[Zope] Zope on local machine and ZSynched to a server - could it be like Radio Userland?

[Heimo Laukkanen]

Blob,

I believe in throwing ideas and dreaming together. After seeing Andy's 
Plone windows installer I began to wonder, would it be possible in 
future to have content providers running local Zope instances and 
replicate with xml-rpc to the web server. And with possible I mean as 
easy to use as radio.

First features would be.

1) Easy to setup on local machine, doubleclick to setup, click clickety 
click and local service is up and running

2) Person can start to create local content right away, wether it is a 
blog or articles or news items

3) When ready and connected to the net, user can upload and send 
selected files or changes to designated server either published right 
then or possibly to a person's own Inbox from which user can select to 
publish them

This would make the authoring experience same also offline. It would be 
nice to be able to be offline with laptop, make the content and layouts 
ready and just send everything to the server when connected. Think about 
email, while offline you can do the emails ready and then just upload 
your 'outbox' to the email server.

This would be enough for offline editing - either for people who depend 
on dialup connections afrom home or are doing reportage for example on 
the run via GSM or GPRS. ( For you americans GPRS is packet switched 
mobile phone network, which allows also higher bandwith than normal GSM 
data ).

Why am I interested in this idea?

Well first of all the authoring on the run. With same tools and 
interfaces as online. Otherwise the content creation tools would be - 
most likely MS Office or similar. For content creators I believe it 
would be best, if the processes and tools are same - no matter where you 
do your publishing, online or offline.




In a year or two or three or whenever - it would be nice to have 
something like Lotus Notes' replication, meaning user could download 
snapshots / replicate parts from the server to local machine. Edited 
objects would be replicated back to the server and edit conflicts 
resolved. This kind of replicated storage would kick ass and would make 
possible to create applications that could be taken to field within 
laptops and then again replicated to main database when back at the office.


Any thougths.


-- 
Heimo Laukkanen
Oy Fountain Park Ltd
Hämeentie 153 B, 00560 Helsinki, Finland
tel. +358 9 777 68 161, gsm +358 40 759 1110, fax +358 9 777 68 100
http://www.fountainpark.org