[Zope] Building a site template

[Paul Winkler]

On Sun, Feb 08, 2004 at 10:36:34PM +0000, John Poltorak wrote:
> On Sun, Feb 08, 2004 at 08:52:40PM +0000, Philip Kilner wrote:
> > Hi John,
> > 
> > I know you'll hear others say this, but try ZPT if you can - it does my 
> > head in, and sometimes seems very cryptic, but it better defines where 
> > design/HTML end and function/Script begins.
> 
> 
> Do I need Plone for that? 

No. ZPT comes with "plain zope".
Plone uses ZPT to implement its look & feel.
 
> Where can I grab some sample ZPT pages, just to see what they look like?

hmmm... all over the place... but check this out for starters:

http://zope.org/Documentation/Books/ZopeBook/2_6Edition/ZPT.stx

There are lots of user comments from people who have had all the
same questions and confusions that you have had, so it's
worth reading the comments too.

After you've got that down pretty well, move on to this:
http://zope.org/Documentation/Books/ZopeBook/2_6Edition/AdvZPT.stx

There are far fewer comments there, hopefully because once
you've got the "basics", the advanced stuff isn't that
much harder ;-)
  
> > How well do you know Python?
> 
> Not at all. REXX is my favourite language, but I don't really want to get 
> too deeply into the nooks and crannies of Zope. I just want to be able to 
> build and manage fairly static web pages with the occasional bit of 
> updated content, and the ability to transform standard templates with the 
> use of themes.

OK. It's hard to get by in zope without at least a *little* ability
to read and write simple bits of python. There are plenty of
good tutorials floating around, check the documentation section
of python.org.  You don't need to get in to the "nooks and crannies"
right away (or ever).
  
> > > Do they both need to installed or can I install them independently?
> > > 
> > 
> > Plone sits on CMF, which sits on Zope, which sits on Python.
> 
> Plone on top of CMF on top of Zope on top of Python all installed and 
> managed remotely, sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.

Nah :-)

> Does Plone come with its own tutorial?

do'nt think so. But Andy McKay is working on a nice "Plone Book",
which is already quite useful though it has some formatting
problems currently:
http://plone.org/documentation/book
 
> I still can't get my head around what it provides.

Plone provides a "portal" type of site which works well out of the
box, and can be customized as you desire.
Read "what is plone", 1st chapter in Andy's book.
Then play around with it here and you'll get the idea:
http://demo.plone.org


-- 

Paul Winkler
http://www.slinkp.com
Look! Up in the sky! It's DOCTOR MAN!
(random hero from isometric.spaceninja.com)