[Zope] ZPT reading a file

[Jay Dorsey]

On Fri, Nov 28, 2003 at 06:35:33PM -0600, J Cameron Cooper wrote:
> Jay Dorsey wrote:
> 
> >This is probably a simple task, but its giving me a heck of a time.  
> >
> >I've got a folder with some files in it.  I'm using a PageTemplate to
> >loop through the folder and pull the attributes of the templates out.
> >I've got something like this:
> >
> ><div tal:repeat="item sorted_objects">
> >	<div tal:content="item/title">title here</div>	
> >	<div tal:content="item/title">author here</div>	
> >	<div tal:content="structure item">content here</div>	
> ></div>
> >
> >The PageTemplates originally contained HTML, but I'm not so 
> >stuck on it that I can't use Structured Text instead (it doesn't 
> >seem to me that there is an html option for tal:content tags). 
> >Regardless of whether I use "structure" or "text", the content 
> >comes back as text when I view the page.
> >
> You're all over the map terminologically, so I'm not sure that I can 
> tell what you actually mean. Still:

I'm not sure what I actually mean either so we're even ;-)

> 
> I'm assuming that 'sorted_objects' is defined previously by something 
> like a sequence.sort() on the 'objectValues' of your Folder.

Correct.  I've got something similar to this wrapped around the div 
listed earlier:

<span 
	tal:define="objects container/blog_entries/objectValues;
    sort_on python:(('date', 'cmp', 'desc'),
	('title', 'nocase', 'desc'));
	 sorted_objects python:sequence.sort(objects, sort_on)">

I picked it up from somewhere on zope.org or zopelabs.com.

> 
> I did a test of this with a folder 'ddd' containing some PageTemplates 
> and Files containing fragmentary HTML. This worked fine::
> 
> <div tal:repeat="item here/ddd/objectValues">
>    <div tal:content="item/id">id here</div>   
>    <div tal:content="item/title">title here</div>   
>    <div tal:content="structure item">content here</div>   
> </div>
> 
> Notice that it's almost exactly what you wrote. The contents of the 
> 'item' objects are output exactly as contained, which means the HTML 
> renders. Remove the 'structure' keyword and the HTML is escaped and 
> viewable on the page. (You are aware of the exact function of 
> 'structure' right?) Now, if you want to render Structured Text (as 
> contained in a File) you have to say something like::
> 
> <div tal:define="pss modules/Products/PythonScripts/standard" 
> tal:content="structure python:pss.structured_text(item)">

I gave the above a shot, I got either a blank page (when the 
content was structure), or escaped HTML (when the content isn't
specified) which shows the item type and name (i.e.
<ZopePageTemplate at 2003_11_17_06_56>). The entire code is:

<span tal:define="objects container/blog_entries/objectValues;
	sort_on python:(('date', 'cmp', 'desc'),
	('title', 'nocase', 'desc'));
	sorted_objects python:sequence.sort(objects, sort_on)">

	<div 
		tal:repeat="item sorted_objects" 
		style="border:1px dashed #C0C0C0;padding:5px;margin:5px;" 
		tal:attributes="id item/id">
	<h3 tal:content="item/title" style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;">title</h3>
	<div style="font-size:xx-small;margin-left:10px;margin-bottom:10px;">posted by <a tal:content="item/author">author</a> on <a tal:content="item/date">date</a></div>
	<div 
		tal:define="pss modules/Products/PythonScripts/standard"
		tal:content="structure python:pss.structured_text(item)">content goes here</div>
	</div>
</span>

The content-type on the page templates was text/html--I tried changing this to text/plain
but get a parser error when I do so. I fooled around a bit and tried using HTML inside 
the templates with content-type text/html (default), and using "structure item" on my 
tal:content, which seemed to work.  I assume I misunderstood the use of 
structure--it should be used for HTML or structured text?

> 
> >I'm assuming this is because I'm accessing the item incorrectly.
> >
> >What would be the easiest way to get the content out of each item 
> >and use either structured text or just keep the HTML as well?
> >
> >Zope is just killing me right now--if this was plain ol' python I 
> >would have a look at dir(item) to see if there was a  special 
> >attribute or method I needed. Thankfully I'm just learning zope on
> >my own time, else I'd feel horribly useless instead of only 
> >terribly so ;-)
> >
> DocFinder (Or DocFinderEverywhere) may be of help here. You can, by the 
> way, get a Python console into a live Zope. If you get 'zctl' or Zope 
> 2.7 (which comes with 'zopectl' which is pretty much the same) you can 
> just pass that script a 'debug' and off you go.
> 

Sounds easy enough and I may look into it.  I've got a starter account on
zettai.net which doesn't give me complete access to everything (or to 
install my own products/programs--though zettai.net does accept requests to 
install items).

> >The documentation seems lacking on the website, and on the net in 
> >general, as far as basic "heres how you do X" goes.  Zopelabs is 
> >good, and one or two other sites I've found, but I know this 
> >has to be a really easy task.  I appreciate any assistance.
> >
> I suspect that this is well covered and you're just doing something 
> trivially wrong or misunderstanding something (perhaps the way 
> 'structure' works). But in any case, one can't cover everything you 
> might try to do. That's an awfully big space, even among "simple" tasks.
> 
If I understand how structure works properly, the text in the included file
(in my example) was written using structured text, so when its output it should
convert the text to HTML (**this** becomes <b>this</b>).  I didn't realize that 
it would apply to HTML as well.

I appreciate the assistance. :)

-- 
Jay Dorsey
jay at jaydorsey dot com