[Zope] ZPT and Python/Zope specific methods

[Darin Lee]

Zopatistas,

I have been working with TAL, TALES, and METAL over the last few days - and
I thought I was kind of "getting it." However, I've hit a small snag. Is
there a way via TAL to get to many of the Zope methods I use all the time in
DTML?  like ZopeTime() or bobobase_modification_time?

I have read the 1.0 specifications, but I'm not clear how those methods are
mapped to the "path based" way of accessing objects and methods in ZPT. Is
there an object (i.e. "root") that let's me access these methods?

This all started when I decided to add a last modified field in the footer
of my pages with TAL:

<p tal:content="here/ZopeTime">Replace this text</p>

Some methods work, while others do not. Is there any documentation I can
reference which describes specifically what I can call from TAL/TALES/METAL?

Overall, I would say ZPT is a *great* thing. If all goes well, this will
lift Zope out of the WYSIWYG client integration issues that plague *all* of
the other closed source CMS solutions. Zope is, imho, superior to the CMS's
I have researched in it's clean object->URL translation alone (you should
see some of the unintelligable URL's Vignette produces). Furthermore, I'm
not sure how many out there have tried to write Web Applications in TCL or
ASP, but Python is a breath of fresh air when it comes to coding. If ZPT
delivers on it's presentation layer promise (which I believe it will), then
world domination is surely not far behind. ;-)

Congrats to the ZPT team for this breakthrough techology!

Thanks,
Darin Lee