I just started playing w/ Zope, and I'm trying to do a simple Intranet site to show my bosses what Zope can do. I like the way Zope handles content management through /manage/. I'd like to use a slightly customized, simpler version for our users. Is there an easy way to do this, either by customizing or borrowing existing code? Thanks, Anders Schneiderman SEIU International P.S. If this question has been answered elsewhere, just let me know where to look; I couldn't find it when I poked around, but I might not have known the right heading to seek.
On Wed, 30 May 2001, Anders Schneiderman wrote:
I just started playing w/ Zope, and I'm trying to do a simple Intranet site to show my bosses what Zope can do. I like the way Zope handles content management through /manage/. I'd like to use a slightly customized, simpler version for our users. Is there an easy way to do this, either by customizing or borrowing existing code?
It depends on what you want. You can write ZClasses, Products, or just hack Zope sources. ZClasses is "programming with mouse", "visul programming" kind of things. Very easy, but powerful enough to do many things. Really, I recommend you to learn ZClasses. It is very easy to customize a ZClass' management screens. Zope Products are really installable components (plugins) written in Python. They are more powerful (they have access to Zope Product API which is more cpable than ZClass API) but more complex to learn and program. Oleg. ---- Oleg Broytmann http://www.zope.org/Members/phd/ phd@phd.pp.ru Programmers don't die, they just GOSUB without RETURN.
What most of us have done in the past is to write custom user interfaces, calling the underlying /manage interfaces (and borrowing code where applicable). The new way is to use the CMF (Content Management Framework http://cmf.zope.org) -- a Zope product that comes with a more user-oriented management inderface and the ability to delegate content management to selected users. In the long run, you will appreciate not having to reinvent the things that the CMF does for you. In the short run, it's yet another steep learning curve on top of the basic Zope learning curve. -- Loren
-----Original Message----- From: zope-admin@zope.org [mailto:zope-admin@zope.org]On Behalf Of Anders Schneiderman Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2001 13:25 To: zope@zope.org Subject: [Zope] Customizing / borrowing code from /manage/ screens
I just started playing w/ Zope, and I'm trying to do a simple Intranet site to show my bosses what Zope can do. I like the way Zope handles content management through /manage/. I'd like to use a slightly customized, simpler version for our users. Is there an easy way to do this, either by customizing or borrowing existing code?
Thanks, Anders Schneiderman SEIU International
P.S. If this question has been answered elsewhere, just let me know where to look; I couldn't find it when I poked around, but I might not have known the right heading to seek.
_______________________________________________ Zope maillist - Zope@zope.org http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope ** No cross posts or HTML encoding! ** (Related lists - http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-announce http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-dev )
At 02:04 PM 5/30/01 -0700, Loren Stafford wrote:
The new way is to use the CMF (Content Management Framework http://cmf.zope.org) -- a Zope product that comes with a more user-oriented management inderface and the ability to delegate content management to selected users.
When I first started playing w/ Zope, I took a quick look at CMF, then freaked out. Any suggestions on how to get my arms around it? I saw a chapter online from a book, but it didn't really walk you through an example. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Incidentally, if there isn't a good tutorial, if we end up using Zope at my shop, I'd be willing to write a simple intro tutorial for CMF over the summer if I can figure out how to get the #$%^ thing working. Thanks, Anders Schneiderman Information Manager SEIU International
Let me be a bit clearer. I installed CMF w/o any problems and was able to create an insta-portal. But when I tried to start customizing the sucker, I got lost. For ex, I used the "Folder contents" to add a few folders & documents. But when I clicked on "view", they didn't show up. So, A) How do I get them to show up? B) If I want to customize the way they're displayed--for example, allow for a "blurb" that explains what's in the folder--how do I go about doing that? Again, if this is written down anywhere, just let me know where to look. Thanks, Anders Schneiderman Information Manager SEIU International
I too am just getting started with CMF. I've added a CMF Portal to an existing Intranet site and am in the process of figuring out how to use it and migrating existing content to it. I'm sure each person has different concepts regarding what CMF is and how it should be used. Here are couple of mine: CMF requires a change in the way you think about content organization. 1. Content has an owner and is located in the owner's "My Stuff" folder. You can create subfolders and that may help the owner organize "His Stuff", but a hierarchy of folders is not the way to present content to other users. 2. "Every request is a search query." I can't imagine using CMF without "Topics". Topics are canned queries. Many users will use the general search function, but Topics can be used to created more conventional categorizations -- the kinds of categories we used to implement with folders. But with Topics, things are much more flexible. Now objects can appear in multiple categories. To make this work you have to take control of the objects' metadata -- specifically the "Subject" tokens. As I convert my Intranet site to CMF, I'm using Topics to replace the original folders -- giving a compatible feel to the site, but increasing the ease of finding stuff. -- Loren
From: Anders Schneiderman [mailto:schneida@seiu.org]
Let me be a bit clearer. I installed CMF w/o any problems and was able to create an insta-portal. But when I tried to start customizing the sucker, I got lost.
For ex, I used the "Folder contents" to add a few folders & documents. But when I clicked on "view", they didn't show up. So,
A) How do I get them to show up?
B) If I want to customize the way they're displayed--for example, allow for a "blurb" that explains what's in the folder--how do I go about doing that?
participants (3)
-
Anders Schneiderman -
Loren Stafford -
Oleg Broytmann