[Zope] Has this been done?

[rgines@purina.com]

>I am new to Zope (though I did experiment with Bobo a while back.) and
being an
>ex-Notes programmer see some definite possibilities for Zope on the low
end
>where Notes/Domino just is too costly. That said one of the core functions
of
>Notes is messaging. I have look through all the sites I can find and all
the
>docs that are obvious and can't find anything in the way of one-to-one
(e-mail)
>messaging being done within the Zope environment.

Well as a fellow Notes developer who has seen the light ....   ;-( ..sorry.

My first comment would be to not try to directly compare Notes and Zope.
They
are two different beasts.   I would not even compare them as low-end and
high-end as you eluded to.

Both platforms have their strengths and weaknesses.  Since you already
know Notes and what it can do I'll not climb up to my soap box.   In short
I still use both platforms.   I use Apache to front end everything at my
primary client (Notes, DB2, Zope, FTP, etc. etc. ...)

As for workflow projects, the platforms will handle this differently.
Within
Zope there are several 'mail' functions which can be used against a
MailHost
object.   I would look into that and develop your knowledge base from
there.
I think that once you see how the mail functions are tied in with MailHost
you
will understand how you can alter your thinking as compared to Notes.

Here's an example.  I'm developing a rather simple resource support
application
for this client.   In short I have support 'Forms' [Notes speak] which
allow me to
enter a message within a text window and have the information sent to an
alpha-numeric pager or E-Mail account.

It would be a rather trivial extension of this to tie within an object
requiring workflow.
As different stages in the workflow are met, different targets are used for
the
mail messages and even permission's and 'viewable' objects are changed on
the fly.

Functionally, everything is parallel to what would be done within Notes.
The difference
is that everything is acted against an object with properties instead of s
set of forms.

I hope this makes sense.   I don't want to get long winded here since this
isn't
a Notes discussion list.

>Has this been done? If so where can I find the code? If not do people
think I'm
>barking up the wrong tree with this? Or does it sound interesting? My
intent is
>to facilitate form based workflow applications that I think Zope (possibly
with
>some XML) can do well.

XML can probably be tied in ... but it is not at all a necessary component.

Has this been done.   I'm sure that it has.  As to the code ... hmmm.   I
haven't
done anything yet, but can easily see how it could be done.

A quick step up to my soap-box would remind you to use the best product
for the job.  I built a quick little database in Notes just yesterday in
about
ten minutes included the data structures, reports, security etc.   There is
no way that I could have done that in Zope.   On the other hand, the
reason that I am using Zope is that there is absolutely no way that I
could easily integrate the functions that I get with dtml into Notes.
While I would agree that it could be done in Notes ... I just don't
want to even think of going there ... my head hurts just contemplating it.

>I appreciate the activity of this group. It helps to know there are a lot
of
>people out there working on this platform.

I've only been here two months or so.   I see a lot of potential here.   It
has been a while since I actually got excited about a platform.

>Thanks in advance for any assistance and/or ideas.

Let me know if there are specific applications that you are thinking of
and maybe I can help you think through some of the development
issues as they compare to Notes.