[Zope] planning new site, Zope questions

[Tres Seaver]

"Henk Schets" <henk@poppunt.be> wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> we're planning a major update of our site and we are considering using Zope
> for it.  However, I still have some questions left :
> (Note : we are absolute beginners in Zope)

> - we have no experience in developing with Python, is it easy to
>   adopt this language ?

Given reasonable experience with some other Algol-derived imperative
language, Python is about as easy a second language as I can think of.

> - for the site content, we have non-professional writers (they
>   don't even know html).  So we will need a simple to use content
>   management system.

Please check out the Content Management Framework (formerly the
"Portal Toolkit"), which is designed to make creating community
generated content sites as easy as possible:

  http://www.zope.org/Products/PTK (moving soon to its own host)


> I understand, the management screens are suiteable.  Is there
> some way to customize these for super-inexperienced people ?

The current version of the CMF is designed to allow through-the-web
customization of the default "skin" (which is delivered from the
filesystem).  We are scheduled to release version 1.0 of the CMF
this month;  one of the TODO's before then is to move the last
"hard-coded" UI into the skins, so that it can be customized /
internationalized.

> - the site will need a good search engine.  Since we will be
>   putting all of our articles in a separate database, is it
>   still possible to use ZCatalog ?

It is possible to store content outside the ZODB (typically
storing or replicating the metadata in the catalog).  You will
have to "roll your own" content objects, typically, to make this
happen.

> - how easy is it to maintain an Enhydra based website?
>   Generally and technically speaking ofcourse, I understand
>   this has a lot to do with the complexity of it.

Enhydra is built around Java servlet technology;  if your
staff is already comfortable with servlets, then Enhydra might
be a workable choice.

Tres.
-- 
===============================================================
Tres Seaver                                tseaver@digicool.com
Digital Creations     "Zope Dealers"       http://www.zope.org