[Zope-Annce] Membership 0.7.5 Released

[Bill Anderson]

After futzing around with it, I finally have managed to get a new release of Membership out the door.

It bears a few caveats:
  o It is now Beta
  o Mailing passwords
    The password form was returning an error
    which I patched Owner.py to fix. 
    The patch is included below (also sent to 
    zope-dev earlier). It is a simple patch.
    --update: apparently 2.2.1 doesn't have 
    the problem?
  o Only moderately Tested


New Features/Fixes:

USER MANAGEMENT
The user manament screens are much improved. The new url is acl_users/ManageUsers. This screen doesn't require use of
management screens. it will batch the users into groups of 25, configurable via an input form on the page. The link will
take you to a Manage User Pager. This page is a method of the User object. From there you can set the user's Status*,
and change roles. There is no delete user function yet.

  * User status is a hook for a future feature, namely the ability of the manager to set a given user as unable to
login. It is not currently implemented, and will be a part of the policy setup.

LOGIN/LOGOUT
There were a number of issues resolved here. The loginForm now checks to see if you are a Member or manager and
redirects to loggedIn if true. It also now correctly updates the login_time fields.

CHROME
Now utilizes a try-except clause to avoid errors if there is no Chrome object (folder).

COMPATIBILITY
Zope 2.2.1
Seems to work fine. Primary devel was done here. FInal testing and typo-correction as well was done on a 2.2.1 platform.

Zope 2.2.0
Other than I had to patch Owner.py as mentioned, it works fine.

ZPAtterns 0.4.2a1
Should work fine. Brief testing indicated no problems.

DataSkinAddons
Highly reccomended. Use of this product can give you auto-cataloging of Members. Really usefull for member searching.
See the Wiki.

Forthcoming Work
================

o As soon as I get the patches for PTK Compatibility, and User Deletion, I'll integrate them.

o I am currently working on zope help system docs for it.

o I would like to automatically add the CatalogingTrigger when the portal is created, as this would make some membership
(and management) functions even better.

Policies
I intend to create a policy system. This will allow the manager to select from different policies. (I am hoping this
will make it into 0.8 or 0.9 at the latest. I am aiming at a 1.0 release in the next month or so.)

The policy system will allow a drop-in policy method that will control how user passwords are handled. This will include
how to deal with forgotten passwords, etc. I am still sketching out the details and mechanics. commentary welcome on
zope-dev and/or the discussion page in the Membership Wiki.

Patch for Owner.py against 2.2.0 (apply at your own risk!):
----------------------------------------------------------
--- lib/python/AccessControl/Owned-orig.py	Mon Sep  4 13:56:52 2000
+++ lib/python/AccessControl/Owned.py	Mon Sep  4 13:55:40 2000
@@ -149,6 +149,8 @@
             
         if owner is UnownableOwner: return None
 
+        if len(owner)==0: return None
+
         udb, oid = owner
         root=self.getPhysicalRoot()
         udb=root.unrestrictedTraverse(udb, None)
----------------------------------------------------------


--
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are easy to annoy,
and have the root password.