[Zope] Zope needs this (and Dynamo has it)

[Richard Moon]

At 17:01 08/03/00 +0100, you wrote:

>If you have a programmer and a web designer around it's possible to
>seperate the two tasks quite well, though, in my experience. Likewise a
>situation with a programmer and a content manager, which is the situation
>I'm in right now.

Me too - only trouble is I'm the programmer. I'm struggling and I can't 
afford to retire just yet :-)

>Still, both the web designer and the content manager want to know more
>about Zope, and this does throw them off into the deep end (Python,
>DTML, object oriented programming, etc).
>
> > It is great that Zope has the low level stuff but I feel that work 
> needs to
> > be done
> >
> > 1) To analyse actual usage of Zope to see what features are being used and
> > which areas of usage cause concern/difficulty
> > 2) To Implement high level dtml tags to implement them.
> >
> > I've stuck my neck out here - feel free to chop it off.
>
>I won't chop it off; you're right. Though I would say a simpler DTML
>is only half of the story; the other half of the story is already there --
>people _can_ use drop-in components. It's just that we need more and
>better drop-in components (with possibly a nicer interface, ala Zope PTK
>and/or Zope Mozilla).

I am impressed with the products I've seen so far but they can always be 
improved and there's certainly room for more. Perhaps there should be a 
coordinated 'wish list' on zope.org so that developers can pick up on 
needed products, or collaborate  on enhancements of existing products ?

>Still, a simple variety of DTML would be nice. Currently you can
>successfully use a subset of DTML, which almost has no arcaneness but
>is still very powerful.

Agreed <dml-var object> is a pretty good start for most people.

>PythonMethods will help even more there. Still,
>DTML allows too much, so it's too easy to move into the arcane domain. Also
>some of its powerful features have the side effect that some of the simple
>features look too complex.
>
>So perhaps we should create a seperate language, based on the subset,
>with simplified syntax, which _doesn't_ allow fancy stuff. The fancy
>stuff would be in DTML-methods or PythonMethods of some kind. Perhaps
>even the HTML would be in seperate methods. Perhaps some XML-ish Zope
>glue language, like this:
>
><zopeglue>
><var object="header"/>
>
><assign name="age" object="get_age"/>
><var object="show_age_intro" arguments="age"/>
>
><var object="layout.table_header"/>
><in object="get_above_age" arguments="age">
><var object="myrecord" arguments="in_item"/>
></in>
><var object="layout.table_footer"/>
>
><assign name="age" object="getage">
><var object="footer"/>
></zopeglue>

Well that's a bit further than I was proposing. Perhaps I would settle for 
dtml which accessed the REQUEST object more simply. However your syntax 
looks good.

>And then some IDE that allows you to easily create all objects you
>refer to here.

And browse all the objects and all the methods and attributes defined on them.

>  Perhaps something wiki-like; any object name that you refer
>to in the glue that can't be found will be presented in a list after you
>edit the glue, and you can create objects for it then.
>
>Ideas, ideas, now for some time. :)
>
>Regards,
>
>Martijn
>
>
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Richard Moon
richard@dcs.co.uk