[Zope] <znewb010> agitprop = How to find 'find' ??? </znewb010>

[Jason Cunliffe]

Ok its hot here in the city today ...and I am going @#$%@ nuts trying to
find specific help on various topics in zope.
I know the advice exists "_.{'("['some.where']")'}" in all the great
mesasges and howtos and tips whcih have accrued over the past couple years.

Q1: Why oh why oh why oh why when you go to Zope
http://www.zope.org/Documentation/Tips does it only display
the first 32 characters of the How-to desciption? This is not 1980!
People have taken the trouble to write a descriptive title and you can't
even read it in full .. what is the sense in that?

Q2: Why is it not possible to see the whole thing as one scrollable list?
Why is not possible to group these at least superficially by catgory?

Q3: Why is there no infoseek-like search engine which allows an intial
search, and then search within again to narrow things down. I find typically
this mechanism is by far the most effective way to egt to the information
one wants in the fastest possible time. For example search for 'External'.
Then search within for 'python', then search agin within those results for
'import' etc... Why please can someone explain to me why this is so hard to
do? I thought that infoseek's engine was written in Python or a big chunk of
it..

Q4: Why not show off Zope by having a nice Zope search interface to
searching itself?
The new Nip is an improvement on things but still very hard to sift through
the results.

Q5: Why for @$%@'s sake is there no organization, structure or search for
Zope prodcuts at http://www.zope.org/Products ?
For example 'Member Contributed Products' appear to be listed neither by
name nor topic nor author nor date... what's with that. The zen of searching
zope appears to be 'when you find it you will know'.. How hard is it to put
some useful structure on this? How many newbie email posts would be saved by
an accessible presentation? If Zope is so powerful why can't it be
configured to show it's own stuff more clearly.

Q6: Am I the only one who finds all this very strange?

I love the 'idea' of zope and really want to learn to use it as a basis for
many projects, but am finding I am being driven towards researching other
solutions, simply because I cannot afford the time, [dealy/expense] and
frustration of constantly seeking some valid examples quickly of the syntax.
As an interim I turning to learn to use Python Methods and External Methods
as a better solution, since at least that way it is easier to develop and
read.

In know Zope is free and I cannot complain.
But imho there is  a serious obstacle to its broader growth which is the
learning curve.
My impression is that a major obstacle to willing newbies is simply decent
access to the archives via some smart zope-based search tools. I draw 3
conclusions:

1. I am simply too dumb and too lazy to trawl though gadzillion threads to
find my info
2. Zope has some serious problems and cannot really do what needs to be done
in terms of dynamic search and presentation
3. Digital Creations are too busy/tired etc to put time in for free to get
the web site advanced like this
4. No-one has really applied themselves to the problem. Those who know don't
need it and the rest struggle along

Wht do you think ?

- Jason


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Jason CUNLIFFE = NOMADICS.(Interactive Art and Technology).Design Director