[Zope] - PROPOSAL: Rearrange Zope Documents

[Kent Polk]

Hi Jim (Jim Fulton), in <366DCD7D.AABA3519@digicool.com> on Dec 09 you wrote:

> Amos Latteier wrote:
> > 
> > I agree to renaming DTML Methods, but I think a different approach should
> > be taken to Documents. I think we should think more generally in terms of a
> > Content object that can have different encodings like XML, plain text,
> > structured text, XML, HTML, and did I mention XML.
> > That way we don't need a separate type of Object for each separate type of
> > content.
> 
> What makes  Content object different from a DTML document?  Is it just
> a content-type property?

Yes, and more. This is what I was talking about wrt things like version
control and multi-part documents (handled as one object).  Methods to
determine not only content-type methods but version (management) methods,
sub-object methods, indexing (search) methods (for example), creation,
extraction, etc.

(As well as containing other things like Conferas.)

> I would expect XML objects to have much more structure than, say, 
> plain text or even HTML.  For example, I imagine XML objects providing
> a navigation interface of some kind.

Exactly! navigation interfaces for versions, sub-parts, and for automatically
building std view methods, etc. 

> > As a bonus if Content objects work well, Products like Confera could hold
> > their content in standard Content objects, and so it would be much easier
> > for different types of Products to exchange data.

Bingo!

> But this implies that Content objects have structure.  Do you 
> imagine that Content objects have sub-objects?  Are they foldoids?

Yes! Yes!

> Would they provide a mechanism for setting limitations on what
> kinds of objects could be sub-objects?

Yes!

> I think that a driving need that alot of people have expressed
> is a *simple* mechanism for handling textual content with
> properties and DTML markup.  I'd like to meet that basic need.

Great! Thanks!

Kent