Greetings Java Man! I've chopped the message down to the few points that I am commenting to:
Can I convert an Excel sheet to read into Zope?
Don't know, but search the Internet, and I'm sure you'll find something about it.
You definitely have options here, there are Zope Products (add-on applications and modules) that you can work with. You can browse through a huge listing at: http://www.zope.org/Products/
How can I program for Zope without being restricted by its Web interface (I am using eclipse for Java development and that is much different from hacking little bits of code in various Web forms)?
Look into Zope Products, written in Python. See http://zope.org/Documentation/Books/ZopeBook/2_6Edition/CustomZopeObjects.st...
I think you're asking about the development environment, no? I use WebDAV and FTP to access the files from Zope, and a local editor (in my case, Anjuta on linux). With WebDAV you can pretty much 'mount' the ZODB like a filesystem, and edit with whatever tools you prefer.
What would you suggest for a good solution and how do I learn the required skills in the shortest amount of time?
Best Python book I know: "Python: Visual QuickStart Guide" from Peachpit Press. Instant answers to your questions.
Interesting book, I'll take a look just out of curiosity. I'm a huge fan on Plone, an out-of-the-box portal for Zope. Integrate the Epoz graphical content editor, and you have one easy to use system. I had a 40-something attorney publishing on his own website within 5 minutes, no documentation provided. No HTML or programming knowledge needed, for him it looks just like Word. Plone: http://www.plone.org/ Epoz: http://zope.org/Members/mjablonski/Epoz
Are there good comprehensive examples to look at? It seems that I learn best from looking at other people's code.
Zope is open source, so you can examine every line of code. Zope.org provides custom products others have written, which are also all open source.
Again, the Plone community is very helpful, and the code is there for your examination. Sometimes it is easier to look at what others do...
(*) This is about pieces of old music that are played in various instrumental settings. One query is to search for combinations of pieces with a given set of instruments in order to prepare for a concert. The interface needs to be easy to handle and avoid re-entering the same information more than once (e.g. a composer or publisher). Therefore, I foresee that comboboxes are used a lot for selecting previously entered values/objects. The application first used on a personal workstation, but may be made available for multi-user access (eventually contributions) on the Web later on.
One good place to look at is Archetypes: http://sourceforge.net/projects/archetypes Archetypes lets you create your own custom content types. This would go a long way for you to have easy-to-edit forms for data entry as well as maintenance, and also simplifies your efforts at displaying lists and sorting them for the website. Hope this helps, -- Mitch