Jeff> I am working on a web site for a local outdoors Jeff> group. They have about 1,000 members and are Jeff> growing fast, but their web site needs help. I had Jeff> lunch with their leader today, and strongly Jeff> advocated the use of Zope to redo their entire web Jeff> site. He loved my ideas, and gave me the go ahead Jeff> on the site. Cool. Sounds like a very good fit for Zope. Jeff> Now, my first question (I'm sure I'll have many) Jeff> to the group is: How do I create user profiles? Jeff> Each user of the system needs to have specific Jeff> information associated with them including: full Jeff> name, address, telephone numbers, a picture (gif Jeff> or jpeg, easily uploadable by the user), their Jeff> interests, a history of the events they've Jeff> sponsored and/or attended, a buddy list (basically Jeff> just a collection of other member ids), and so on. There are many ways to do this, as you might imagine given that Zope is a fully programmable environment. One such way was done by Andy Smith (cc'ed on this reply) in building an "alumni community site" for our (Andy and my) old department. The site is http://www.ged.org. Unfortunately, you won't be able to see much, as it's a password protected site for members (there are two public pages). However, on one of the public pages, you will note that it was the intention all along to publish the source to the site for the Zope Community at large. As functional as the site is already, I think Andy had some very cool extensions in mind before opening it up to the public. Still, he can easily ship you the GEDUserFolder that he built to keep track of everyone's contact info (easily extendible to all of the fields you have in mind). As a user of the site, I can assure you that it's a breeze to use! Perhaps, this will also be incentive enough for Andy to polish off some of his other goodies and release them :-) Jeff> I have downloaded the UserDb product, and figure I Jeff> might be able to extend it to support the extra Jeff> columns I require. However, a big part of me wants Jeff> to keep as much of this in Zope as I can. I like Jeff> the idea of the objectstore, and don't necessarily Jeff> like having to fudge SQL tables every time I add Jeff> or remove an attribute from the profiles (not that Jeff> I will be doing that, necessarily). Andy's stuff above is all kept in the Zope DB :-) Jeff> What do those with a higher Zope Zen Rating than I Jeff> suggest in this situation? I'm also going to be Jeff> making an Events Calendar, which is connected up Jeff> with all the User information (who's running the Jeff> event, who's signed up to attend, etc.). Is all of Jeff> this something that Tabula would be good for? If Jeff> so, who do I have to sleep with to get it? :^) Tablua, what's that? Just kidding, it's now called Z Tables :-). For the moment, we are actively selling (without actively promoting) Z Tables. While you get the source, it is _not_ an Open Source product. The license does not permit redistribution of any kind, and does not permit derivative works, etc. It does, however, permit you to use it to operate any kind of website, including a publicly accessible one, etc... The price is dirt cheap for the functionality (IMHO). The license also has a clause that specifically permits Digital Creations to eventually release Z Tables as Open Source(tm). Meaning, when we're ready to release it, don't be mad that you paid for it when others get it for free... This is important, because it is our intention that over time, the vast majority of our stuff will be Open Source! So, why do we charge now? A few reasons: 1) The docs are really weak. Rather than get beat up in public for it, we have a license clause that forces you to acknowledge that the docs are weak, and that you need to be able to read source to really understand the full power. 2) Support. Everything that we put out there causes a certain amount of extra work. The more sophisticated the code, the more work. Z Tables is _hot_, so if it were out there in its current form, everyone would want to use it (trust me on this one!), so it would become a support burden for us. Pay us for the product, and it's worth our while to support you! 3) Before putting out something to the world, we really want to make sure it's been beat up. It may sound strange that we would charge people to help us turn something into a polished product, but it's already powerful enough to solve real problems, so motivated users are our best bet to help us achieve our goals for a more general release. See some earlier posts from people who have recently gotten Z Tables! For example, check out a recent "performance-oriented" post by Theodore Patrick of Indigo Networks!!! Jeff> I am willing to write up a case study, Jeff> testimonial, contribute any code I write back to Jeff> the community, etc., whatever is requested. I just Jeff> want to do a good job for these guys, making Jeff> myself and Zope look good in the process. Wonderful. Jeff> HELP! *grin* I hope this helped at least a little... Jeff> Jeff K. Hoffman Hadar