[Zope] Bizarre, Frustrating Browser-Specific Behavior?

[Dan Shafer]

I have been using Zope part-time now for almost a year. I've built some 
simple stuff and some moderately complex stuff. Over that time, I've kept 
notes about things I didn't understand, deleting those notes as I've 
learned more (mostly from this list).

But now I'm just at a point where I have to make a decision whether to make 
a *big* commitment to Zope over the next year or so on behalf of my two 
biggest clients and I'm experiencing some weirdness that gives me a bit of 
pause. I'm really looking here for an indication whether these are things 
others have encountered as well or whether there might be something I'm 
either doing wrong or not understanding.

1. Working in IE5 on Macintosh OS X, I often encounter what look for all 
the world like corrupted or scrambled files. Python Script objects appear 
particularly vulnerable, but I've seen this with DTML docs and methods as 
well. The symptom is that some number of letters at the beginning of the 
file appear to be replaced by stray and often unprintable characters. When 
this happens, the rest of the file becomes scrambled and sometimes 
unreadable, always cut off before it ends. I can switch to Windows at that 
point, e.g., and open the same file, and all looks normal.

2. Working in Netscape 6 and/or Mozilla 1.0 on Win2K, I had the same thing 
happen twice tonight. I edit a PythonScript object, Save Changes, get an 
error, click the "Back" button, and I'm on the page where that script is 
supposed to exist but the editing area is completely blank. Browser refresh 
does nothing. I lose the work.

3. Only annoying, but in IE5 on Win2K, the object editing area in the ZMI 
is too wide for the space and cannot be adjusted using the "Narrower" 
button to come within range. Result: a significant amount of horizontal 
scrolling.

I'm running Zope 2.3.3 against Python 1.5 on my ISP-hosted Zope sites. I 
would upgrade to 2.5 (which is available on my ISP) now that I'm no longer 
using Squishdot for discussions, but I've not read anything here that 
indicates such a change would have any impact on these issues.

So is *anyone* else running into this kind of bizarre behavior? I have lost 
substantial productive time both tracking and dealing with these and other 
issues over the past few months. Zope is still faster and better than 
anything else I've used but I am loath to risk my clients' time and money 
on it if the substrate is still as quirky as my experience would *seem* to 
indicate it may be.

Dan Shafer, Chief Scribe and Tablet Keeper
PythonCard Open Source Project
http://pythoncard.sourceforge.net