[Zope] Zope for a article publication site

[Martijn Faassen]

Eric BARROCA wrote:
> 
> Hello,
> 
> I'm working on a project for a client : I must build a big website for article
> publication. It's mean that each journalist who have an account can
> published his paper on the site, filling a form. Several "design" for the
> article must be supported and my client want to be able to add easily
> other article template. That's only a little description of the project,
> but it's enough to have an idea, I think.

> First, I though do that with PHP3+PostgreSQL, but I discovered Zope (in
> linuxweekly's paper) and I think that Zope is more adapted for my needs.

I think Zope has some roots in the newspaper publishing industry, so
that might definitely be true. :)

> I'm testing zope since about 2 weeks, and I begin to understand it pretty
> well, but I've some questions that I can't understand alone and that don't
> appear in the doc (I've found something in the ML's archive, but not exactly
> what I'm looking for) : What way must I choose for designing/storing the
> templates and the articles ?
> For storing the article, I don't know what is the best : a ZClasse
> "article" + ZODB or records in PostgreSQL, knowing that the articles are
> classed into categories.

Relational database:

* well understood, skills probably already available

* because of this, probably shorter initial development time

* fast record lookup

* other programs can use the same data easily

* good integration with Zope

* possibly less flexibility once you have the system going

ZClasses:

* new things to learn, so you may run into some difficulties

* because of this, probably longer initial development time

* fast lookup if your ZClasses are designed to use ZCatalog, also easy
full-text
search.

* more difficult for external programs to use the data (though many ways
to
interface Zope with the outside world)

* more flexibility; easier to come up with new article types, etc.

> For the article template, I've found a solution, I think : storing all
> article's templates (that are DTML methods with some <dtml-var xxx>) in a
> folder and listing them with a <dtml-in>. Is a good solution ? What do you
> suggest ?

I'm not quite sure what you want to accomplish here? 

If you use ZClasses, you could design ZClasses for each article template
that you have, by including standard_html_header and footer and such in
the ZClass. With relational databases you need some other approach.
Perhaps others can comment some more on this one.
 
> I hope I'll ne able to email you that a new site use Zope, and not have too
> borrying you with these newbies questions :)

No problem. Good luck!

Regards,

Martijn