[Zope-CMF] Adopting CMF

[Paul Winkler]

On Tue, Aug 26, 2003 at 11:29:08PM +0200, Fernando Martins wrote:
> Hello list,
> 
> I've a web site developed in Zope. It's mainly database oriented and now I
> would like to add tools to support interactions between teams (e.g, forums,
> wikis, blogs, newsletters, mailing lists) in an integrated way (single user
> directory, consistent UI, ...). I'm evaluating CMF for this purpose as I've
> seen a collection of tools in sourcefourge.
> 
> My very general question: how do I integrate my existing Zope folders with
> CMF stuff?

depends what's in them...

> In particular, should I start with a CMF Site and import my folders to it
> and somehow glue stuff together or can I simply add the needed tools to my
> site folders?

Nope. CMF folders are not plain zope Folders, they have some extra 
functionality (skinnability).

My general approach for converting "plain zope" to CMF:

0) create a CMF instance.

1) create a new skin folder for your site in portal_skins, or just use 
portal_skins/custom.  Python scripts and templates go in here. You may 
want to rewrite some templates to use CMF stuff. Work on this until 
you have a working CMF framework that looks like what you want.

2) Move your content into CMF. Probably the easiest way to do this is to 
use FTP or WebDAV to copy everything to your local filesystem as plain
html, images, files...  Then again use FTP to dump all this stuff into your
new CMF instance where it will be converted to the appropriate CMF Document / 
Image / File / Folder as needed. (You can modify the content_type_registry
to change what types are created based on uploaded content-type and/or extension).

If you have presentation logic embedded in your content (very 
likely if they are dtml or zpt), you will have to strip it out.
Some search/replace on the filesystem before you upload might help here.

I've been through this process twice now; once the framework's done it's 
not so hard. Embedded logic is the biggest hassle.

-- 

Paul Winkler
http://www.slinkp.com
Look! Up in the sky! It's JIBBAJABBAN ROCKET THE UNDERAPPRECIATED!
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