[Zope] How to overlay one column of a page

[John Poltorak]

On Sun, Jun 05, 2005 at 09:12:58AM -0700, David H wrote:
> Andreas Jung wrote:
> 
> >
> >
> > --On 5. Juni 2005 11:33:42 +0100 John Poltorak <jp at warpix.org> wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> I need some advice on how to format a page and am not sure how to 
> >> explain
> >> what I want to do but hope someone will figure out what I want to do...
> >>
> >>
> >> Basically I have a home page consisting of a standard header and footer,
> >> and three columns - the left and right ones also being standard, with
> >> only  the middle column having content specific to a given page.
> >>
> >> What I would like to do in the left column is have a set of links to
> >> other  pages on the same website with the content of each of those links
> >> overlaying the middle column.
> >>
> >>
> >> There must be a fairly straightforward way of doing this using minimal
> >> codeing, but I can't figure it out.
> >>
> >> Can anyone give me a pointer to some sample code?
> >
> >
> > Create a ZPT and divide your template into slots (metal:define-slot) 
> > and fill the content using metal:fill-slot. Everything's documented in 
> > the Zope Book (there are *three* chapters on ZPT).
> >
> > -aj
> >
> >
> >
> John,
> You might also research/google "css" and "columns".  You may find that 
> cascading style sheets are a big assist in this area 


I may well do, but I don't expect this to happen any time soon since I 
have no idea how.

> (in conjunction 
> with Andreas suggestion).

I have major problems trying to make any sense out of many parts of the 
Zope Book. Here is a typical section introducing ZPTs:-



Now, log into your Zope and create a folder called FileLib. In this 
folder, create a page template called index_html by selecting Page 
Template from the add menu, specifying the id index_html in the form, and 
clicking Add.

Now, with your editor, save the above HTML to the URL 
http://your.zope/FileLib/index_html/source.html. Notice that the URL to 
save the index_html page ends in source.html. Because page templates are 
dynamic, you need a way to edit the raw source of the template, unrendered 
by the page template language. Appending source.html to a page template 
gives you this raw source.


If this makes sense to anyone else, can someone explain it to me?

To me, it says create a file called index_html - no idea what should go 
into it... and then paste the contents of an example into a file called 
index_html/source.html. 


 
> David


-- 
John