any ideas. -e-

2 1

Zope and Mac
by Tom Scheidt 24 Jul '00

24 Jul '00

Hi, I'm having problems installing products from a Macintosh. I downloaded them onto my hard drive and uncompressed the .tgz files with Stuffit Expander. I then FTPed them with Fetch to my server, then restarted Zope. The products were listed in the Product Management folder, but they had broken icons and were not showing up in the "Add" list. I did not have this problem when doing the exact same thing on a PC. Any ideas how to fix this? Thanks. Tom Scheidt | www.falsemirror.com | tom(a)falsemirror.com -------------------------------------------------------

4 4

Sybase in Remote Machine
by Herbert Kwong 24 Jul '00

24 Jul '00

Hello, I have SuSE 6.4, Zope 2.1.6, Sybase 11.9.2 and SybaseDAv2 in my machine. It works fine. However, is it possible to make my local Zope create a connection to a remote Sybase server? As I would like to separate the Sybase Database from the Apache/Zope server. Thanks. Regards, Herbert Kwong herbert(a)siliconcreation.com

2 1

Can not import XML export...
by Marcin Kasperski 24 Jul '00

24 Jul '00

[ A few days ago I started working with zope and I am really impressed. But now the first problem... ] I created simple folder containing a few DTML documents and methods, a couple of images and ZCatalog. Then I exported it using XML format. Now I try to import it into another Zope installation and I get an error suggesting some problem with XML tags. Error Type: TypeError Error Value: illegal argument type for built-in operation Traceback (innermost last): File /usr/lib/zope/lib/python/ZPublisher/Publish.py, line 222, in publish_module File /usr/lib/zope/lib/python/ZPublisher/Publish.py, line 187, in publish File /usr/lib/zope/lib/python/Zope/__init__.py, line 221, in zpublisher_exception_hook (Object: ElementWithAttributes) File /usr/lib/zope/lib/python/ZPublisher/Publish.py, line 171, in publish File /usr/lib/zope/lib/python/ZPublisher/mapply.py, line 160, in mapply (Object: manage_importObject) File /usr/lib/zope/lib/python/ZPublisher/Publish.py, line 112, in call_object (Object: manage_importObject) File /usr/lib/zope/lib/python/OFS/ObjectManager.py, line 495, in manage_importObject (Object: ElementWithAttributes) File /usr/lib/zope/lib/python/ZODB/ExportImport.py, line 216, in importFile File /usr/lib/zope/lib/python/ZODB/ExportImport.py, line 316, in importXML File /usr/lib/zope/lib/python/Shared/DC/xml/xyap.py, line 57, in unknown_endtag File /usr/lib/zope/lib/python/Shared/DC/xml/ppml.py, line 748, in save_item TypeError: (see above) On both machines I used exactly the same Zope version (2.2.0) and Python version (1.5.2). So: - isn't it a bug? - can I do anything to import at least some parts of this file (say - by editing it manually in some way) - I would really like to import something today (tomorrow I will try usual zope export) Regards -- Marcin.Kasperski | You can even cancel and be left with a working system @softax.com.pl | reflecting investment to date. (Ken Beck's Fourth Marcin.Kasperski | Customer Right - part two) @bigfoot.com |

1 0

Re: [Zope] problem with rss
by Gerard Metrailler Jr. 24 Jul '00

24 Jul '00

Hello, At 12:43 23.07.2000 +0000, Oliver Frommel wrote: >When I change the XML encoding type to ISO-8859-1 the problem still >persists. >I suspect that Zope silently sets the encoding type to something different. >My DTML method looks like this: > ><dtml-call "RESPONSE.setHeader('Content-Type', 'text/rdf')"> ><?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?> ><!DOCTYPE rss PUBLIC "-//Netscape Communications//DTD RSS 0.91//EN" > "http://my.netscape.com/publish/formats/rss-0.91.dtd"> ><rss version="0.91"> > ><rdf:RDF > xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" > xmlns="http://my.netscape.com/rdf/simple/0.9/"> > ><channel> >... ></rdf:RDF> > >when I try to change the dtml-call to set the charset to ISO-8859-1 Zope >produces the "<html><head></head>" sequence again. >Any ideas on how to solve this problem? Here is the code I use on a Squishdot server containing french text (with accents) which works fine: ----------------------------------------------- <dtml-call "RESPONSE.setHeader('content-type', 'text/rdf')"><?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?> <!DOCTYPE rss PUBLIC "-//Netscape Communications//DTD RSS 0.91//EN" "http://my.netscape.com/publish/formats/rss-0.91.dtd" > <rss version="0.91"> <channel> <title><dtml-var "striptags(rss_title)" ></title> <language>fr</language> <link><dtml-var site_url></link> <description><dtml-var "striptags(rss_description)"></description> ..... </channel> </rss> -------------------------------------------------- I believe an important point is to have the first line containing the <dtml-call> and the <?xml> tags, without a line brake. This is used on a 2.1.6 server with Squishdot 0.3.2. Best regards, Gérard Métrailler Jr. Meeting Maker Inc. ... the intelligent choice for collaborative scheduling Email: webmaster(a)meetingmaker.com Web: http://www.meetingmaker.com

1 0

ODBC SQL DA
by Curtis Maloney 24 Jul '00

24 Jul '00

Greetings, I have been digging about for a couple of weeks, and either I'm missing something (most likely :) or where there once was a mxODBC adapter, there is no longer? I am going to need to dig into an ODBC based DB (DataFlex), for which we have an ODBC interface. The db was not my choice, so there's no option there. However, I saw a few references to various ODBC DAs in the product lists. With ODBC supposedly being a 'generic' interface, why does each different DB require a different DA? Is this just tailoring the DA for that specific DB? In which case, would it be possible to build a "Generic" ODBC DA? Fortunately, this is not a priority project, but I would appreciate some details in this matter. Oh well, back to the archives. Have a better one, Curtis Maloney <dtml-var standard_work_disclaimer>

1 0

[FAQTS] Zope Knowledge Base Update -- July 24th, 2000
by Fiona Czuczman 24 Jul '00

24 Jul '00

Hi Guys, Here are the latest entries to be entered into http://zope.faqts.com I'm sending this out now so list subscribers get an idea how the summaries work, if they haven't seen the python summaries I mentioned in the thread "[Zope] FAQ Wiki and What happend @ O'Reilly Conference" from earlier today. regards, Fiona Czuczman ## New Entries ################################################# ------------------------------------------------------------- installing Zope 2.2.0b4 via CVS http://www.faqts.com/knowledge-base/view.phtml/aid/4845 ------------------------------------------------------------- Fiona Czuczman T.J. Mannos I'd just like to announce that I've installed Zope 2.2.0b4 via CVS and done a complete run-through of my site. It seems to work flawlessly now, and I've gone ahead and installed it on my main port for a trial period. I hope to launch the site using the final version of 2.2.0 (so hurry up, developers!!) :) Anyway, upgrading wasn't without its problems, so let me share with you some tips that will help those in my situation upgrade more successfully. Note that I've skipped some steps, with the assumption that since your upgrading an existing Zope version, you already know how to install Zope. Directories cited: Original installation: /usr/Zope-2.1.6 Fresh install of 2.1.6 (for diff'ing changes I made in the python modules): /temp/Zope-2.1.6 New CVS install of Zope-2.2.0b4: /usr/local/Zope2 (I moved it to the /usr/local volume because I had more space there). Products installed: SQLSession SiteAccess TinyTable ZMySQLDA (your product list may vary) FIRST, I like to hack the source a lot. I have my own special comment tags, such as  instead of <dtml-comment> ... </dtml-comment>, and I have my own special <dtml-var> modifier, js_friendly, which quotes all special characters so I can use them in JavaScript code. On a tip from Shane, I started using CVS to download the Zope source code so that it would merge the changes made in each upgrades with the changes I've made to the source. (Do a search for "CVS" on Zope.org) However, this was my first CVS, so I still needed to bring over the changes I'd previously made. So....... cd /usr/local/Zope2 diff -rc /temp/Zope-2.1.6/lib/python /usr/Zope-2.1.6/lib/python >MyChanges.diff patch -p3 <MyChanges.diff NOTE: Results may vary. By the way, in case you don't want to mess around with CVS (or you're like me and can't figure out how it works), the above commands should achieve the same effect, although you might get a few failed hunks and have to fix them manually. If you don't modify the Zope source, you can skip this step. SECOND, I had all my data, external methods, and installed products on my old installation. I didn't want to lose them. Now, don't be tempted to just copy all your Products over from the lib/python/Products folder. Some of them, such as SiteAccess and SQLSession, if you have them, WON'T WORK. (Furthermore, they'll break your installation, and you won't even be able to get to a management screen). Here's what you do: 1. Back up your new var directory (in case something goes terribly wrong) and copy the old data over. cd /usr/local/Zope2 mv var var.bak cp -R /usr/Zope-2.1.6/var . 2. Copy your external methods over. cp -R /usr/Zope-2.1.6/Extensions 3. Copy *some* (not all) of your Products over. cd lib/python/Products cp -R /usr/Zope-2.1.6/lib/python/Products/TinyTable . cp -R /usr/Zope-2.1.6/lib/python/Products/ZMySQLDA . 4. Start Zope (you may have to modify the startup script and the superuser password) and load the management interface. Delete all your SiteRoots and SQLSessions. You'll have to re-create them. 5. If you're like me, you created all your 2.1.6 objects using the superuser account. You can't do that in 2.2.0. So, go to your acl_users folder and create a new account having Manager and Owner privileges. 6. Download and install new versions of SQLSession, SiteAccess, and possibly ZMySQLDA, if you have it. (Be warned, though, you may have to re-create all of your database connections and SQL methods!) 7. Re-start Zope and log in as the new account you just created. Take ownership of your root directory. (Click "Ownership" tab, then "Take Ownership"). 8. Re-create your SQLSessions and SiteRoots. Check your database folder to make sure your SQL sessions are all intact. (If not, you have no sympathy from me. I had to re-create all 40 of mine when I tried beta 2). 9. Check for bugs -- I'm sure you'll find plenty! If you're getting a lot of Unauthorized errors using external methods, check all your external methods and make sure each class has the property "__allow_access_to_unprotected_subobjects__" set equal to "1". For instance, I had a bunch of simple objects created this way: class simpleClass: pass Under 2.2, I had to do it this way: class simpleClass: __allow_access_to_unprotected_subobjects__=1 pass THIRD, I'm waiting for the next release of Zope so that I can test out this CVS feature. I'm excited! Upgrading is such a pain, and I'm hoping CVS can help to automate that somewhat. I'll let you know how it goes. One very wise thing to do before every CVS checkout, though, is a complete backup of the Zope directory! After four failed upgrades (including the alpha), I don't want to take my chances. ------------------------------------------------------------- Example: To create a new object you must supply an addForm and a method to add the product. http://www.faqts.com/knowledge-base/view.phtml/aid/4846 ------------------------------------------------------------- Fiona Czuczman Andy Dawkins To create a new object you must supply an addForm and a method to add the product. e.g. manage_addMyProductForm = HTMLFile('MyProductAdd',globals()) def manage_addMyProduct(self, id, title='') """Adds the product""" self.setObject(id, MyProduct(id,title)) if REQUEST is not None: return self.manage_main(self, REQUEST) The product tabs are defined in the manage_options section of the product.py The order is important the first item in the list is called when you access the object from the management screens. The index_html is the default when accessed without the management screens. For example: manage_options = ( # the management options available {'label': 'Contents', 'action': 'manage_main'}, {'label': 'View', 'action': ''}, # defaults to index_html {'label': 'Properties', 'action': 'manage_propertiesForm'}, {'label': 'Security', 'action': 'manage_access'}, ) Download the boring product from zope.org It is a plain shell of an object that does nothing, but works. ------------------------------------------------------------- How can I deactivate HTML tags? http://www.faqts.com/knowledge-base/view.phtml/aid/4843 ------------------------------------------------------------- Fiona Czuczman Curtis Maloney <From the Zope Quick Reference> html_quote Convert characters that have special meaning in HTML to HTML character entities. ------------------------------------------------------------- When Saving changes from a version are the notes entered in the text box logged anywhere? http://www.faqts.com/knowledge-base/view.phtml/aid/4844 ------------------------------------------------------------- Fiona Czuczman Shane Hathaway Problem: When Saving changes from a version are the notes entered in the text box logged anywhere? It would be handy to use them for a regular CHANGES file. Solution: They appear in the Undo log. ------------------------------------------------------------- Using Zope, can I obtain the current exchange rates for the yen, mark, etc. at least once a day, preferrably every other 15 minutes? http://www.faqts.com/knowledge-base/view.phtml/aid/4842 ------------------------------------------------------------- Fiona Czuczman ethan mindlace fremen, Loren Stafford, Peter Be It depends on where the exchange rates are. If you get them from a database, you can make zope display the current rates. If you get them from a web page, you can use the client feature of zope to go snarf the web page and then extract what you need (hope you have permission :) If some other mechanism can write them to a file, you can suck them up with an external method whenever someone asks for it. ------- For doing things periodically there's the ZScheduler product (http://www.zope.org/Members/lstaffor/ZScheduler) The product is in it's alpha development stage, but if you employ it cautiously, you may find that it works for you. For getting the exchange-rate data, it depends on where it's coming from. Give us some more details and perhaps we can help better. You might want to use ZClient (see the How-To at http://www.zope.org/Members/lstaffor/ZClientMethod) There's also the SiteSummary product (http://www.zope.org/Members/edmundd/SiteSummary/) If you don't have too much traffic on your site, you can let the "first user of the day" be responsible for triggering new values to a db/file using the ZopeTime function. Something like this maybe: IF (SELECT day FROM currencytable == ZopeTime(day)): SHOW FROM DB ELSE: START THE COLLECTORS SCRIPT AND PUT IN THESE VALUES IN THE DB ------------------------------------------------------------- Is there a way I can grab the time value on my current system that Zope is running on with a MILLISECOND precision? http://www.faqts.com/knowledge-base/view.phtml/aid/4964 ------------------------------------------------------------- Fiona Czuczman Shane Hathaway Works on 2.2.0: <dtml-var expr="_.DateTime().millis()"> ------------------------------------------------------------- I'm running ZOPE with administrator privileges, when I try to create any objects I get an error message. http://www.faqts.com/knowledge-base/view.phtml/aid/4968 ------------------------------------------------------------- Fiona Czuczman waldemar Error Message: Zope Error Zope has encountered an error while publishing this resource. Error Type: SuperCannotOwn Error Value: Objects cannot be owned by the superuser Answer: Read the error. You have to create another user besides the administrator, then logon as the new user and you can create objects. ## Edited Entries ############################################## ------------------------------------------------------------- I want to update from Zope 2.1.6 to 2.2.0. Is there a way to copy my contents to the new version or do I have to start from the beginning? http://www.faqts.com/knowledge-base/view.phtml/aid/4778 ------------------------------------------------------------- Fiona Czuczman ethan mindlace fremen two ways: 1. Copy your Data.fs from the var directory of the old zope into the new one. Remember that you need to have the right products installed. 2. Switch to INSTANCE_HOME usage, as explicated by Evan: http://www.zope.org/Members/4am/instancehome I add the steps of symlinking the software folder to something like zope_soft. This has the advantage that any further releases of zope, to upgrade you simply unpack and compile zope, then link it's folder to zope_soft, restart zope, and (more-or-less) viola! things work. ------------------------------------------------------------- Does Zope have a version that runs well with Windows 2000 server? http://www.faqts.com/knowledge-base/view.phtml/aid/3518 ------------------------------------------------------------- Fiona Czuczman, Gijs Reulen Wolfgang Strobl I haven't had any difficulties running 2.1.6 on Windows 2000, so far. I tried it on both Win2000 prof US and Win2000 Server Ger. Currently, July 17th 2000, there are some problems with running Zope 2.20: the database connections have permession errors. ------------------------------------------------------------- Is there documented anywhere, simple instructions for creating a full site search by keyword? http://www.faqts.com/knowledge-base/view.phtml/aid/4776 ------------------------------------------------------------- Fiona Czuczman ethan mindlace fremen You want the ZCatalog Howto: http://www.zope.org/Documentation/How-To/ZCatalogTutorial ------------------------------------------------------------- Using dtml how can I cat the values of parameters, all strings, in a form to another parameter in the same form? http://www.faqts.com/knowledge-base/view.phtml/aid/4775 ------------------------------------------------------------- Fiona Czuczman Aaron Williamson I tested using this: <dtml-call "REQUEST.set('foo','this is a string')"> <dtml-call "REQUEST.set('bar','so is this')"> <dtml-call "REQUEST.set('foobar',foo+bar)"> and it worked, so I guess you could just use <dtml-call "REQUEST.set('all_params', param1+param2+etc...> ------------------------------------------------------------- How to access methods or queries in the parent's parent's parent's subfolder? http://www.faqts.com/knowledge-base/view.phtml/aid/4780 ------------------------------------------------------------- Fiona Czuczman Chris McDonough Problem: Root -----Folder1 ----------Sub1 --------------My_Qry ----------Sub2 ---------------otherfolder --------------------How_to_access_My_Qry_from_Sub1???? is there <dtml-var parent.parent..... type thing??? or do you have to call the parentobject method and assign it to some object before getting to it? Solution: Try, <dtml-var "Sub1.My_Qry()"> If you need to pass arguments to My_Qry: <dtml-var "Sub1.My_Qry(arg1='val1', arg2='val2')">

1 0

mxODBC, ExtensionClass.Missing and Results puzzle???
by Jay, Dylan 24 Jul '00

24 Jul '00

I've compiled up a mxODBC DA for use under windows so that multi-threaded odbc drivers can be me used in a multi-threaded way. This works good so far except for one aspect. NULL values are being returned as "None" objects. This seems reasonable but it is not how ZODBC returns results. It will return a NULL as a "Missing" object (whatever that is?). I can't find any documentation to find out what this object is or means. My biggest problem is that the UserDB product doesn't like None objects being return for passwords. It seemed to handle the Missing objects fine. To add to the mystery I noticed that the result object returned by an sql method connected to first ZODBC and then ZmxODBC was of two different types. ZmxODBC was returning a ZRDB.Results object. ZODBC was returning a ZRDB.RDB.DatabaseResults object. The latter is apparently a "Class for reading RDB files" but as this is the only documentation I can find I have no idea how it differs from the ZRDB.Results class or rather why ZODBC returns it and thus has NULL's replaced Missing objects. Can anyone shed any light on any of this? ---- Dylan Jay mailto:djay@avaya.com Avaya Communication Tel: +61 2 9886-8961 Level 5, 15 Talavera Road FAX: +61 2 9352 9224 Nth Ryde NSW 2113 Mobile:+61 409 606 171 AUSTRALIA ICQ: 520341

1 0