[Zope] Re: Generic Content Object for use with Page Templates

[Oliver Bleutgen]

Paul Winkler wrote:

> On Wed, Aug 21, 2002 at 04:44:29PM -0500, Evan Simpson wrote:
> 
>>Obviously, this may not work for you if you have a different model for 
>>user interaction with content.  If you can, I advise using the CMF.
>>
> 
> This brings up an issue I'm dealing with currently...
> 
> I've got largish amounts of content objects which
> need to be managed by a small (under 10) group of people
> internally, and viewed (not managed) on the internet.
> We're moving to using CMF-based solutions for management,
> but for presentation to the outside world, the "portal" metaphor
> isn't really that relevant - our site is not personalizable
> (is that a word?), nor can the general public log in.  And
> we have a design for the site which doesn't look anything lke
> an existing CMF skin.
> 
> I see two options:
> 
> 1) Create a skin for the public which hides all the management
> stuff (and, in fact, looks & feels *completely* different
> from the management skin).
> 
> 2) Create a separate section of our site which is purely
> for presentation, and pulls content out of CMF. (love that
> CookedBody() method!)
> 
> Has anyone gone down either or both of these paths?
> Any comments on pros & cons of either approach?
> 
> I have a feeling that option 2 might be easier to manage
> in terms of security.
> 


Paul, its sound like you never used the CMF in a project, and are 
therefore in a situation like me some months before. Even if not, I'll 
just write down my experience when using CMF, maybe it's informative for 
someone else .

I always heard how cool CMF is and what nice solutions you get when 
using it - and everytime I looked at it/installed it, it looked like a 
framework for community driven slashcode sites.

Only when I had the problem of giving users several "intelligent" 
templates to work with, freely interchangeable even after creating the 
content, I got the tip to look at CMF.

I had to use a fs-based product from the beginning and first looked at 
the CMF-equivalent (roughly) of the nice mxmEasyProduct - don't remembe 
the name ATM, to see what stuff a  CMF product has to implement.

I didn't like the CMF mgmnt-interface, so I wrote a "hybrid" product of 
some sort, because it uses the ZMI for its interface.

I think of this memberstuff and skin stuff as services, and the stock 
CMF stuff as an "maximal" example application which just tries to show 
off anything the CMF has to offer. Arguably not in an optimal form - the 
stock ZMI interface is really more convenient than the CMF interface IMO.
But that this represents the "portal" metaphor is not surprising, 
because the concept of a portal aims to use any technology which is 
available to enrich its content.

But using the CMF is really a joy and is probably not limited to 
building community sites, it's really zope-as-a-publishing-system taken 
to the next level of existence.

Just replace _all_ of the standard skins with your own, and you are as 
productive as with a zope python product, just much more flexible.

cheers,
oliver