[Zope] Zope 0.9 External Methods

[Samuel A. Falvo II]

I know I'm living in the past, but I just haven't had any time to upgrade.
So please forgive me, and try to understand.

I need to know how to do the following:

1) Pass arguments from a form submission to an external method.

   Right now, I have a checkbox, say, chkDialup, which when checked holds
   the value of 'y'.  When unchecked, the symbol "chkDialup" is undefined,
   and so I default it to 'n' in the external method, like so:
   
   def PriceQuote( self, ..., chkDialup='n', ... )
   
   The problem is, REGARDLESS OF THE VALUE ACTUALLY HELD BY CHKDIALUP, THE
   FUNCTION ALWAYS TREATS IT AS HOLDING THE VALUE OF 'n'!!  Why?

2) How can I include the contents of a document in the output of the
   external method?  I'm trying to do this:

   def PriceQuote( self, ...args... ):
      RESULT = self.pre_content
      RESULT = RESULT + "some sample <b>HTML</b> text here."
      return RESULT

   The problem here is that executing RESULT = self.pre_content, it converts
   the thing into a plain text; in other words, it converts <b> into
   &lt;b&gt;.  How in the world do I get Zope to treat the file /verbatim/
   instead of trying to second-guess what I mean?

Thanks in advance for the advice and assistance.  It's greatly appreciated.
If it seems like I'm a bit "edgy", it's because I'm under a pretty severe
time constraint on this project (it needs to be done in two days!).  I
apologize in advance fro any huffiness on my part.

==========================================================================
      KC5TJA/6     |                  -| TEAM DOLPHIN |-
        DM13       |                  Samuel A. Falvo II
    QRP-L #1447    |          http://www.dolphin.openprojects.net
   Oceanside, CA   |......................................................