[Zope-PTK] State of the PTK, 2001/01/26

[Tres Seaver]

As Shane notes in his "Status Update",
 http://lists.zope.org/pipermail/zope-ptk/2001-January/002251.html
this has been an exciting week for the PTK:

 * The "CookieCrumbler", which maps authentication cookies onto the
   REQUEST just as though the browser had sent basic auth, makes a
custom
   user folder type unnecessary in most cases.  In combination with the
   "transparent membership" provided by the 'portal_membership' and
   'portal_memberdata' tools, you can now reuse a single user folder
   (e.g., in the root of your Zope) across multiple portal instances,
   each of which can track its own "member data" for that user, without
   interference.

 * The new 'portal_skins' and 'portal_types' tools completely obviate
   any need for the old, awful "copy DTML blindly into the portal
   instance" strategy;  we no longer even need to have the DemoPortal
   class installed!  Please read "Shane's writeup",
     http://www.zope.org/Products/PTK/ZWiki/SkinsProposal
   and experiment with one of the 'Portal (new)' objects -- you'll
   like it, we promise! ("Can you spell I18N'? Sure you can!")

 * We have replaced the "Wizards" folder with a new tool,
'portal_types',
   which serves as a registry of the content types which are addable
   within a particular portal instance.  The basic idea is that the
   tool contains a set of "local factories"< which have enough
   information about a type to create a "default" (empty) instance;
   we create it, using nothing more than the id, and then redirect to
   it for you to edit it.

   This tool has the potential to interact nicely with other portal
   features:  for instance, it will likely be the locus of the
   mapping between MIME-types / filenames / &c and the "hookable PUT"
   implementation.  It may also serve as a place to store various
   "creation policies" (where in a portal each type can be constructed,
   for instance).

 * One of the key elements to the "skinned portal" is that we are
   freed from having to distribute essential code as ZClass products;
   ZClasses are excellent tools for building an application for your
   *own* site;  they are miserably inadequate for distribution of a
   framework to myriad other developers.  My motto for the week has
   been, "DemoPortal delenda est!", and it has, in fact, become
   obsolete!  We still need to work out the transition mechanism for
   moving an existing, DemoPortal-based instance over to the skinned
   portal;  the good news here is that this is a problem for *us*, as
   well as *y'all*, so we are unlikely to let it slip through the
   cracks.

For those who would like to play, here is a much simplified installation
recipe:

 1. Get the latest CVS version of the PTK:

    $ cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@cvs.zope.org:/cvs-repository login
       (supply 'anonymous' as your password).

    $ cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@cvs.zope.org:/cvs-repository co ZopePTK
       (creates a ZopePTK subdirectory).

 2. Copy or link the 'PTKDemo' and 'PTKBase' product directories from
the
    newly-extracted 'ZopePTK' directory to the 'Products' directory of
    your Zope's INSTANCE_HOME or SOFTWARE_HOME (you *really* should 
    switch to using INSTANCE_HOME, if you haven't already; see Evan
    Simpson's "execllent INSTANCE_HOME
    writeup":http://www.zope.org/Members/4am/instancehome).

 3. Restart Zope, and select the 'Portal (New)' item from the add list;
    supply an ID, click 'Add', and you're there!  Be sure to visit the
    "Portal configuration" screen and set the appropriate properties on
    your new portal:  one important one, at least for playing around, is
    switching the option to allow newly-joining members to set their own
    passwords (otherwise you'll have to sign up and wait for mail).

Shane wrote::

 > If you'd like to assist with the PTK, writing documentation is a good
 > idea now.  But make sure you base your documentation on the
ZClassless
 > version.

I'd like to second Shane's plea here:  we *really* need help getting
this
stuff written up;  if you brave the waters, please write up your
experience
(the 'index_html' of your member folder would be a reasonable place to
start :)
and share.  We are planning to launch a new "dogbowl" site (think
"living in
the fishbowl" crossed with "eat your own dogfood') Real Soon Now (TM),
which
will be a good place to share such knowledge.
 
We have actually completed almost all of the "Must have for 1.0" items
on
my "PTK 1.0 roadmap":http://www.zope.org/Products/PTK/ZWiki/OnePointOh. 
I
am hopeful of releasing a "1.0b1" by the end of next week, with a target
release somewhere in mid-February.  Remaining:

  * Topic integration (Ken Mannheimer and Jeffrey Shell are working on
    this -- expect great things!)

  * UI cleanup (including Ethan's "table-less" layout stuff)

  * Finalize PUT handling for text/html documents:

    - Rip title and meta tags for Dublin Core

    - Decapitate body

    - Maybe rip only the content within a pair of "well-known"
      div tags (e.g., to make tools like Amaya work naturally).

Keep those cards-n-letters coming!  And record problems in the Tracker,
please!

Tres.
-- 
===============================================================
Tres Seaver                                tseaver@digicool.com
Digital Creations     "Zope Dealers"       http://www.zope.org