[Zope-PTK] General advice for a Web directory

[Rik Hoekstra]

I'm currently evaluating the feasibility of building a Web directory using
Zope Portal Toolkit. I've installed it, tests a little bit, but I still have
questions.

Here is what I want to do:

- Build a Yahoo-like directory of Web resources, each resource being
identifier with it's URL, a title, a description, and a few other fields
such as language used and type of site



- Let users search for Web resources in the directory

- Let different people manage different parts of the directory

After a few hours playing with the toolkit, I've found that PTK could help
me build this directory. It would take care of the user authentification,
the submission of new Web sites, the search engine, and a few other things.

For now, I have these questions:

- For the topics and subtopics, I need to use ZTopic objects, right? Is
there any way (without too much effort) to have support for "see also"
topics inside a topic? I only managed to get strict hierarchies...

- How do I place a PTK object, like a document or a link, within a ZTopic
topic, using the regular PTK interface, for instance when a reviewer decides
to publish the object?

- May I define my own portal objects, or at least modify the existing ones?
For example, may I add a "language" field to the link object?

- What about internationalization? My directory would not be in English, do
I have to translate all strings in the source code and DTML documents? What
do I do when there are updates?

Thank's for any advice. I like Zope, and I hope I will be able to use the
PTK without too much effort for my project.

[rh]While the PTK is perhaps useful for your purposes, you may want to look
at a product called YiHAW, which is meant just for Yahoo like directories.
In its documentation it says:
" Yihaw represents a different viewpoint on how to build a portal than the
Zope PTK product. PTK uses the concept of a personal workspace, whereas
Yihaw uses a shared workspace."

http://www.zope.org/Members/Roug/Yihaw

hth

Rik