Hi, I'm new to the list; I've been using Zope for various functions internal to my company for the last few months. I work for a digital asset management company, and I've been considering using Zope to develop a web-based replacement for some desktop digital asset management software that my development team produces. I have a few questions for those who feel that they might be able to provide some advise on possibly porting the application to Zope. There are two scenarios for porting of such an application, likely the first followed later by the second. Sorry, this is somewhat long... ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Scenario 1 - Use Zope for Content Repository Backend for our existing repurposing software First, we work with an XML DTD developed as an open standard in our industry (publishing). Our current product uses this data format internally, and exports (repurposes) the content to non-XML formats for use in various repositories, including Nextpage (formerly Open Market) Folio products (for searching), as well as other proprietary (industry-specific) databases. So my first question is how Zope would/could work as an additional repository that our current Windows based application could export it's data to? In other words, I am wondering if it is practical/possible to export data (via some protocol) from a proprietary app into Zope via http. The data is all text/xml and would potentially require some attached binary files (such as images, PDFs). The goal would be to use a ZCatalog to make the data searchable. -What approaches could be used to upload the data into Zope objects? Our program is already designed to do FTP uploads already, which seems like the preferred route to get the data into Zope, but then what? -Can the XMLDocument product be used for automated uploads to Zope? -How practical is this if we are dealing with searching several gigabytes of information at once? -I know that ZCatalog now has relevancy ranking, which is an important feature - what other features are planned for addition in the near future? -In terms of creating a portal product, could content be sorted into folders based upon certain metadata in the XML tags? -Also, how fast (for anyone who might know) would this be in comparison to using a Folio infobase in Folio Views (or LivePublish)? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Scenario 2 - Post a Windows-based desktop Digital Asset Management app to Zope I've been thinking that our exiting product would be better geared as a web application running on a server that is more tightly controlled than a desktop, or traditional client-server app. With this in mind, I was thinking that Zope might be appropriate. The only 2 drawbacks that I can think of are: -first, that HTML forms present user interface problems for one (and only one) component of our system, where lots of user input is required. If this was to be a web application, I would want this one step in the workflow of the product to be running as a Java applet (DHTML, forms, etc aren't enough :( ). How would one get a Java applet to repost data to Zope objects. I assume that one would simply use http from within the applet - simple enough, but what if the content is stored in XML using the XMLDocument product? Is the XML read only? How would one create a front end for fielded modification (like a database form) of XML in Zope. If such functionality doesn't exist within the XMLDocument or other products, how easy would it be to modify such products to add the ability to modify the data. I don't even care if the XML is reverse engineered (imported) into Zope objects, and re-exported to the same XML DTD - the only thing is that the data should only be value added; it cannot lose ANY of it's content along its lifespan. Any thoughts? -secondly, interfacing with legacy code, which is written primarily in ANSI C using LEX, that reformats text to and from hundreds of different formats (text filters). I would prefer to write this part as a separate server component that the interface/storage layer (Zope) could communicate with. How practical would it be to use XML-RPC (in its current incarnation in Zope) for such a beast? I don't have anything more than a surface understanding of the protocol. I prefer to write such a server in perl or lex/c, given my comfort level with those for text processing. Or, if that wouldn't work, I could always write a Python module interfacing to the code. Any advise in this matter is appreciated... I've been working on my own embedded XML-based DBMS server outside of my employment, which prompts me to think that perhaps if the above is not practical, I could always write a DA and use Zope as middleware to such a database, but I would prefer to keep the data in the Zope object-store... ---------- Sorry if I am showing my ignorance here; my experience with Zope primarily scratches the surface of its capabilities and features. Answers to these questions are really appreciated in helping me make design decisions. If certain functionality needed is missing, but someone sees easy and practical ways to add it, I guess I could always contribute to the development of other products (or contract needed changes out) that would make my life easier for such a product... I really like Zope for what I have used it for already, but I'm wondering how I could make it work for this larger problem. Any advise on the use of Zope for either scenario above (or both) would be really appreciated. Such advise might be helpful in determining if our company should use Zope for some of our core products; I will be out of town until Tuesday afternoon, but any replies to the list or backchanneled to me would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Sean Upton The Salt Lake Tribune / Tribune Solutions Office: (801) 257-8816 - sean@sltrib.com (work) Mobile: (801) 918-7490 - sean.upton@m.cc.utah.edu (personal mailbox)