Newbiw: How to use Zope for simple CMS sharing docs (word,etc) and
Dear Zopers, have installed Zope and even plone (great UI!), am technically capable but new to Zope/Python. I was hoping to get the above subject up and running with minimum effort but am stuck - here my "requirements" - any and all suggestions on how to implement these (with min programming) welcome: * Simple CMS portal for sharing files (word docs, ppt,etc) * Ability to categorize" files into "folders" (like "designdoc", "customerdoc",etc) * Easy mechanism for uploading/downloading files (somehow explorer like woul be great) * Simple discussion forum/news section * User management (site only accessible to registered users) Nice2Have: * Versioning of files - at minimum some method of notifying that one member is currently updating a file.. * Use filesystem (and NOT ZODB) for storage of all files * I am the opinion that Zope can do most (all) of this but need pointers to where to start and/or if anybody out there has some pre-packaged solution.. Thanks, Niels _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com
Am Die, 2002-08-27 um 20.57 schrieb Niels Petersen: 4 options: ;) a) use a standard zope, design some security roles and use the management interface to upload files. b) use CMF, let the users have their own user directories. Afterwards create some custom datatypes (ZClasses or perhaps even Python), and use ZCatalog to navigate it. Let people put a document in their home directory, label it with keywords like "customerdoc cust10034", and voila you can just query the ZCatalog for documents refering to customers in general, to specific customers, etc. c) use just some parts of Zope like ZPublisher and roll it on your own. d) create a new "user oriented" management interface. The problems that you probably will have, is that with the exception of c) all solutions tend to store the information in the ZODB. Moving the files outside to a filesystem is either more work, or doesn't make sense or both :) [With b) documents do not a "logical" place because the Folders are generated on the fly.] For an example how ZCatalog can be used for navigation, see the download area of Zope.org.
Dear Zopers,
have installed Zope and even plone (great UI!), am technically capable but new to Zope/Python.
I was hoping to get the above subject up and running with minimum effort but am stuck - here my "requirements" - any and all suggestions on how to implement these (with min programming) welcome:
* Simple CMS portal for sharing files (word docs, ppt,etc) Well, for Zope this are just binary Files with some MIME type attached, ... * Ability to categorize" files into "folders" (like "designdoc", "customerdoc",etc) Either use something Folderish (Folder, OrderedFolder, ...) or go with "logical" Folders with ZCatalog. * Easy mechanism for uploading/downloading files (somehow explorer like woul be great) Well, look at the management interface. You probably will not get anything easier. Depending upon your server platform, You probably could design a FTP/WEBDAV/SMB interface where the storage acts as a kind of network drive, and people can just drag their files to it, ...
* Simple discussion forum/news section Look at the Products at zope.org * User management (site only accessible to registered users) Builtin.
Nice2Have: * Versioning of files - at minimum some method of notifying that one member is currently updating a file.. ZODB support versioning by default. * Use filesystem (and NOT ZODB) for storage of all files Well, you could do that, but you might loose some interesting features. Like ACID transactions, Undo of older uploads, etc. *
I am the opinion that Zope can do most (all) of this but need pointers to where to start and/or if anybody out there has some pre-packaged solution.. Probably.
You should just look what EXACTLY you want. In the most trivial cases, Zope just as it comes, with modification of 2 methods, adding an index_html might do what you want it to do. Andreas
Niels Petersen wrote:
* Simple CMS portal for sharing files (word docs, ppt,etc) * Ability to categorize" files into "folders" (like "designdoc", "customerdoc",etc)
Hi Niels You are fighting an uphill battle there. The CMS is designed like a traditional Unix filesystem where you have a /home directory which contains all the user. Only in the CMF it is called /users. This is done because Zope's security mechanism is especially good at handling this structure. Every user then has a directory in which to put any type of objects. Just like a directy on a Unix machine. Naturally this gives a hodgepot of places where content can be placed. It has the advantage that each user has a great flexibility in how to place content, but makes it difficult for several users to share a piece of content. If you then want to show a list of similar content from all the users you do it by making a query in the catalog that can then be shown on a single page. You could say that the catalog can do the functional equivalent of:: 'SELECT * FROM Catalog WHERE meta_type="news_article"' ( Btw. why doesn't this exist ... that would be neat ;-) ) So while Zope can be used the way you want to it would be futile to use the CMF that way. Either you must rethink your problem to the above structure or make your own CMS in Zope. hilsen/regards Max M "klaatu verata niktu"
Max M wrote:
You are fighting an uphill battle there. The CMS is designed like a traditional Unix filesystem where you have a /home directory which contains all the user. Only in the CMF it is called /users.
/Members actually ;-)
This is done because Zope's security mechanism is especially good at handling this structure.
Urm, not especially. One of the original usecases was for any user to be able to create content in any part of a CMF site. There is nothing stopping Niels structuring his content the way he wants. I'm curious about his ZODB phobia though; why don't you want to use it to store your data? cheers, Chris
Am Mit, 2002-08-28 um 14.28 schrieb Chris Withers:
I'm curious about his ZODB phobia though; why don't you want to use it to store your data? I cannot answer for Niels, but I know that loosing ZODB-phobia takes time. (Considering that I've been into this Zope stuff, since when it was called Bobo and Principia ;) )
Coming from other environments, ZODB plays into a number of hidden fears of developers: -) Where is my CVS? -) Why would I want to store in one way my data, my templates and my code? -) How will I get my data if something breaks? -) ... Fact is, that most of these fears are either not real, or not such a big hassle as a newbie assumes, ... But it takes time to get used to it. Andreas
participants (4)
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Andreas Kostyrka -
Chris Withers -
Max M -
Niels Petersen