[Zope] Doing Python-ish things in Zope...

[Zope on a Rope]

How might I reference the first x characters of a title_or_id?

I tried the Python-ish

	<!--#if expr="id[0:2] != 'zzz'"-->

and that clearly didn't work. 

Maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree. I'd like to be able to store all of my
resources (images and things I haven't even thought of yet) away from the
real content. My old-school Web development thinking says build a hidden
directory and stuff them all in there.

That works well until I try to stay tidy and add subdirectories. I renamed
my resource directory 'zzz' but when I put, say, an 'img' folder in it, the
'zzz' directory doesn't show up on the tree but the 'img' folder does.

Any clues?

Thanks!
Jules