Why does the "Distribution" tab dissapear when a Product is "installed"? (I think) This makes it difficult to manage products-- if I am working on a project and I want to move it to another Zope installation and then continue to work on it and distribute it again, how can I do this when the Distribution tab is not available? Can I just tar.gz what's in my Products directory? Or do I have to use the distibution tab?
"Installed" products are products that are written purely in Python - they are either included with Zope or are packaged as a tgz file that installs a package into lib/python/Products. "Through the web" products are built throught the web and are stored in the Zope database. To move an "installed" product from site to site, you just copy the product distribution (.tgz file ) to the new site and unpack it. Because "installed" products have no state stored in the Zope ODB, they do not have a distribution tab. "Through the web" products allow you to create a product distribution (tgz file) that, once installed, brings the persistent state of the product into the ODB at restart when you install it on a different site. The "distribution" tab basically creates an installable snapshot of your through-the-web product. Hope this helps! Brian Lloyd brian@digicool.com Software Engineer 540.371.6909 Digital Creations http://www.digicool.com