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Zope Products

Issue 95

From Issue #95
March 2002

Mar 01, 2002  By Reuven M. Lerner
 in
Reuven continues his exploration of Zope, and this month shows how Zope products provide reusable functionality.
Conclusion

This month we discussed Zope products and saw how to download, install and configure products on our system. While products are inherently more complex than simple DTML pages, their centralized code and additional flexibility make them more suitable for serious tasks than DTML.

Next month we will look at how we can write our own Zope products using a combination of Python and DTML.

Resources

email: reuven@lerner.co.il

Reuven M. Lerner is a consultant specializing in web/database technologies. His book, Core Perl, was published by Prentice Hall in January 2002. He lives with his wife and daughter in Modi'in, Israel.

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Re: At the Forge: Zope Products

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous on Fri, 09/17/2004 - 02:00.

Very nice article!
Greate list of the ready for use Zope products can be found on content management software info

Modular DTML & the future of Zope Products

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 09/12/2002 - 02:00.

The author says: "DTML exists inside of individual documents, rather than in a central location. If we want to reuse functionality in multiple places, then we must copy our DTML methods and documents". Of course DTML methods can be isolated, modularized, and re-used. All that is required is to create a seperate DTML object, and to include a DTML reference at the point where it should "appear" in the document. How hard is that?

However, the observation that DTML ceases to satisfy as the task complexity increases is spot on. That's where Python Methods come in. Regardless, Zope Page Templates are the current "better way" to do DTMLish things. For the lone Zopemeister DTML may be fine, but not for Zope coders toiling in environments where Web Designers are cranking out "look and feel" using their favorite "Web Processors". Popular WYSIWYG page weavers just can't swallow DTML tags without pitching a fit.

As for Zope Products, there are lots of them out there, and like DTML, they will linger for a long while even after the whole Zope Product way has succumbed to Zope Components. The trend is already clear, as seen in the Zope Content Management Framework (CMF), the component core of which forms the foundation of Zope v.3. Open Source projects are so dynamic due to the constant flurry of improvement and discovery. Still, the rate of change can be a bit draining.

The gotcha that Zope Product fans eventually tumble to is a total lack of integratability at the object level. Any large project must be thoroughly designed at the outset, or suffer from endless re-writes as new and unanticipated features are added. Zope Product coders must wake up at night in terror of the boss asking them to merge two pre-existing packages to consolidate functionality. Zope Components promise to remedy this problem, even more completely than ZPatterns does with it's abstraction of databases and other resources to enable object sharing between applications.

Re: At the Forge: Zope Products

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous on Fri, 04/12/2002 - 02:00.

for a really good example of Zope at its finest check out plone.

Re: At the Forge: Zope Products

marr's picture
Submitted by marr (not verified) on Fri, 03/01/2002 - 03:00.

Another problem is that DTML exists inside of individual documents, rather than in a central location. If we want to reuse functionality in multiple places, then we must copy our DTML methods and documents.

I think this statement is not quite true. Every experienced DTML programmer should know well about how to create code logic and reuse it throughout the site, rather than copying DTML codes into individual documents.

Most of the problem is that you'll easily meet DTML gochas if there's no concrete sense of acquisition.

Re: At the Forge: Zope Products

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous on Sat, 03/09/2002 - 03:00.

This is WRONG !

Acquisition allows you to have ONLY one method and use it anywhere. That's acquisition and that's good (tm)

Didier.

Please do not say things unless you know about !

Re: At the Forge: Zope Products

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 02/21/2002 - 03:00.

DTML is going to fade away soon because of new technology

available in Zope 2.5

ZPT (Zope Page Templates) are the way to go now,

NOT a combination of python and DTML. DTML IS DEAD. LONG LIVE ZPT!.

With ZPTs you can have 100% separation of code, design and content. You can write just (extended, but correct) HTML pages using WYSIWYG tools and some python scripts.

Read ZPT ZWiki pages or more info

The most powerfull product (extension) for ZOPE is CMF (Content Management Framework) used together with DCWorkflows. CMF services will be part of Zope3 core (this summer).

plese write something about making Products (or Products for CMF), but NO DTML PLEASE!@!@!

David Pravec -- IRC nick alekibango

/join #zope at IRC server irc.openprojects.net

Re: At the Forge: Zope Products

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 02/21/2002 - 03:00.

DTML is going to fade away soon because of new technology

available in Zope 2.5

ZPT (Zope Page Templates) are the way to go now,

NOT a combination of python and DTML. DTML IS DEAD. LONG LIVE ZPT!.

With ZPTs you can have 100% separation of code, design and content. You can write just (extended, but correct) HTML pages usig WYSIWYG tools and some python scripts.

Read ZPT ZWiki pages or more info

The most powerfull product (extension) for ZOPE is CMF (Content Management Framework) used together with DCWorkflows. CMF services will be part of Zope3 core (this summer).

plese write something about making Products (or Products for CMF), but NO DTML PLEASE!@!@!

David Pravec -- alekibango

/join #zope (at irc server irc.openprojects.net)

Re: At the Forge: Zope Products

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous on Sat, 02/23/2002 - 03:00.

ZPT may well acheive the laudable aim of separating layout from logic ut it odes so at the expense of comprehension. ZPT has to be one of the most ridiculous technologies I have ever come across. EVERYTHING about it is counter-intuitive. Code (and by that I include HTML) is meant to be read (not separated), and ZPT is a fairly pointless nightmare (DTML is as bad as, say, ASP or PHP but at least you can work out what it does.)

One of the benefits of ZPT is that designers can work on the same page as programmers. Oh come on, I've yet to meet a designer that couldn't knacker up the "hidden" code with a page with their eyes shut.

And as for WYSIWYG tools, well I've yet to meet a hardcore designer who will admit to using them.

Zope is more than a single technology, and DTML is one strand (which I both loathe and love) that, even if is a bit odd is still easier to understand and use than sodding ZPT.

tom

Re: At the Forge: Zope Products

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 02/21/2002 - 03:00.

DTML is a better solution than ZPT for hand-coded templates.

DTML is not going anywhere, and is better suited for these examples since (correct me if I'm wrong here) this site is written for humans, and not for WYSIWYG applications

Re: At the Forge: Zope Products

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 02/20/2002 - 03:00.

Nice article... I can't find the other article refered to on the zope server though?

Does anybody now where to find it.

Re: At the Forge: Zope Products

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 07/10/2002 - 02:00.

The first part of this article is:

http://linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=5619

if this is what You mean ...

Re: At the Forge: Zope Products

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 02/20/2002 - 03:00.

Right now, it looks like it is only available in the print version of last month's LJ.

Re: At the Forge: Zope Products

SimonB's picture
Submitted by SimonB (not verified) on Wed, 02/20/2002 - 03:00.

I really like Zope a lot but the Products system is one part of it I would really like to see improved.

1) Everything can be done over the web interface, except installing products. There is one product that enables this function BUT it only works if the products are packaged in a consistant way, which they aren't. Yes, such a system would be a security hazard. I wouldn't attempt it without strong admin passwords and SSL.

2) The products vary wildly in quality, usefulness, completeness and how you install them. Squishdot is a shining example of a fully-functional product. What would be helpful would be,

a) Standard root directory to zip/tgz the product from,

b) Products passed through a QA system before being "official", like Postnuke do,

c) Minimum standards for documentation i.e. it might be useful to know what some of these products actually do before downloading them,

d) A "tested against" chart to see what version of Zope the product would work with,

e) Screenshots for all of them!

Re: At the Forge: Zope Products

nethomes's picture
Submitted by nethomes (not verified) on Thu, 03/07/2002 - 03:00.

In response to your points:

  1. Installing products remotely can be done by installing ssh on your server and using the appropriate ssh-client on client machine.
  2. I agree that products do vary in quality and there should be some Q&A process before release. I've been using Zope since version 2.1.6 and I am used to using "tar -tvf" to determine if a product should be extracted into lib/python/Products or Products.

Having said that, Zope is so easy to install that I have zope running on a variety of boxes (including windoze) and mostly "Q&A" products myself before deploying them on my production server.

Martin Wehipeihana

Re: At the Forge: Zope Products

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 02/19/2002 - 03:00.

Well written; I found it very useful. Good work

Re: At the Forge: Zope Products

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 02/20/2002 - 03:00.

Yepp, well done mate.

Perhaps you should have mentioned something about the

mxm Easy Product (http://www.zope.org/Members/maxm/HowTo/easyProduct)

Another article another time perhaps? ;-)

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