[Zope-PTK] Do we *need* a Portal object?

[Kevin Dangoor]

Hi,

    I think this has come up before, and I think it's worth discussing,
particularly now that ZPatterns is solidifying. Basically, the current
layout of the PTK requires you to create a "Portal" object. If you want to
take advantage of portalesque features and portal-based products, you'll
need to create a Portal to hold that stuff. The Portal also provides some
helper stuff for creating membership, though LoginManager is available
separately and would be useful in contexts outside of the Portal. It seems
that we'll start to create a divergence in Zope Products. You'll have some
things that you can stick in a Portal, and other things that you can put
elsewhere.

    I have not used the PTK very much, so maybe others who are running the
PTK in pseudoproduction can comment on this. It seems to me that it may be
better to refactor the features in the Portal so that they can "plug-in" to
a Zope system more easily. Here are some not-well-fleshed-out thoughts:

    How about a "Preferences" Specialist? This would be able to store prefs
for objects that can live all over the Zope hierarchy. For example, imagine
a KM|net News where the KMArticles can go anywhere. The prefs for KMArticles
could tell the article posting method where to drop the article (in the
Member's folder? in a central location?). Additionally, you could have
Preferences that specify how a Link is formatted (so that you don't have to
change a part of the product that can get overwritten on the next update).

    How about a "Content Review" Specialist? This can provide a flexible way
to determine how new content is reviewed.

    It seems to me like it would be nicer to drop in a set of components
that provide the features you want than to have to move an entire site
within a Portal when you want to take advantage of a new widget that is
designed as PortalContent.

    Is there some giant Portal feature that I'm missing that requires things
to be factored out the way they are?

Kevin
http://www.byproducts.com - Humor and Novelties