[Zope] Re: Hierarchical content

[Mark Barratt]

 >> Greg Gehrich wrote:
 >>
 >>> I want to be able to create content and then attach sub-content to
 >>> it. For example, if tasks were the content, it would look like the
 >>> following:
 >>>
 >>> go shopping
 >>>     get bananas
 >>>     get bread
 >>> pick up cleaning
 >>>     get shirt
 >>>     get pants
 >>> clean house
 >>>     clean kitchen
 >>>         clean mixer
 >>>         clean clean sink
 >>>     clean bedroom
 >>>
 >>> I don't want to have the overhead of creating and sifting through
 >>> folders as you navigate the hierarchy.  In order to do this, I need
 >>> the ability to have content that has folderish properties allowing
 >>> sub content.
 >>
 >>
 >>
 >> What overhead is this?
 >>
 >> I'd do this as nested ordered folders and use the ZMI to manage it
 >> all, unless there are other hidden requirements here...
 >>
 >> Chris

I'm also not clear about what you want to do. Are you talking about 
creating content or viewing it? Or both?

I *think* what you are talking about is what is called 'mixed content 
elements' in XML: an element can contain both text and other elements.

If so, this is handled seamlessly in xml/sgml editors (Epic, FrameMaker, 
maybe Openoffice) and tools associated with them for creating web 
content, but there are no straightforward ways of dealing with this in 
Zope. Plone's default folders (still folders) are mixed-content 
elements. The Archetypes product for CMF/Plone works, but is 
ridiculously complex and buggy. The Silva content management framework 
may be what you want, but you have to want what Silva delivers. 
XMLparser is a proof of concept, not a usable tool.

To deal with this type of content effectively you may need to look 
elsewhere - check out the Apache Lenya and Forrest projects for example, 
or the tools building up around IBM's DITA. Or you'll need a Zope expert 
(Chris, for example) to build it for you to meet your particular needs.

In theory, Zope should be great for creating task-focused online 
documents. In practice it can be great at rendering them, but there are 
no useful open-source tools to move content from productive 
authoring/editing environments (Epic/FrameMaker with docBook or DITA XML 
schemas/DTDs) into the Zope 'publishing' environment.

Unless you guys know different...


-- 
Mark Barratt
Text Matters

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