[ZPT] Are PT's ZCatelog Aware? - Now: Subclassing ZPT's

[Lynn Walton]

Thanks for your input Ethan.  I really do want to make the best architechural decisions I can given time
constraints, learning curves, etc, so please allow me to ask some more questions regarding what you brought
up.

Although I'd like to eventually, I haven't had time to start the learning curve for CMF yet, and don't think
I'll get to by the time I have to have my staff roll out a couple hundred basically static html pages.   The
site will have numerous uses for content management like applications that I intend to build, but our first
roll out is more of a look & feel change and navigational organizational change and the first couple hundred
"static" like pages is what we will roll out first.

If that is the case, and I'm using a master macro in a ZPT to get my site look and feel - only the master
macro also calls a python script passing values that are set in each template that uses the master macro, to
have the navigational system highlight where they are in the hierarchy of the site.   So my plan was for
these couple hundred pages to be ZPT's so they can use the  use-macro to get the look & feel, but aside from
that each is just the static like html content for a page.

So given this, is having the ZPT wrap an XML doc really much different than just having html in a ZPT that
is only a ZPT so it can call use-macro?
I can see XML if it's being generated from a database or something, but if it's not, why is html bad?  I'm
not trying to convince you ... <g> , I want to hear why it's bad?

But say I did have this separate doc ... like an XML or CMF ... can you give me an example of what code
would look like to make use of it in my use-macro for the master template to get my look and feel?

Hope I'm being clear enough. Thanks for your interest!

Lynn

ethan mindlace fremen wrote:

> Lynn Walton wrote:
>
> > Evan,
> >
> > So, given my situation .. that I'm building a site soon where I want my zpt
> > pages indexed for a site search, and I can't wait for new versions of ZPT
> > that might be already catalogable "out of the box", (which I propose by the
> > way <g>) can you give me a high-level outline of what I should do to make
> > them available to a ZCatalog?
>
> Hm.. I submit that it is a "slippery slope" to be cataloguing your page templates, because if you are,
>
> then you're essentially treating them as content. I'm not sure what you're using properties on them for,
>
> but it sounds like you may already be far down that dark path :)
>
> IMSHO you want to use things like the CMF Document, or some XML
> Document, to store the content parts of your site, and then you "wrap"
> these with page templates.
>
> So I would say that Page Templates are absolutely *not* replacements for
> DTML documents, and further, that the bastard hybrid of logic and
> content that they represent should be put to pasture.
>
> opinions-are-like-sphincters-everybody's-got-a-few-ly y'rs,
> ~ethan