[Zope] Re: FTP automangling file extension: semi-working proof-of-concept

[Tino Wildenhain]

Hi,

--On Sonntag, 29. Juli 2001 01:42 +0100 Hamish Lawson 
<hamish_lawson@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

> Joel Burton wrote:
>
>> Yesterday, I suggested that it might be helpful for FTP & WebDAV to
>> return a pseudo-extension for the type of file being read so that
> non-
>> Zope-saavy programs could more effectively work with Zope files.
>> (Some programs, notably Dreamweaver and GoLive, refuse to work
>> w/files w/o extensions.) When the file is later uploaded via
>> FTP/WebDAV, the extension would be removed.
>
> [snip]
>
>> Is this a fair idea? I doubt the fine folks at ZopeCorp will rush my
>> three-line patch into the core ;-), but I'd would like to get the
>> sense if I'm heading in a sane direction.
>
> Definitely! I floated this very idea a few weeks ago, so I'm glad to
> see someone having a go at it. Eventually a mechanism will be needed to
> associate file extensions with metatypes; a couple of options spring to
> mind: each Product could be expected to specify its extension as it
> does for its icon and metatype; or else there could be a
> extension-mapper product that allowed for TTW configuration.

Hehe, a suggestion of this kind came from me much 'agoer' ;)
In fact I'm using something like that already. The problem is,
you want a more general solution if you open your code to
other people, and this takes time :(
The other problem with FTP creation is: you cant specifically
map file types to ZClasses. You cant - and thats a real problem -
create other then the build in Folder with ftp mkdir.

The best thing[tm] would be having zclasses a mapping for their
mime-types, then, in objectManager subclasses you can choose which
products you want to use in them (this is currently only used for
the TTW management system). If you put a resource via FTP in it,
zope would check which of the allowed subclasses have maching
mime-types and chooses the first one to create. If nothing matches,
zope schould refuse to create the object. (Imagine declaring a
subclass as folder for images. You dont want anybody putting
html content in it)

For folder creation, either the default schould be that 'mkdir'
creates a folderish zclass of the same type as the container
or it should be configurable. (The first thing I'm using in practice.
my base-class makes sure to create a similar instance of it
with 'mkdir' using newfolder=currentfolder.__class__()
I think this is a hack but I did not found any mapping between
meta_type and class constructor.

Regards
Tino