[Zope] Questions about Zope strategy

[Michel Pelletier]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Alexandre Ratti [mailto:ratti@dial.oleane.com]
> Sent: Monday, September 27, 1999 7:34 AM
> To: zope@zope.org
> Subject: [Zope] Questions about Zope strategy
> 
> 
> Hello, 
> 
> - Context
> Creating and feeding the site will largely be carried out by voluntary
> workers (many Mac users, also Windows users). The site would 
> probably run
> with Apache on a Linux box at a provider. 

Delegating managment is one of Zope more powerful features.

> - Setup
> This organization doesn't have a permanent Internet access. 
> Site creation
> will be carried out locally on an NT box. However, site 
> management and text
> update would need to be carried out over dial-up connections 
> (33600 bps
> modem; 64000 ISDN connections at best) when the site is online.
> => Do you feel that the slow access could be a major problem?

I work with zope over a 56K modem (really about 38K) all the time.  The
Zope managment interface is very light weight (which is why it's
somewhat spartan looking, some people complain that it's ugly, but it's
also small and fast for this very reason)

> When updating the pages they could export them to HTML, 
> modify them locally
> and reimport them into the database later using Upload. 
> => Is this OK? AFAIK it's not possible to export to HTML an 
> existing page
> content without rendering it. I guess I'd need to create a 
> Python script. 

You lost me here.  It's not that complicated, you can edit pages
directly on the server through the managment interface or through FTP.

> - General database maintenance could be carried out by a couple of
> "techies" in the organization. However, text changes may also 
> be carried
> out by people with little or no previous experience in HTML coding. We
> would train them but I'd like to keep things as simple as 
> possible. In some
> cases I may use forms to guide text entry.

Sign up as a member at http://www.zope.org and see how easy it is.  If
it isn't easy enough for your 'non-techies', then you should look into
alternatives.
 
> - XML question: I've seen that add-on products are available 
> to import XML
> into the database. Is it possible to store an XML file into a single
> document file and to render it to HTML? I suppose Python 
> scripts are needed. 

No Python neccesary.  Just Amos's XMLDocument Product.

-Michel