[Zope] Uploading a Zope site

[Terry Hancock]

I've been managing static HTML sites for a long time,
although none of them have been terribly ambitious,
but I'm fairly new with Zope.

My usual practice (which I think is pretty common and
a good idea anyway), is to work on a website stored on
a local server. Then, when the time comes to commit the
changes, I upload the site.

I'm attempting the same type of procedure with Zope:
I have a local copy which I develop on, and I periodically
try to upload content to a Zope account at my ISP (Imeme).

The problem I'm running into, is that I now have some
dynamically-created content on the site, which I don't
want to lose.  As designed, a "clobber" approach (i.e.
upload over the existing site, replacing any files
which have the same name), would work fine (the automatically
generated files have predictable names and locations).
But there doesn't seem to be an easy way to do this (well,
you wouldn't *want* it to be too easy).

My present procedure is pretty complicated -- I do an
export locally, and then an import at the ISP. But
I also have to export parts of the ISP version in order
to incorporate them.

I seem to be getting away with this now, but our site
is going to become a lot more dynamic in the future.

How can I make this easier?

* Can I do a "clobber" type of import, like I could do
  with an FTP site, for example -- just replace the files
  I upload, but leave others intact?

* Could I do a date-based export (i.e. export the objects
  that have changed since the previous upload, and overload
  that after I do my main import?)

* Is there an "officially sanctioned zope method" for
  merging content from the local site into the new site?

* Can I do something like this with ZEO?  I know it's set
  up to do it automatically, but I want to do it only on
  demand, when I'm ready to commit my changes.

* Can I write something in Zope/python to make it easier?
  (Well, obviously the answer is 'yes', but I'm looking
  for hints here :) ).

* Could I somehow do this with CVS? I get the impression
  that Zope's change-control system is supposed to replace
  CVS, not work with it, but I'm very new at this.

* I just saw something in the documentation about "sessions"
  which seems similar in concept, but I don't know if it's
  appropriate.

I can't just use the FTP interface, because that wouldn't
preserve object properties, without which my site would
just fall apart.

Please CC, as I receive this list in digest only.

Thanks!

-- 
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Terry Hancock
hancock@anansispaceworks.com       
Anansi Spaceworks                 
http://www.anansispaceworks.com 
P.O. Box 60583                     
Pasadena, CA 91116-6583
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