FWIW, after messing around for several hours trying to diagnose this, the problem mysteriously went away. (I uninstalled another version of Python and its extensions, reinstalled them, ran Zope inside Pdb -- and things started working. Got out of Pdb, restarted, and things continued to work. No clue as to why things were consistently hanging before.)

While I expect to eventually be working under Unix (once I can convince my hosting provider to install Zope), at present I'm trying to use Zope under Windows 98.

The problem is: it's not working.

I'm using the Zope HTTP server, and I can contact the management system just fine, a prowl around looking at everything. But if I try to add an object (whether it be a DTML Document, a Folder, or an "Item" from the sample_product package (which I installed), what happens is:

I am allowed to fill out the form where you enter object creation fields (ID, title, etc.), but when I send that form the HTTP server never returns.

Any clues as to how to fix this, or debug it, or get any idea as to what is happening?