[Zope] Your thoughts about Zope-based database apps

[Francisco José Esteban Risueño]

We've implemented an application like this in our intranet, and it's now
up and running satisfactory with 1500 users. We use Oracle as back-end.
Here are responses from the rest of your questions:

1.- We've using zope only since six months ago. the development period
of the application was three months and we can consider him medium-sized
(30 tables, 10 imput screens, 15 output screens, interfaces with
operating system authentication and services, outputs in PDF, RTF and
HTML formats...). We're not particulary smart :).

2.- We use javascript to perform data validation before insert them in
the database (although Oracle has its own data validation, we also
perform it in the client side in order to reduce database traffic and to
offer the user more precise information about the errors)

3.- The implementation of master/detail forms is rather complicated the
first time, but possible: We offer initialy three detail rows for the
master one and an "Add row" button that refresh the screen with another
detail row when pressed (using zope <dtml-in> statements). In the
validation of the form, we know the number of detail rows and the number
of form fields of each row, so, by the position of a field in the form,
whe can know to wich detail it belongs and can pass it to the proper
insert/update sentence. If you understand spanish, I can give you an
example dtml method with this behaviour

Alonso Rhenals escribió:

> I'm considering implementing a web-based database application with
> MySQL as a back-end and a Zope-based front-end. I wonder if you could
> provide your thoughts on the following questions: 1. Is Zope a good
> tool to quicky build an efficient & effective user interface for a
> database application? 2. In particular, what would be the best way to
> implement the inserting and updating of records along with input data
> validation? (Retrieving data from a database to show on a web page
> using Zope is straightforward as you know.) 3. In several cases I'd
> like to implement a main form/subform, where the subform allows the
> user to enter several items related to only one record in the main
> form. Since every item might have many fields (say 20) I'd like to
> present just the most important fields on a table, and allow the user
> to view/enter/update all the fields for each item in a different web
> page. Those of you familiar with Microsoft Access know that in Access
> it is straightforward to implement this main form/subform interface. I
> wonder what would be the best way of implementing this using Zope? 4.
> Do you know of any existing Zope-based app similar to this?.
> Obviously, the back-end doesn't have to be MySQL. 5. Finally, if
> somebody is interested in further discussing this type of
> applications, I'll be glad to participate. Just e-mail me to
> rhenals@ieee.org Thanks in advance for your inputs.
> Alonso RhenalsMiami, FL, USAPlease reply to: rhenals@ieee.org