[Zope-PTK] feature request: news categories

Paul Everitt paul@digicool.com
Wed, 16 Feb 2000 09:07:10 -0500


Chip Vanek wrote:
> I too am very interested in categories.  When you talk about
> subclassing the News object below and using folder do you
> mean that the object would be stored in this folder?

Long thread...sorry for the delay in replying.

> The present PTK keeps all objects in the authors members folder or
> children.  I do not know if this is by design or just present
> convenience.  It does seem to simplify security and the review/
> publishing mechaism seems to allow for managed publishing.

Just like Zope.org, content can be anywhere.  But giving people a
"me-centric" view of their content is powerful.

I don't buy the argument that putting stuff close to people breaks
URLs.  Take a look on the web at all the ~username URLs you see out
there.  Moreover, deleting a member doesn't delete their content, just
like deleting someone on a Linux system doesn't delete all their files.

Regarding the idea of folders based on categories, this is precisely
what Topics are to do, with the advantage that the same item can appear
in *many* places.  A Topic is like a folder where most of the items come
from a catalog lookup.

Note, thought, that the items aren't _really_ in the folder.  When you
click to visit the item, it goes to the real URL.  Perhaps that's not
what you want.

> I am new to Zope and cannot yet figure out how to create an
> object in another folder and set the correct permissions. I was
> able to subclass the portal document object and add category
> fields (properties).  I am now struggling with trying to enter
> this category property in the Catalog as a Keyword Field.

Hmm, are you saying you can't create a Portal Folder, then create stuff
in there?

> Then to simulated category lookup I would like to create
> a search query that returns just items of a certain category.
> It looks like the PTK wrapper around Zcatalog will ensure that
> only authenticated users can see non-public items.  The big problem
> I have now is finding the syntax for getCatalog().searchResults(....)
> to give me just the items with the keyWorks I want.

Yep, that's an issue.

> To automate the management and generation of the KeyWords, I was
> going to use a "tree" of folders that have titles that match the
> KeyWords.  Then, using acquisition one query method would parse
> the branches of the tree up to root and have the KeyWords.  The
> "tree" of keywords would be a hierarchical oncology of topics
> hosted by this site.  Adding a new topic is just adding a new
> folder to the tree.  Then a compact version of this tree needs to
> be available to the user in the add and edit forms of the object
> to ensure that correct KeyWords are used.
> 
> This is likely a ugly hack of an approach but, it fits in my feeble
> mind and I can see the steps to complete it if I start getting
> some help from the list ;).

Hopefully Topics will help this.  I'll check on the ETA for Topics.

--Paul