[Zope] Zope from a php perspective

[Chris McDonough]

Hi vincent...
> include_path : I understand that you can automatically
> include objects into pages by referencing their id, I also understand
> that Zope automatically searches up the parent chain till it finds a
> matching object. But what if I want to include something outside of the
> tree? or just wanted a central repositories of object that I wanted to
> be able access from anywhere.

You use expressions which include a path to the container.  An example,
where "MyFolder" is a folder in the Zope root folder:

<dtml-in "MyFolder.objectIds()">
   <dtml-var sequence-item><br>
</dtml-in>

"MyFolder" will be found in the containment path, and you're access the
objectIds method of it by using the expression "MyFolder.objectIds()".  Some
better examples are given in the Zope book.  One thing to realize is that
things "in quotes" following a dtml-var, dtml-call, dtml-with, dtml-in, etc.
is a Python expression, whereas things that are not in quotes are not.

>
> i.e
>
>
>
>
> cars  colors
> |
> |
> ford
> red
> |
> toyota
>
> if cars and colors are on seperate branches, how an I
> "cross" the brnches to access objects.

I dont understand your diagram.

>
>
> Publishing tools:
> I'm going to be doing some news related sites, are there
> tools specially made for this type of project?
> I'm using 2.2.5 , does Ztemplates and Zpublisher automatically
> come with this version? They are not listed in the "products"
> folder in the management screen.

Check out the portal toolkit...http://www.zope.org/Products/PTK

>
> Where can I find the the full docs on
> Ztemplates and Zpublisher?

See the Zope Book:  http://www.zope.org/Members/michel/ZB/, particularly the
chapter "Dynamic Content With DTML".

>
> comment: I find the Zope website hard to extract info from.
> I suggest a seperate section for ducumentation of the core
> functionality and another section for additional add-on
> modules (products?)

This is sort of the way it's laid out now, although arguably many core
pieces should really be Products with their own set of documentation.