[Zope] Content management system

[Jason Cunliffe]

Hi

Zope can do what you want -- but it may take some learning and development
on your part to exactly fit your client's needs.
Plone is a sophisticated Zope extension which makes it easier than plain
Zope to deliver a turnkey demo CMS for client. From there you can work
hands-on and better implement special features, interface, graphic design,
templating etc.

With or without Plone a very useful Zope Product for you is probably
LocalFS. This gives Zope precise access to any files stored on the server.
LocalFS means "local file system"  referring to files local to wherever Zope
server sytem is running. Installing LocalFS is very easy. Then though admin
form create your required LocalFS instance object, for example just expose
the  folder where shared Excel files will be placed.

LocalFS
http://sourceforge.net/projects/localfs

I see tha http://zettai.net/, Zope hosting ISP reommend LocalFS >>
"LocalFS 1.0.0 is now on the server. I've set up local filesystem
directories for everyone and there is a README file in there to answer your
questions. LocalFS has the benefit of not only serving your files and images
faster but also freeing up zope to focus on what it does best: serving
dynamic content. We can also set it up so you can access this directory via
Apache."

Zope has multilevel permissions control and these can be also applied to
LocalFS 'object', for example whether they are for View only, or
edit/rewriting etc. You can upload to those folders using whatever FTP tools
you want or through a Zope upload Webform interface, or even roll-your-own.

Zope comes with ZODB, a lovely database with persistance, versioning etc.
You might find ZODB meets your requiremetns very nicely and may not need to
resort to MySQL, Oracle etc.. Zope and Python have a number of database
bindings, inlcuding BerkeleyDB [now with XML:-)]. But ZODB has obvious
advantages because of Zope's inherent search and cataloguing mechanism.

There are probably available tools  for searching within documents also.

Whatever you use, you will have to address version control of any files
checked in or outso there are not conflicts between people trying modify the
same documents. I think you would have to write some code to help keep users
informed. Perhaps a simple check-in checkout interface - ir depends on the
real workflow needs. There may already be a module to do this - have to
search for it.

I hope that soon all  CMS and Zope systems will integrate Jabber protocols
and clients, so that people working together can easily keep informed of
collbaorative page/document status in real-time.

Sean Voisen is just about to release XIFF, a FlashMX library for XMPP
[Jabber protocol]. This will make it very easy to design and integrate
user-friendly message and presence features in Zope or any web page :-)
XIFF
http://www.xifflabs.com/

Jabber
http://www.jabber.org/

hth
Jason