[Zope3-dev] Content Types: What are they? Do we need them for Zope 3

[Jim Fulton]

Paul Everitt wrote:
> 
> On samedi, nov 16, 2002, at 22:13 Europe/Paris, Martijn Faassen wrote:
> 
>> Jim Fulton wrote:
>>
>>> Historically, Zope has a notion of "type" that has not been
>>> very well defined.
>>
> 
> Two additional wrinkles on this:
> 
> 1) "Widgets".  The work by Shane on "page designs" concentrates on a 
> higher-level abstraction for how Site Developers construct sites.  Shane 
> blessed this sentence (my words) as the starting point:
> 
> "A UI for Site Developers is *one of* the user interfaces needed for 
> Zope 3.  With this UI, a Site Developer will customize existing 
> components and work them into pages in the site structure.  Page designs 
> can provide the visual and logical model for how a Site Developer 
> assembles the site."
> 
> For instance, a widget might be a Poll that you drag from a palette of 
> widgets, drop in a column on a template, and fill in the properties to 
> configure.  (Shane, is this right?)
> 
> It isn't clear at what stage we are in this page design thinking.  But 
> if an idea such as "widget" emerges, it will be another facet in the 
> discussion of content type vs. meta_type vs. portal_type vs. component 
> (interface).

Note that we already have "widgets" in Zope 3 Formulator:
http://dev.zope.org/Wikis/DevSite/Projects/ComponentArchitecture/Zope3Formulator.

I just asked Shane what he calls the things assembled by Page Design.
He said he calls them "page elements".


> I'm certainly not saying that widget is a content type.  Only that the 
> relation between widget and the other things needs to be pretty clear 
> (if there becomes such a thing as widget).

I think that page elements will typically be either:

- Content or

- Views of content


> On to the second wrinkle on content types.
> 
> 2) XML.  It is early to tell whether Zope 3 will have an XML story, 
> beyond configuration directives. 

I'm sure it will. For one thing, I would *very much* like to see
content types derived automatically from XML Schema.

 > As Craeg suggested, the discussion of
> content type might have some relation to an XML story.

Yes, for XML content types. I don't expect all content types to
be defined by XML schema.


> For instance, imagine that someone versed in XML-oriented content 
> management takes a look at a Zope 3 system.  Just for grins, let's label 
> this person an "XML-oriented information architect" (hee hee).  What 
> will be their expectation of a "content type" and an instance of this type?

I don't know. I expect that, for starters, they'd expect the content type to be
defined by an XML schema.


> If they want to make a subtle derivation of a "content type", how might 
> they expect it do it?

By creating a derived schema.


> I'm not sure whether it's appropriate to bring this up at this point, as 
> I'm not sure if "XML-oriented information architect" is really 
> meaningful

Don;t know.

 > or in-bounds.

Well, if it's meaningful, it is in bounds. It is not all that's in bounds, however.

Jim


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