semantics for portal folder workflow (was: Re: [Zope-CMF] trivial new portal folder type gives weird workflow/security behavior?)

[Paul Winkler]

On Thu, Oct 03, 2002 at 03:15:20PM +0100, chris wrote:
> 'publishing' a folder simply 'publishes' all of its children
> 'retracting' a folder similarly 'retracts' all of its children
> the 'review_state' of  the folder is then calculated on the state of its 
> children:
>  - 'published' if all children are 'published',
>  - 'private' if all children are 'private'
>  - 'mixed' otherwise.

sounds pretty sensible to me.

> From the content editor's point of view I could see this behaviour as 
> useful for particular folder types.
> 
> I would admit that 'mixed' probably throws a spanner in the works - but 
> a folder is a composite object!

What's wrong with that?  It's the only thing that makes sense to me...
"mixed" would tell you that you should probably take a closer look
at what's in the folder. :)


So the folder's review state is dynamically generated, right?
We'd have to ensure that if you update the state of a child, it affects
the folder.  A cont. man. would get confused if e.g. all the children
said "published" but the parent said "mixed"...

> I guess the other alternative is to 
> programmatically over-rule the review_state of any child object. But 
> then 'publishing' becomes meaningless for such children.

You lost me there.  How is this an alternative? 
What's the difference between "...'publish' all its children"
and "programmatically over-rule the review_state of any child object"?
Sounds like the same thing to me.

--

Paul Winkler
"Welcome to Muppet Labs, where the future is made - today!"