[Grok-dev] Re: layers and skins

[Philipp von Weitershausen]

Maurits van Rees wrote:
> I took a look anyway and it turned out to be a mail from someone who
> had tried out eXtremeManagement.  He was not pleased to find that it
> had installed a skin in his Plone site, which apparently messed his
> site up.  And could I at least mention this in the ReadMe please.
> 
> I thought to myself: "Doesn't *every* Plone product have its own
> skin?"  With that I really meant a layer or maybe layers. In practical
> terms: one or more directories within the skins/ dir of the product,
> ending up as layers (fantastically called 'skin layers') in
> portal_skins, where themes can put them is their list of layers in a
> spot of their choosing.

As you mention correctly, one of the problems in CMF/Plone terminology 
is that "skin" usually means "skin layer". The reason for this is 
probably that the naming convention for that directory is "skins", not 
"layers", as you also point out.

Another, much bigger problem is that Plone's biggest *extension 
mechanism* is the portal_skins tool and the absence of a default layer 
that's accessible to anyone.

Zope 3 packages rarely have to define their own layer even if they have 
browser views to contribute. What do they do? They simply register 
things for the default layer. Normally, views are registered for 
specific objects anyway, so they won't appear all over the place (like 
they would in CMF).


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