Joe Van Andel asked the following question:
I'm not quite clear on how Z-Tables will be used for CoolFAQ. Is each Q&A going to be stored in an entry in the Z-Table? How do you plan to represent the "natural" outline structure that most FAQs would want: Topic 1 Q1.1 Q1.2 Subtopic a Q1.2.1 Subtopic b Topic 2 Q2.1 Q2.2
Z Tables has quite an interesting capability in that in can create and manage multi-level indices on the data. We call these Hierarchies for obvious reasons. It comes from a very early experience in needing to allow users to browse large numbers of automotive advertisements. We could store the ads in one database (the grand dad of ZTables) and create several Hierarchies. For example, you might want to browse starting my price: Price Band Make Model or maybe you were Make drive: Make Model Price Band Sooo, one might create some fields to store the FAQ's placement and then create Hierarchy indices on those columns. An added bonus is that "flat" searching (e.g., Make=Chevrolet) will use the index data structures created by either of the Hierarchies above.
I leave the floor to Martijn Pieters, our Z Tables advocate, or anyone else who wants to answer. This'll help me increase my Z Tables Zen too. :)
Well, Z Tables is supposed to be an SQL database on top of Zope, right?
No... I'll ask Jim Fulton to chime in here a little bit...
http://www.sths.org/genus/uber/renderall
is the address of a page I am currently working on. It should look something like
Animalia - Kingdom CHORDATA - Phylum UROCHORDATA - Subphylum VERTEBRATA - Subphylum MAMMALIA - Class EUTHERIA - Subclass PRIMATES - Order ANTHROPOIDEA - Suborder HOMINOIDEA - Superfamily HOMINIDAE - Family
Well, I'll go out on a limb here and suggest that ZTables might not be the best choice if your needs are for an arbitrary hierarchy. I'll also ask for Jim's technical reasoning to either support or discard my recommendation... <SNIP> --Rob