[Zope] university portal

[Rik Hoekstra]

>
> I'm another Zope newbie with a few questions. My appologies if this
message is being sent to the wrong mailing list.

this is the list

>
> I'm a final year student doing a project to create a course/personal
management system for my university. I
> understand there's quite a lot of similar work going on in this field
already.
>
> I aim to create a database to store student information in (using mySQL or
Zope?)

or both. This really depends on what you want and how many users you expect
. Some user management products (Zopish for components) are flexible enough
to accommodate both. ZPatterns and a Zpattern based products (like
LoginManager?) allow you to switch from one implementation to another
halfway. Experimenting with ZPatterns is not a newby thing though... ;-)

>which the user (the lecturer) can
> add content to (details of grades, etc) via a web browser and use for bulk
manipulation of data... sending email
> amongst other things. In addition, I hope to provide a 'wizard' (in a
browser window) to provide facilities for
> uploading lecture material, news, etc. to the course web page. Going
through Zope's 'Elvis' tutorial this seems
> possible.

this is the realm Zope is suited for par excellence

>
> [Q] Is it possible to present a user with various web forms to input
information (say, a news article with headline
> & content) that once submitted will be displayed on the page in a suitable
format? I think Zope is capable of
> this... is Python/anything required. Are there any examples I can look at?

Yes, many. Try looking at Squishdot for a start. It's a flexible weblog
style product (http://www.zope.org/Members/chrisw/Squishdot)  The Zope
Portal Toolkit may provide much of you want, but it's a project in the
making (http://www.zope.org/Products/PTK)
My own Zope Edu Course Framework (http://www.zope.org/Members/Hoekstra/ZECF)
is a product for publishing courses online. It's intended for people with
few technical web skills. However, this too is under development

>
> I am in the process of reading the online Zope book - if anyone has any
advice for reading material, I would be
> grateful to hear it :-)
>

watch the documentation pages, they will be much improved within a few days

> [Q] There are a lot of Zope products available - am I right in thinking
that, say a 'Zope Discussion Board' product,
> could be download and integrated into a Zope-powered web-site?

yes.

> i.e. Are Zope products 'plug and play' TM? ;-o
>

many are, some are not.This really depends on the product.Most have
installation instructions. They should tell you more.

hth

Rik