[Zope-CMF] Plone 1.0 alpha 3 changes

[Geoff Davis]

Hello all--

As Alan indicated, there is a lot of new stuff in the alpha 3 release.
There's some really cool new functionality in there, and I'll give you all
an overview of the pieces I have been working in subsequent email.  Before
doing so, I want to apologize for introducing significant changes at this
late a stage.  Alan and I had some long debates over the issue, and to his
credit he has been pushing hard for stability.

In the end, two factors were critical in the decision:

First, the new code should not have much of an impact on existing users.  If
you are using 1.0 alpha 2 style forms and validation, the only thing you
should have to do for the alpha 3 is to move any changes you have made to
the navigation properties file
(~/skins/plone_scripts/form_scripts/navigation_properties.props) to the
navigation properties sheet in portal_properties.  We decided that this
migration was essential to making the navigation tool useful beyond the
Plone core.  The alpha 2 FormulatorTool and navigation tool API's should all
be intact, but flagged as deprecated.

Second, the new code is _really_ useful.  The portal_form tool greatly
simplifies the process of form handling, while at the same time making form
handling much more configurable via coupling with the portal_navigation
tool.  The portal_factory tool makes it possible for users to bail out of
the process of creating an object without leaving transient objects lying
around.  The API's are pretty simple and the code is relatively clean.

That being said, the portal_form, portal_navigation, and portal_factory
tools aren't quite done.  The APIs and source need a few more sets of eyes
giving them a once-over to make sure they meet everyone's needs.  Several of
the tools work some magic through intercepting traversal to make things
happen, and that code needs a careful going over.  There will almost
certainly be some tweaks in those tools between the alpha 3 and the beta
releases, but I will try hard to keep the changes to a minimum.  It is
really important that we get the APIs right for 1.0 because at that point we
will be stuck with them for quite awhile.

Please bear with the changes!  In the end your patience will be rewarded
with a really solid foundation for your code.

Geoff



Geoff Davis
http://www.geoffdavis.net