[Zope] zpt, metal and missing content objects (bit long)

[Tim Hicks]

Jochen,

> At 19:02 Uhr +0100 12.09.2002, Tim Hicks wrote:
> >  > given, that your html fragments _really_ are the content and not part
> >>  of the presentation (for example because you're working on a Site on
> >>  "best practice HTML") and no other object types than the basic ones
> >>  you're right, there's no document that fits.
> >
> >I'm not working on a site on 'best practice HTML' ;-).  I simply need to
> >present many pages to viewers with a consistent look-and-feel.
>
>
> Well, you should not do it that way, I guess. Given you have many
> similar pages you can probably identify common properties. Take those
> out and put them in object properties.

This seems like over-complexity for this case.  It would make it far more
complicated to use my java ttw html editing widget.  I think I understand
the idea of having properties on objects and building pages dynamically,
it's just in this case, it seems that I only really want one property, and
that consists of html content.

> If you just want to do a basically static site but with a common look
> an feel, you could use PageTemplates. The common parts would be put
> into the mass of your pages with metal:macros. But the start of our
> discussion was to seperate template from content so we're not really
> getting anywhere here...

That's still what I'm talking about, it's just my content happens to already
be html.  I have no need or desire to break it down into separate properties
on a folder for it to simply be reconstructed on rendering into the exact
same form as it was generated in.

In this project (and in many others I am/have been involved in), all I want
is a content object that renders with a standard look-and-feel (i.e. a
header and a footer), but that doesn't require explicitly embedding this
look-and-feel code into the actual content (this is what I mean by
separating template and content, in this case).  Products such as
StructuredDocument and HTMLDocument do this, but use dtml headers, whereas I
want to use zpt for my templating.  I think this is a common use case, and
find it surprising that there isn't a built-in (to zope) solution for this.

> >  The pages
> >need only be available in html (as opposed to anything else like pdf,
wml,
> >or whatever), so I don't need to store XML or some other more data
oriented
> >format that must be converted to html.  I also have access to rather a
nice
> >ttw java applet for editing this html content in a wysiwyg way.  Storing
> >html fragments (i.e. those that can't be abstracted out into the
> >header/footer because they change from page to page) seems to be the way
to
> >go... but then I'm coming from the <dtml-var standard_html_header/footer>
> >way of doing things.
>
>
> >Given this, do you have any other ideas for a setup?
> >
> >>  If CMF was an option, that holds several content-types that would
> >>  _exactly_ fit your need...
> >
> >I don't have access to CMF on the production server.
>
> Could you please explain what kind of a beast this Zope is that you
> will be using???

It's Zope 2.5.1 with BTreeFolder, HTMLDocument, PhotoFolder,
ExtFile/ExtImage and ZUBB as additional products.  I do not control the
server, and cannot get any more products onto it.

all the best,

tim