[Zope-PTK] Automated Hyperlinking and nested objects

Kent Polk kent@goathill.org
Mon, 19 Mar 2001 16:22:08 -0600 (CST)


Ken Manheimer wrote:
> On 19 Mar 2001, Kent Polk wrote:
> 
> > How much thought has been given to the possibility of implementing
> > an automated hyperlinking facility (WikiNames :^O ) to CMF object
> > collections???
> 
> I've given this some thought.  I *really* want low-impedence link
> authoring, and also want the document-namespaces of conventional wiki
> *and* lineage (where documents are created from, and thereby offspring
> of, other documents) that zope.org ZWiki have innovated.

I just read the oss4lib Interview
 http://oss4lib.org/readings/interview-everitt-manheimer-2001-03.php
And see more of what you are talking about. Paul knows a bit where
I am coming from as a result of the work on the Principia Document
Management System and the children that propagated from that effort.

And it's good to see the 'closet librarian' context. Once you work
in that area, you get hit over the head by the Big Picture and the
need to automate the collection and presentation of metadata, etc.
make it easier to locate and retrieve pertinent information.

> For StructuredText-style documents, i want to maintain a shortcut for
> referring to documents within the same collection by their name, but with

How would documents be maintained in a collection? By metadata
only? (is the collection scope fixed or determined by query?) How
would a default object heirarchy of objects be established? Are
you planning on using the ZODB to establish these, or metadata?

> One other aspect to this question is realization of "link objects" in
> zope.  These link objects would know how to render themselves (or
> something would know how to render them) into many formats - XML, HTML,
> StructuredText, Word, whatever manifestations the documents could have.  
> Further, they would be able to play nicely with Interlinking Info
> OrganizationObjects, for, eg, indirection that could track forwarding of
> document locations as they are renamed and moved around the site.

Is this just a gleam in your eye, or are we really close to doing
this? :^)

> > I mention this because almost every project possibility that I bump
> > up against has almost the same set of requested 'requirements'.

> I think there will be some important common hierarchies, in addition
> to the folder hierarchy - lineage, keyword hierarchies (i need to get
> my notes concerning these online - my machine just had a disk crash, i
> hope they're still there!), and others.

Exactly. This is one thing that I really wanted for the PDMS and
we never got around to implementing. It really becomes feasable
when you catalog things the way the CMF is headed.

> Kent, i very much appreciate your (and michael's) enthusiasm and
> offers to help.  I'll try to scrape together time to at least spell
> out where i am.  The very short version of it is my thoughts are still
> in the cooking phase, not yet ready to be implemented.
> 
> In particular, i need to bring them to ground in the CMF - to piece
> together where and how they would fit in.  Being fairly new to and
> unversed in the CMF, myself, i have a good bit of work getting
> acquainted with it, first - work anyone can do to document and clarify
> the framework for others, as they do so for themselves, will be to
> *everyone's* benefit.

Thanks. We'll try to soak up any extra time you have to discuss
and figure out how to do this. :^)