[Zope-CMF] Hard time grokking Zope-CMF

[Tres Seaver]

seb bacon wrote:

> * Bryan Field-Elliot <bryan_lists@netmeme.org> [011010 06:19]:
>=20
>>For example -- who exactly is doing most of the content creation in Zop=
e
>>CMF -- is it site operators, or is it end-users? A CMS system is
>>typically used by site staff to maintain the site -- defining content
>>types, roles, workflow, etc.  However, in Zope CMF, I see an awful lot
>>of stuff related to end-users personalizing their home page,
>>contributing messages or discussion threads, etc -- not really
>>"classical content", but rather, it's community and portal stuff. So th=
e
>>"Content Management" moniker doesn't seem to fit so neatly as, say,
>>"portal, personalization, and community" might.
>>
>=20
> You're absolutely right - you *see* things relating to a community
> portal.  But what you see isn't the CMF, it's the CMFDefault demo
> site.  In a nutshell, the CMF is a *toolkit* for solving particular CM
> problems like workflow and personalisation.=20
> Here's a list of the problems the CMF + Zope solves so far:=20
>=20
> - workflow
> - metadata (Dublin Core)
> - membership & roles-based security
> - personalisation
> - skins (content and presentation cleanly separated)
> - multiple user interfaces (TTW, FTP, webDAV)
> - content syndication
> - indexing
> - rolling back actions (undoing)
>=20
> It doesn't have a solution for authors to create and edit web pages
> based on complex templates, which I think a lot of people need; this
> is in the pipeline for the next version.
>=20
> There is nothing about the toolset which means you have to use it for
> "portal, personalization, and community".  The reason many people get
> this impression is because the demo site supplied with the CMF
> fulfills this role.  I think in terms of a graphics toolkit. The CMF
> is like GTK+: it provides widgets which solve common (GUI/CMS)
> problems.  CMFDefault is like Gnome: it uses the underlying toolkit to
> meet a specific requirement (Desktop / Community Portal).

To extend Seb's excellent reply, I'll provide some "hysterical" backgroun=
d.

The CMF (n=E9 PTK, for Portal Toolkit) was originally planned as a set of
tools for allowing people to build Zope.org-like sites.  While these *are=
*
"community" or "portal" sites, they are also "content management" sites;
such sites distribute the content creation role (not just discussions, bu=
t
documents, software, images, etc.) across their entire membership.

During its lifetime, we (Zope Corp, n=E9 Digital Creations :) have used i=
t on
several consulting gigs for which community-originated content was *not*
part of the customer's (immediate) goals.  In particular, we used it to
build the CMS for two large, multi site New Media company, where their
producers develop and share content among multiple "properties".  Both
customers' needs contributed significantly to the evolution of the CMF's
architecture, and we continue to propoose and build such solutions atop
the CMF today.

Hope that helps clarify,

Tres.
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Tres Seaver                                tseaver@zope.com
Zope Corporation      "Zope Dealers"       http://www.zope.com