[Zope-PTK] How skins work

[Nolan Darilek]

I've been watching the introduction of skins into the PTK, and I'm
curious to know what benefits they'll offer. I've been wanting to use
the PTK, since it is extremely close to what I'll need for a site
which I'm designing, but I'd like to be able to easily upgrade both
the PTK and my existing portals without needing to create a new
portal, look through each method for changes, apply them to the
existing code, etc.

From what I've read, skins will allow for this. I'm curious to know
how, though. If all of the DemoPortal content is removed to the
filesystem, how exactly are existing methods editted? Is the data
copied from the filesystem and into the ZODB, with edits only occuring
in the database? Or are the methods' files editted on the filesystem
itself? Currently I have directories in the zope products directory
symlinked to the CVS tree, so upgrading the PTK is usually a matter of
updating CVS, restarting zope and re-importing the PTK demo. How does
the introduction of skins change this process? Will new dtml methods
be read in from the filesystem when changed, or will I need to click a
"refresh" button to manually upgrade the methods?

Sorry for being somewhat incoherent, but I'm curious to know whether
skins will provide me with the easy upgradability which I'll need for
this project, since I'm sure the PTK will be very different when I'm
done, and I'd like to be able to take advantage of any new
improvements and alterations.