"Jay, Dylan" wrote:
What many people forget here is that Zope is a Web Application Platform. It is, first and foremost, designed as a framework for applications.
All the DTML Methods and Folder objects and whatnot, are standard objects to help you design an interface, they are part of and build upon the Zope framework. Together with the ZODB, security, the web interface, the marshalling of variable types and RDBMS integration, Zope makes one heck of a Web Application Platform.
Zope was designed for Web Application Developers, not designers. The documentation follows this design. I actually feel that dummies should stay away from Zope. Frontpage is for dummies.
I disagree. I believe the ideal place Zope could end up is as being something that was as simple to use as frontpage and as powerful as ... well as it already is. I'm not saying that the "simpler" users should be able to as powerfull things as "programmer" type users can but it should not be unaccessable to them. They should be able to edit and add basic documents. I don't want to be the only one who does all the editing of documents with zope.
Having been playing with Zope for some time now, I know Zope is amazingly customizable! With that customizability comes the huge requirement, right now, to set up the framework/structure that you will use to build your web site with. (The ZPT might make this easy to setup but will never be a complete solution, someone correct me if I'm wrong). A well thought out design and implementation might provide management interfaces that would go as far as displaying the structure of the layout with direct links to edit content. (this could be done right now and is how i'm currently building my framework). The best idea I've seen on in this thread is the Mozilla editor. I'll be studying the xul and other stuff as I have time too. I already downloaded Mozilla once but never looked at how it could be extended. Maybe a soon to be created Zope project will make it as easy as Frontpage to work with content. But most of the structure/framewok will have to be implemented on a higher level. The best part about Zope that I've seen so far is its not complete and is being added to constantly.
I think the solution I suggested with embedding the DTML inside an expanded (rendered?) document is very workable. It would allow a novice user to edit a DTML document that is potentially in many parts without destroying the DTML.
This sounds like another possible solution for transferring the content between the web interface and (insert your favorite editor here). Something that will no doubt be used if available. (Might be workable for the current level stuff, mainly content and properties) Keep the ideas coming :) David, tone..
_______________________________________________ Zope-Dev maillist - Zope-Dev@zope.org http://www.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-dev
(To receive general Zope announcements, see: http://www.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-announce
For non-developer, user-level issues, zope@zope.org, http://www.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope )