[Zope-PTK] Re: Wizards

[Paul Everitt]

A couple of comments..

Could someone take some time to summarize this discussion in the Wiki
setup in the PTK area:

  http://www.zope.org/Products/PTK/  (can't remember the URL for the
Wiki)

I've wanted the PTK (and Zope Mozilla) to be a joint development effort
with the community.  So far one entity has stepped forward and gotten
CVS access, thought there hasn't been much activity.

Digital Creations needs to find the right rhythym to a more open
development cycle.  At this point, I'm not sure if the lack of
participation is due to lack of engagement on our part or the
community's part.

Is anyone ready to jump in and start participating in the PTK
development?

--Paul

> -----Original Message-----
> From: kamon.ayeva@bureauveritas.com
> [mailto:kamon.ayeva@bureauveritas.com]
> Sent: Thursday, March 23, 2000 5:08 AM
> To: zope-ptk@zope.org
> Cc: sf@fermigier.com
> Subject: [Zope-PTK] Re: Wizards
> 
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> Extracts from the discussion between (Andrew M. Kuchling, 
> Bill Anderson &
> Rik Hoekstra
> "Andrew M. Kuchling" wrote:
> >
> > Back in February, Paul Everitt tried to raise a discussion about
> > wizards (see
> > 
> http://lists.zope.org/pipermail/zope-ptk/2000-February/000361.html for
> > the original post) but there was little interest.
> >
> > I'd like to re-raise the issue, outside of the PTK, because the idea
> > of wizards is useful outside of the PTK; consider a site with a
> > multi-stage registration process where you have to fill out several
> > screens of info.  Right now the Wizard ZClass is hiding inside the
> > DemoPortal export file, but it might be worth promoting it into a
> > standard component of Zope.
> 
> I also agree.
> 
> > Currently Wizards are really simple; they're Folderish objects that
> > can contain a bunch of DTML methods.  The methods are 
> sorted by ID to
> > produce the order in which they're traversed; for example, 
> if you have
> > methods named 'a', 'b', 'd', they'll be shown in that order.  Each
> > method can contain <INPUT> tags, and the wizard will collect all the
> > form inputs, hiding them in hidden variables in subsequent pages.
> >
> 
> [KA]Summarizing requirements below:
> >
> >      (1)* You want to be able to sanity-check the fields 
> after each step,
> > staying at the same step until the fields have reasonable values.
> >
> >      (2)* Putting values inside hidden fields won't work 
> well if one of
> > the fields is large -- say, a 200K uploaded file.  Better to keep a
> > server-side session that holds the field values.  (I think some sort
> > of standard session tracking, or a standard hook for 
> sessions, should
> > be part of Zope, but that's a separate issue.)
> 
> >[RH added](3)Generalized Session Object would provide a good starting
> point.
> >
> 
> (4)What about wizards for coping with sql databases (with a 
> query builder
> as the simplest example).
> (5)Or, more or less in the same vein, a catalog searcher for want of a
> query language.
> (6)Or a meta searcher (searches database, Catalogs and 
> whatever), perhaps
> even some sort of limited dataminer (Anthony Baxter once implemented
> such a beast)?.
> 
> [KA added](7)User gets small structures (categories) of links (from a
> ressources directory à la DMOZ) and populates them to his 
> member folder.
> There is a product developed by Stefane Fermigier for 
www.portalux.com that
we want to use this way. Maybe this is a specific use of (6) ?

If this discussion was to materialize in a development effort, I would
also
be interested in participating in the process.

Greetings.
Kamon
Usability is a key issue



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