- Zope - Zope lists

Re: [Zope] More WebDAV fun.
by Oliver Bleutgen 09 Apr '01

09 Apr '01

>> It doesn't. But one of the reasons that it doesn't is that a DTML Method >> can actually impersonate a lot of things, just by having the first line >> being: >> >> Content-type: application/x-msword > I just tried that on Zope 2.3.1b1 and it doesn't work :-( > That text just gets stuck at the top of the output... > Any ideas? <dtml-call "REQUEST.set('Content-Type','application/x-msword')"> ? cheers, oliver

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<dtml-call > Problems
by Karl Munroe 09 Apr '01

09 Apr '01

I have this code segment in a dtml method: <dtml-call "RESPONSE.redirect(URL1+'/MathodName?var1='+var1val+'&var2='+var2val+'&var3= '+var3val)"> It seems as if I am doing something wrong. I get the the following error message : Zope has encountered an error while publishing this resource. Error Type: TypeError Error Value: illegal argument type for built-in operation I have tried the above code before many times and it worked. If I remove var3 from the redirect string everything goes fine. Is there a limit to the number of variables you can pass in the query string section of the URL? Thanks in advance Karl

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Objects, Roles and Permissions
by Danny William Adair 09 Apr '01

09 Apr '01

Hello warriors, what's the fastest way to find out whether a specific role has a specific permission on a specific object? What's the fastest way to find out if it's acquired? Even more interesting: How would I find out whether a specific role has a specific permission on a specific object, _taking_acquired_rights_into_account_??? In other words (management screen): "View" permission is not checked for the Anonymous role, but acquired. Therefore the "Anonymous" role maybe _does_ have the permission to "View" this object, through acquisition. Would I have to climb up the ladder manually and check every parent until acquisition has been "turned off", or is there some function - even if it's only available for an external method - that already does this work? I looked through the ZMI pages (and the .py's under "lib/python/AccessControl") but couldn't find anything useful for this purpose. Iterating through permission_settings takes too long and I don't know how to access the specific roles/permissions directly (by name), mainly because mapping constructions like "p199r0" are not very handy... Thank you very much in advance for your help (dtml, pyhton, or docs I didn't see), Danny

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Re: [Zope] how to display hex data ?
by Dieter Maurer 09 Apr '01

09 Apr '01

Jose Soares writes: > OID DISTRETTO > ================ ========= > a200000002000100 I10500 > > but Zope display it as: > > OID DISTRETTO > ------------------------- > ¢ I10500 Apparently, your database does not send the OID as a hexadecimal string but as a binary string. You could convert the binary string into a hexadecimal string in an External Method: from string import join def convertBinaryToHexString(binstring): return join(map(lambda c: '%x' % ord(c), binstring), '') Dieter

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ZPT and ZSQL Methods
by Michael Lausch 09 Apr '01

09 Apr '01

I have been unable to use ZSQL methods in ZPT. 1) How do i pass a dtml-sqlvar to the ZSQL method? 2) when i try to use the ZSQL method in a tal:repeat element, i get a AttributeError: __getitem__ Exception. I assume tal:repeat uses the __getitem__ operator of the python object to do the iteration. ZPT is great. good job done and it makes development a lot faster because one person can edit the HTML pages, while the other fills the pages with content. And the rules for TALES are much cleaner and easier to understand than the rules for DTML.

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RE: Apache virtual host combined with Zope
by Vishnu Prasad 09 Apr '01

09 Apr '01

Patrick It works fine for me with SiteRoot and ProxyPass directives. You may go through this link: http://www.zope.org/Members/anser/apache_zserver Actually, there are two paths to be specified in the ProxyPass directives. eg. ProxyPass /Zope/ http://my.ip.he.re:8080/ ProxyPassReverse /Zope/ http://my.ip.he.re:8080/ Also add ProxyPass for /p_ and /misc_ as specified in the link. In the above example, /Zope/ is only a visible path not an exact folder. The ip address:8080 will be passed to this location. You may call this with any name you wish instead of /Zope/ Now, go to zope management folder and in the root, you need to add a site root with following details Base URL: http://my.ip.he.re:8080/Zope Path: / This will support root all folders below that. So, whenever you need to access, for instance siteone and sitetwo all that you need to specify is: siteone URL: http://my.ip.he.re/Zope/hostone/manage sitetwo URL: http://my.ip.he.re/Zope/hostwo/manage hope this clarifies. all the best!!! vishnu __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail. http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/

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AccessControl/Role.py -> manage_access breaks (security/Roles) in ZOPE 2.3.1b3
by Marcus Schopen 09 Apr '01

09 Apr '01

Hi, can't manage security and roles in Zope's root folder any more. I'm not sure if this error came up with upgrading from stable 2.3.1 to 2.3.1b3. System: Zope Version Zope 2.3.1b3 (binary release, python 1.5.2, linux2-x86) Python Version 1.5.2 (#10, Dec 6 1999, 12:16:27) [GCC 2.7.2.3] System Platform linux2 (Debian) When clicking on 'security' button in the root folder I get the following error. Thank you Marcus Traceback (innermost last): File /home/zope/Zope/lib/python/ZPublisher/Publish.py, line 223, in publish_module File /home/zope/Zope/lib/python/ZPublisher/Publish.py, line 187, in publish File /home/zope/Zope-2.3.0-linux2-x86/lib/python/Zope/__init__.py, line 221, in zpublisher_exception_hook (Object: ApplicationDefaultPermissions) File /home/zope/Zope/lib/python/ZPublisher/Publish.py, line 171, in publish File /home/zope/Zope-2.3.0-linux2-x86/lib/python/ZPublisher/mapply.py, line 160, in mapply (Object: manage_access) File /home/zope/Zope/lib/python/ZPublisher/Publish.py, line 112, in call_object (Object: manage_access) File /home/zope/Zope-2.3.0-linux2-x86/lib/python/AccessControl/Role.py, line 258, in manage_access (Object: ApplicationDefaultPermissions) File /home/zope/Zope-2.3.0-linux2-x86/lib/python/Shared/DC/Scripts/Bindings.py, line 324, in __call__ (Object: _normal_manage_access) File /home/zope/Zope-2.3.0-linux2-x86/lib/python/Shared/DC/Scripts/Bindings.py, line 353, in _bindAndExec (Object: _normal_manage_access) File /home/zope/Zope-2.3.0-linux2-x86/lib/python/App/special_dtml.py, line 236, in _exec (Object: _normal_manage_access) File /home/zope/Zope-2.3.0-linux2-x86/lib/python/DocumentTemplate/DT_With.py, line 146, in render (Object: _.namespace(valid_roles=valid_roles())) File /home/zope/Zope/lib/python/DocumentTemplate/DT_In.py, line 646, in renderwob (Object: permission_settings) File /home/zope/Zope-2.3.0-linux2-x86/lib/python/AccessControl/Role.py, line 182, in permission_settings (Object: ApplicationDefaultPermissions) File /home/zope/Zope-2.3.0-linux2-x86/lib/python/AccessControl/Role.py, line 177, in <lambda> TypeError: (see above) -- _____________________________________ (0> Marcus Schopen //\ Bielefeld, Germany V_/_ _____________________________________

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Re: [Zope] Zope in academic/educational/scientific environments (important)
by Joe Nicholls 09 Apr '01

09 Apr '01

Forgive me, a long post Im afraid, but I dont get the opportunity to reply on this list to something I know a little about. I could have just sent this to Henny, but hopefully it will be of interest to others. The Learning Technology group at the University of Wales College of Medicine (UWCM) has been developing with Zope since early 1999. I work with Phil Harris the principal Zope aficionado amongst us. I sit between him and the rest of the College. So, I know less about Zope and more about the organisational / educational issues. We're in exactly the same position as yourself Henny. We've been fighting the battle for quite some time. However, I don't believe the basic argument/philosophy is tied up with any specific technology as such. There are two parts to your case - first, why you should design and develop in-house as opposed to acquiring an off-the-shelf (commercial) solution?; second, why you should use Zope as opposed to any other technology? my contribution is more on the former. Senior management and most educators for that matter still have a poor understanding of the potential role of technology in education. This is even worse when considering the complexities of delivering an all embracing online learning environment. A much more holistic strategic view is required that recognises the emergent functions and facilities of integrating across all institutional information systems library, administration, web site, and learning/teaching technologies. Somehow this has to be communicated to senior management, and that it will only be realised by developing in-house. An off-the-shelf product is unlikely to provide a good fit and will require an organisation to change similar to the arguments over CMSs. The case for designing and developing in-house is clear if the significance of coupling educational theory with technology development is recognised. Technology is not the problem, as Phil is fond of saying - *anything can be done it's just a matter of time* - that bit is under our control. People are the challenge - politics and change management are the real issues - in this respect evolution is better than revolution. But the impetus has ultimately got to be from the top down senior management must drive it forward. A key part of the problem is that there is still poor understanding of what constitutes a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) or Managed Learning Environment (MLE), or what it should do. The majority of commercial (and academic) offerings provide little more than packaged CMS/Groupware solutions. Although these are necessary pre-requisites to building an online environment for learning, theres not much inherently in CMS/Groupware that directly promotes learning they just provide some of the tools. >From senior managements perspective, the commercial option provides immediate gratification. Many organisations are feeling the pressure to *be seen to be doing*. By buying into a recognised brand, e.g., Blackboard or WebCT, the VLE/MLE requirement can be ticked off the list the question is, what then? A home grown approach probably wont initially deliver as much, or as quickly but it is more likely to tackle real needs. More attention should be given to longer term strategic planning, perhaps with emphasis on producing something that is distinctive and which sets the institution apart from those that are buying the commercial offerings. Management, for some reason, judge an in-house approach as being more risky than a commercial solution. Which is a little strange, given how competitive and volatile the market is in this area. There are no guarantees that any of these companies will be around in 3-5 years. We are already witnessing mergers and odd alliances between companies, e.g., SCT, Campus Pipeline and WebCT. Theres a much greater chance of long-term viability if open source and open standards are adopted the problem is communicating this to senior management who havent a clue about what this means! In our experience only concrete examples seem to have any impact. They need to see examples that are relevant and meaningful to their needs. An in-house approach does mean reliance on technical specialists. But this is no different to other areas of the organisation, e.g., network infrastructure and administrative systems. It is a false belief that there is greater dependence on technical experts for in-house development this ignores the fact that specialist maintenance/support will be required for any kind of solution (commercial or not). Labour costs probably dont work out much different either way. Commercial companies can only afford to engineer a common denominator they have to try and keep all their customers satisfied. Tailored development to meet specific needs will only be done on a consultancy basis. The turn-around time for innovation will be much quicker if done in-house. Long term consultancy will prove costly (why not invest this internally?). Dangerously, institutions who go down this route will become increasingly dependent on the third party for what is their principal business - *education*. In addition, will there be an easy get out which allows transfer to alternative solution? Innovation in learning technologies is more likely to occur when technologists work day-to-day with learners and teachers in real settings. Youre also more likely to build something that meets the needs of your institution. Whatever solution is chosen establishing OWNERSHIP and CONTROL is crucial! i.e., complete access to source and the freedom to do what you want with it. But this wont be any good unless development is driven by educational need and that depends on having teams of technologist working with educators In my opinion, that should be THE strong argument for in-house development. Another advantage of the in-house approach is that the basic CMS/Groupware functionality is just as applicable to research and administration. Much of what is engineered for educational purposes is applicable elsewhere in the organisation there must be cost savings there somewhere! Thats where we ve directed much of our initial development effort - producing generic and transferable solutions, e.g., MS Word document upload and on-the-fly conversion to XML then HTML/PDF We thought management/administration would jump up and down over this, but theyve been slow to capitalise on it. More eyes might light up when its combined with a through-the-browser XML editor. After working with Zope for over 2 years, we are more than convinced it is the design/development environment of choice were not saying it will necessarily be that way forever. But at least it also gives us the ability to move on if it should ever happen but I dont think we will need to somehow :-) There are others on this list who can better rehearse the technical arguments for using Zope as opposed to any other development environment its also well document elsewhere on Zope.org. Personally, I dont believe any of the current VLE/MLE products will come anywhere near to what will ultimately be achieved through Zope. Weve only just begun to scratch its potential in terms of modelling the relationships between people, resources, tools and events there are amazing possibilities. As far as online learning environments are concerned - we feel the focus is shifting from a centralised institutional model to more individualised information environments, which are personal, private, and highly configurable These will be used by people to support their learning, research, management, teaching, and many other aspects of their lives what s more, individuals will have ownership and control of the technology as well as the content. Open standards, open source - Zope coupled with XML and XML-RPC/SOAP is going to be very special! Cheers, Joe Nicholls.

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[ ANN ] LDAPLoginAdapter 1.2 released
by Jens Vagelpohl 09 Apr '01

09 Apr '01

LDAPLoginAdapter 1.2, a user folder replacement that authenticates against an LDAP server, has been released. You can view some of the documentation and download the software at http://www.dataflake.org/software/ldaploginadapter. A Tracker at that same address allows you to easily file bug reports or feature requests for this product. Improvements and bugfixes since release 1.2beta1 (the last time a news release was posted) include: LDAPLoginAdapter 1.2 Bugs fixed: * Added a missing comma in __ac_permissions__ that broke changing roles via the "Security" tab on the LDAPLoginAdapter... * Completely revamped the exception handling in authenticate so that there will always be a (hopefully) helpful output in the log * authenticate had an exeption handler that would try and use a variable left uninitialized when the exception was thrown. LDAPLoginAdapter 1.2beta3 Bugs fixed: * The methods that manipulate the publicly available user object attributes now make sure to flush the cache of user objects and force all of them to be recreated, thereby making the changes "grab" immediately and not just whenever the user object expires all by itself and gets recreated. LDAPLoginAdapter 1.2beta2 Features Added: * A new management tab called "LDAP Schema" allows the manager to enter or delete attributes that describe the LDAP schema used for the LDAP user records. This completely replaces the misleading "Allowable User Attributes" found on the Advanced tab which had been abused to find out more about the LDAP schema in use. All select lists that list LDAP attributes are now driven by the attributes that are shown on the LDAP Schema tab. Features deprecated: * The "Special Users" and "Special User Roles" feature has been deprecated. I considered it a kludge in cases where you cannot set your LDAP schema correctly. With the advent of the LDAPUserManager product it has become trivially easy to add users and groups. This is the much preferred way of conferring roles to users. Bugs fixed: * Mishandled the loop to delete the public attribute mappings in manage_deletePublicUserAttrs which caused index errors * Default handling of method calls through the web or from python was inconsistent in regards to what to return and what to expect. All method signatures that might expect REQUEST now set it to a default value of None and in the method body test to see if it is None. This improves the use of methods from python where no REQUEST is guaranteed. * Change capitalization of manage_AddPublicUserAttrs to bring it in line with the normally used capitalization scheme * Renamed "Contents" tab to "Custom Forms" to clear up the meaning of this tab

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textarea editing alternatives
by Alex Verstraeten 08 Apr '01

08 Apr '01

I'm on the long quest to find a nice way to work with zope. the alternatives are webdav, ftp and the built-in web management screens WebDAV and FTP has the same problems: no syntax checking support on 'save' , no versioning support, no way to create a non dtml-document object, not all editors have built-in ftp support, so you have to mount ftp as a filesystem or use some tools to handle that.. Web manage: it's full featured, has all the things you need from zope, except that you have to deal with an ugly textarea editing. (or copy/paste to your fav editor) what I need is a way to work with version support, to create any kind of objects with *ANY* editor I want. What I've found so far is: lynx -editor=/usr/bin/vim and then ctrl-x e on the textarea to launch vim, this is great.. but lynx is kinda ugly to work with.. So I've tried w3m.. much better layout, with prefered editor support on textareas, but still, has some ugly issues, like not redirecting to the correct url's on the links.. so you have to Umanage_main after each click. Is there any other browser (x based if possible) besides w3m and lynx that support textarea editing using your prefered editor? I just dont find comfortable to create the objects via web and editing them via ftp/dav it's just too annoying. do I have any other alternatives ? thanks Alex

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