[Zope] DTML in Zope 2 vs Zope 3

[Lennart Regebro]

On 5/26/05, Greg Fischer <retheoff at gmail.com> wrote:
> Is DTML really that much harder to use?

Nah, but it's uglier. Also, the idea is that a web editor that
confirms to the tsandard of ignoring things it doens't understand,
should in theory be usable with TAL, but not with DTML. In practice,
however, HTML editors don't do that.

> I understand the whole idea of separating the logic and the
> presentation, and I guess, is that part of the reason why DTML is not
> as good?  

Well, it used to be. But logic crept into ZPTs as well. The good thing
is to set up all the data in a python script or python method, and
then use the template only to display this data. Zope3 has this
separation "built-in", when you create a page with a template it
automatically gets connected to a "view" which is a python class, and
you can specify your own custom view and set up the data there.

In Zope 2 you have to call a script that creates the data, or
reversely, use the script as the main view and let it call the
template. (I don't know how easy that last thing is with DTML, but the
first one works).

If you do this, the drawbacks of DTML becomes much less painful.
-- 
Lennart Regebro, Nuxeo     http://www.nuxeo.com/
CPS Content Management     http://www.cps-project.org/