[Zope] List editing with page templates

[Dieter Maurer]

Richard Wesley writes:
 > I need to create a form (using page templates) that does roughly this:
 > 
 > <BasicData>
 > 
 > <selectable list of homogenous objects to attach to BasicData>
 > 
 > <list of homogenous objects already attached to BasicData>
 > 
 > The problem is that I can't seem to make the attached list 
 > persistent.  In my action script for attaching a new list object, I 
 > check the request to see if the list is present and append the 
 > selected object to the attached object list, but the script never 
 > seems to have access to the request passed to the form.
Please read the "Web publishing" section of

  <http://www.dieter.handshake.de/pyprojects/zope/book/chap3.html>

You will find that "REQUEST" is what the name suggests (oh wonder!):
a description of a single, the current, request: no memory for
earlier requests.

When you need such a memory, you are looking for a session.
Zope 2.5 comes with an integrated session product.
It's very easy to use:

     SESSION.set(key,value)

sets "key" to "value" in one request and

     SESSION[key]

retrieves it in later requests.


An alternative is to code the list in a sequence of hidden variables:

     <input type="hidden" name="myList:list" value="val1">
     <input type="hidden" name="myList:list" value="val2">
     ....

Needless to say, that this is much more work...


Dieter