[Zope-PTK] hats off

[Paul Everitt]

Chip Vanek wrote:
> I have been working with PTK for a while and just love it.  I am

I'd like you to say a little more here, not just out of vanity, but for
a real reason. :^)  Specifically, do you love it because it is:

A. More usable and self-revealing than Zope, or

B. Powerful, or

C. ??

> new to Zope and Python but making some slight progress.  I have
> gotten great help from the mail lists and Mike P. has been great
> about answering everyone.  You guys are onto something great.

Mike is great.  His employer loves him, though, so stay back! :^)

> I would be happy to give back if I can in any way.  Exactly what

I have a particular interest in making the PTK "self-revealing", to
borrow a phrase from Rand Pausch (head of the Alice project).  What are
some ways to make the PTK self-revealing?

  o Include sample content, so people can see some exciting things
already working

    - A small Gadfly app to show relational data

    - Healthy amount of searchable content

    - A bunch of members with various roles, with content in 
      various states, such as unreviewed

    - A LONG tutorial describing the state of the sample content, 
      and where people could click to see the various things

  o Perfect wizards.  The PTK has a wizard facility.  It 
    needs ongoing attention.  It also needs documentation, and 
    might need to be rewritten, but that's a different story. :^)

  o Leverage Amos' help system.  For those that don't know, Zope 
    now has a context-sensitive, searchable help facility that 
    is usable by developers.  Amos Latteier has checked it into 
    Zope, and most of the content is there.  Obviously this is an 
    ideal "panic button" for newbies.  It also provides a place 
    to put top-level things like "tours".

  o A glossary, perhaps as part of the help system.  Guns don't 
    kill newbies, jargon does.

  o Some "tours", similar to the tour on the Zope.org homepage.

> kind of content do you have in mind.  I am presently reworking
> the DemoPortal with a new look & feel but, am learning basic
> Zopeisms at the same time so my work is scattered.  I have a
> 600 line stylesheet and CSS classes linked to most UI elements.

I'd _love_ to see a CSS-aware sample portal.  I love CSS.  I'd love to
see nearly every discrete piece of the portal (the toolbar box, the
toolbar items, the desktop, the desktop items, the portal title,
margins, etc.) exposed to CSS selectors, then let people do "chrome" by
editing a style sheet in their home folder.

Go Chip!!

> It is not complete and somewhat redundant.  I am at least a week
> away from having a somewhat consistent CSS configuration capability
> but, still need to understand were I can write the color, positioning
> and element attribute variables.  I really do not understand the
> best place to store 20-30 variable per user.  Still new to your model.

Don't.  Instead, do the following:

a. Edit the standard_html_header to link to an external style sheet
whose URL is a property of the Member folder.  Note that this means
you'll need to extend the ZClass for Members to include a styleSheetURL,
with a default value set to the "master" style sheet you create for the
sample portal.

b. People can use preferences to change the stylesheet to point to their
own stylesheet.  Perhaps they point to one in their Member folder on
that portal.  Perhaps they point to an existing one they've created on
another PTK portal.

Once you get this working (this weekend, right :^), we could make this
model part of the standard PTK.

> Again let me know what you need and how it should be packaged and
> I will try to see if I can do some of it.

Hopefully that's a good start.

--Paul