David:
I've noticed that I can FTP DTML methods and documents between Zope and emacs, but not other types of objects, as SQL methods. emacs complains that the file exists, but can't be read, which is born out by the fact that the emacs 'dired' listing shows no rwx permissions at all set for these types of objects. Any explanation for this behavior?
Sure, there's an explanation! :^) Each type of object needs to know (i.e., be told) what its behavior under ftp is. Check lib/python/OFS/FTPInterface.py and lib/python/OFS/DTMLMethod.py for a simple example. For DTML docs/methods this is relatively straightforward since the apparent filename is the id and the content is the file. However, other Zope objects have more complex metadata (e.g., ZSQL Methods). Exactly how that metadata (e.g., argument list, database connection, etc) should be represented to a low-tech ftp client is not clear. Additional questions about the target client for this capability also come to mind. In the next few weeks we will start iteratively publishing a roadmap for Zope's mid-term future. I suspect that improved FTP integration will be included. I also suspect that there will be an RFC on much of the roadmap. A note to the list, please save your comments for now, we are still recovering from the Z2 push and we aren't ready to capture comments as yet. --Rob