Easier maintenance than through management iface?
Hi Zopers, Please excuse the length of this email. I'd greatly appreciate if you'd read through it nevertheless and give me some feedback. Our lab wants to change the website[1] over to a content management system. I am not so much in favour of these Slashdot-like PHP-integrated packages, and so I started looking into Zope. It's not my first time that I am playing around with it, but I guess it's safe to say that I am still a newbie. 1. http://www.ifi.unizh.ch/ailab/ I would like to use Zope for this purpose because of the positive feedback I got, and because it's an excellent opportunity for me to learn Zope (which I wanted to do for a while) by doing it. However, we have a couple of requirements for a CMS, and while I know that Zope is very extensible (and it not really being a CMS per se), I have not been able to meet these requirements with a test installation (of Debian's Zope 2.5.1). I like the management interface, but I can't expect everyone at the lab to use it, nor can I really expect them to do either of ZPT or DTML. Ideally, I want to get rid of HTML for the end-user as a whole. I would like to provide templates for the main parts of the website and let authorized users maintain the data contained through forms via the web browser. They should be able to do simple formatting (like in a Wiki), but they should not be able to influence the structure of the documents. I think about this in terms of a <span> tag surrounding the part that a user can edit, and an edit button provided alongside (only if e.g. the user comes from our IP space). The rest of the page they cannot influence, they can only change the content. My first question is: does Zope provide such a framework? I looked at the CMF, but I didn't find what I was searching. I need no member management (the authorized editors should be handled by Zope's ACLs), I need no forum-posting-comment thing, but I want full control over the structure and layout, while giving the authenticated users full control over contents. One way of approaching this is to use a database backend for the information, and to provide simple editing forms for the user. However, The data to be stored is not really susceptible to storage in a relational database as it's too diverse. Moreover, I'd have to provide editing forms for every type of modification, and last but not least, the user could not edit in place but would have to go somewhere entirely different if a change is needed. I would like to roll out Zope, but I need to make it easier for the users. Zope is way more powerful than HTML (obviously), but the only argument that will fly and support my proposed change over to using your (excellent) software is if the users' life will be simplified. Can Zope achieve this? Thanks, and sorry again for the length of this post! If we're successful it is likely that the entire computer science department of the University of Zurich will soon follow... -- Martin F. Krafft Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Ph.D. Student Department of Information Technology Email: krafft@ifi.unizh.ch University of Zurich Tel: +41.(0)1.63-54323 Winterthurerstrasse 190 http://www.ifi.unizh.ch/~krafft/ CH-8057 Zurich, Switzerland NOTE: The pgp.net keyservers and their mirrors are broken! Get my key here: http://people.debian.org/~madduck/gpg/330c4a75.asc
On Thu, Dec 19, 2002 at 08:17:46PM +0100, Martin F Krafft wrote:
I like the management interface, but I can't expect everyone at the lab to use it, nor can I really expect them to do either of ZPT or DTML. Ideally, I want to get rid of HTML for the end-user as a whole. I would like to provide templates for the main parts of the website and let authorized users maintain the data contained through forms via the web browser.
They should be able to do simple formatting (like in a Wiki), but they should not be able to influence the structure of the documents.
You have just described CMF. Your skin(s) control the page layout and user interface, and your users can write content in Structured Text.
My first question is: does Zope provide such a framework? I looked at the CMF, but I didn't find what I was searching.
Yes you did, you just found more than you wanted. :) Remember that CMFDefault (what you get if you install CMF and create a "CMF Site") is just an example implementation ... hardly anyone uses it as-is. Look at Plone and at Nuxeo CPS, they are both built on CMF and are intended to be ready to deploy. Pick the one that's closest to what you want to end up with.
I need no member management (the authorized editors should be handled by Zope's ACLs),
You can have a CMF site use an existing user folder for its membership source. And you can disable the "join" functionality in the portal_registration tool.
I need no forum-posting-comment thing,
you can turn that off in the portal_discussion tool. Look in the various tools in a CMF installation. On each one, look at its Actions tab. Uncheck "visible" on anything you don't need. Poof, it's removed from the CMF interface. There are *lots* of things you can disable...
but I want full control over the structure and layout,
it's all in portal_skins. The skins tool is very powerful.
while giving the authenticated users full control over contents.
That's what CMF exists for. I think you should check it out again, and if you change your mind about it, ask questions on zope-cmf@zope.org. -- Paul Winkler http://www.slinkp.com "Welcome to Muppet Labs, where the future is made - today!" Look! Up in the sky! It's PIMP IN A CAN! (courtesy of isometric.spaceninja.com)
From: "Martin F Krafft" <krafft@ifi.unizh.ch>
However, we have a couple of requirements for a CMS, and while I know that Zope is very extensible (and it not really being a CMS per se),
Well, no, it's an web application platform. But it does everything and more than a CMS doesm so it's CMS+, really.
My first question is: does Zope provide such a framework?
Zope *is* such a framework. Making new management interfaces are made easier with CMF, so you may want to look at that some more. You may not need it though, your requirements seem rather basic so far. CMF does a lot and can be a bit intimidating to understand.
participants (3)
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Lennart Regebro -
Martin F Krafft -
Paul Winkler