[Zope-dev] Different Zope 3.4.2 Newbie feedback

[Christopher Lozinski]

 Here I am sharing my thoughts as a Zope 3.4.2 newbie.   It is not meant
to be a criticism.  I
am just trying to figure out what to do.  Writing helps me think
clearly.  Maybe this will discussion will help some other people.

So here is a tutorial.  Thank you very much  Paul Carduner.  Just
exactly what I was looking for.  All I want to do is put up a simple
content type, and see the list of objects,
add them, create them, edit them.  Look at a table of them.   I also
want to change the formatting on the display.  Maybe make the
description field to be a text area of a size of my choosing.

So here is the tutorial.

http://www.ibiblio.org/paulcarduner/z3ctutorial/forms.html#adding-z3c-form-and-z3c-formui-as-dependencies

But it is just way too much work.  A ZCML statement for every view. 
Give me a break.  I want to throw out large parts of the ZTK, but keep
other parts. 

I love large parts of the ZTK.

Python is a great language

ZODB is a super way to store python objects.

Schema makes a lot of sense for defining data.

Twisted has a great reputation, although I do not know it that well.

>From what I have read of the new security mechanisms, they sound great.

I would like to just define my content type, and have the rest of the
stuff around it just show up magically.  I like what the other person
said about Plone.  They went back to using it.  Like that just works
over there.  The only trouble is then I am stuck with all the Plone
legacy code.  The app losses flexibility.  What to do?

So let me change my direction a little bit.  I would like to do a
product where you can define a content type in python on the file
system, and all of the required add page, view page edit page, view a
table of them pages just show up magically.

And of course if I can ask for it, someone has already done it.  Have
you done it?  Do you know where I can find this functionality. 

This application requires a bit more specification.  What are the table
headers.  Which fields show up in the table.  Maybe the table has
different columns based on different user permissions.  Who is allowed
to edit which fields.   Who is allowed to view which fields.   I can
imagine using acquisition to define permissions on all the content field
variables.  

There are some table objects in ZTK, which I have not read in detail
about yet.

But it seems like this is such a common pattern.  Surely it is out
there?  Any advice on which products to use?  In some sense it is all
about being closed minded rather than open minded.  The ZTK toolkit
allows you to build anything.  I just want a simple app up fast.  I just
want a simple app (to start with) up and running with minimal code to be
written or maintained.   I guess I have so many different content types
to bring up, I want to reuse the stuff that can be reused.

So what ZTK packages should I look at to do this? 

Thanks for you help.  

Regards
Chris