Re: [Zope] Core Session Tracking kudos & namespaces
--- Chris McDonough <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I sympathize with the need to convert all your scripts over to use > sessioning from hidden form-field encoding and the like... I'd really > appreciate some input as to what kinds of problems you're trying to > solve with sessioning. I don't have any great number of scripts to convert. I've only been looking at zope for a few weeks. I DO have a significant application that handles a customer database, supplier ordering, inventory management and the like. This is currently written in Perl/cgi, and is way too slow and cumbersome. I'd like to move it into zope and at the same time make the database directly available to customers. In the current implementation of the application I maintain a lot of state at the server side--the server knows the page history, locally configured options, and the like. In that application I actually force you to use server-side navigation, since I load over the existing page every time you make a request (so there is only one page ever resident in the browser). I did this to make it impossible for the operator to use an old browser page (with stale form info). This is ugly and requires two round-trips for each request. I'm trying to figure out how to move this into zope, and to do this in the most natural way possible. So I'd like to give up mostly on the server-side navigation stuff. But I do want to do things like: if you go from a main page to a form, then if the form succeeds I'd like to return you directly to the main page (with no extra page fetch). If the form fails, it might go back to the main page, or include the error somewhere in the main page. Since the form is likely to be unrelated to the main page (just linked to from it), I need at least some server state to tell me where to return. I can also imagine doing side trips from forms--but that's harder, because then the side trip can't involve a link, otherwise you lose the information typed in (I "solved" this in my current implementation by wrapping *every* page in one big form and making all the links actually do submits, using a little javascript, but again that's something I'd rather avoid--I'd rather it was simple and relatively unsurprising). I'm unclear as to how I should really implement any of this. It almost seems like there is some sort of abstraction here that can be turned into a generic facility, but I haven't groked zope enough to figure out how that would be plugged in and what it would look like. So anyway, this was supposed to be an answer to your question, but it's really a thinly disguised attempt to get some design help on this. Is there another forum purely for design help with this sort of thing? How to fit a particular navigational abstraction into the zope framework? Thanks, Bob __ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Photos - Share your holiday photos online! http://photos.yahoo.com/ ___ Zope maillist - [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope ** No cross posts or HTML encoding! ** (Related lists - http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-announce http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-dev )
Re: [Zope] Core Session Tracking kudos & namespaces
--- Somebody wrote: > > Of course, the best solution would be for the 'magic' lookup to be > > optional... Alright, I've not a zope master, but isn't this already provided generically with: All these arguments leave me a little confused: As a newbie, I read the zope book, and it tells me all these wonderful things about feeding alligators with ostriches, and the like, and I assume this is meant to be universal, and just assume that all names are supposed to behave in this manner. But Chris seems to be saying that *because you've had flack about this model* maybe a new feature shouldn't use it. Forgive me if I'm paraphrasing you incorrectly. So the question I have is this--if there's a basic problem with zope's acquisition semantics (as some posts on this list would indicate at least some people believe), then is the right fix for new features to avoid acquisition, or would it be better to figure out what is good and what is bad and bite the bullet and get rid of the bad? Chris keeps saying that it would be hard to explain the semantics. But if zope is worth learning, shouldn't these semantics be explainable totally generically? Why should they have to be separately documented just for session variables? What is really special about session variables (other than that they can be written to)? As an aside, how did zope even get this far without session variables? I'm very confused... And finally, *even* if the session variables are kept in a private space, I'd at least like some way to make them public using some generic pre-processing. But I don't see how to do that, because if I stick a dtml-with, for instance, into generic header code (included, for example, by standard-html-header, then this with statement is required to be *closed* when I edit it). That is, I think the has to be paired, in the header, with a . What Zen am I missing here? How do you guys do this sort of thing? No doubt most of the above is due to newbie confusion, not due to design issues in zope... Bob __ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Photos - Share your holiday photos online! http://photos.yahoo.com/ ___ Zope maillist - [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope ** No cross posts or HTML encoding! ** (Related lists - http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-announce http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-dev )
Re: [Zope] Core Session Tracking kudos & namespaces
And as I've just figured out by trying to convert some stuff to sessions, a not unconsequential result of allowing session variables to be acquired (if only for read purposes), is that existing code is easier to adapt. I might now call a script without burying form variables or parameters in the URL. If I use implicit acquisition (where the posted form data and URL data is read FIRST), then I can gracefully upgrade these scripts without changing anything. With the current scheme I have to go and search out all occurences of variables like "customer_id" and change them to session syntax. So I guess I'm arguing that the read case and write cases are fundamentally different, that you basically want to support the introduction of session variables into the namespace for read purposes through acquisition, and it's (marginally) OK if read/write don't share the same syntax. Bob Bob Sidebotham wrote: > The advantage of the last form (below), is that you can use > acquisition, and don't need to know whether the variable came from the > session or from elsewhere. If you *really* want it to come from the > session only, you can always add the "only" tag to the dtml-with call. __ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Photos - Share your holiday photos online! http://photos.yahoo.com/ ___ Zope maillist - [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope ** No cross posts or HTML encoding! ** (Related lists - http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-announce http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-dev )
Re: [Zope] Core Session Tracking kudos & namespaces
The advantage of the last form (below), is that you can use acquisition, and don't need to know whether the variable came from the session or from elsewhere. If you *really* want it to come from the session only, you can always add the "only" tag to the dtml-with call. In conjunction with this, it might be nice to have a special call that sets the variable, if defined by acquisition, in the session. Something like would set "a" to the acquired value for "a", leave it undefined if not defined, and not change it if it was not acquirable elsewhere (the acquired value would take precedence over the session value). Even better would be if I could just say . Bob --- Chris McDonough <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > A potential rhythm, however, might look like: > > > > > > > >and > > > > > > > > I sorta like it the original way now that I've written that down. > :-) It's > easier to explain, AFAICS. > > __ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Photos - Share your holiday photos online! http://photos.yahoo.com/ ___ Zope maillist - [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope ** No cross posts or HTML encoding! ** (Related lists - http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-announce http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-dev )
[Zope] Core Session Tracking kudos & namespaces
1. The Core Session Tracking looks like it will be really helpful. I AM BLOWN AWAY BY THE QUALITY OF THE DOCUMENTATION. Congratulations for making really readable, easy to use installation and use instructions. Part of the reason I'm so blown away, of course, is that the quality of this documentation is so very much superior to most of the existing documentation. The author obviously put himself in the position of someone who didn't know anything about the topic, and wrote the documentation to satisfy this person (i.e. me). Thanks! 2. Question. The interface to the session data object, requiring set/get calls to get key/value pairs seems a little inconsistent with the very simple existing interfaces for other zope namespaces. As a newbie, I admit to being very confused about namespaces in zope, and the GOOD THING about the core session tracking is that it is very clear that you're accessing a variable from that scope. There's no way you can accidently acquire something else. On the other hand, the ability to access the session variables with simple variable references seems like it would be a win (especially if they were safely qualified by the session object). I really just want to do something like "SESSION.varname". Is this something that can be wrapped on top of the existing interface? Bob Sidebotham [EMAIL PROTECTED] __ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Photos - Share your holiday photos online! http://photos.yahoo.com/ ___ Zope maillist - [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope ** No cross posts or HTML encoding! ** (Related lists - http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-announce http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-dev )
[Zope] browser window as canvas for configurable objects?
I'm new to zope, so maybe these questions are naive. I have several objects that I want to display on my browser screen simultaneously. Each object lives in its own zope directory, and I can trivially include them in a bigger canvas using a table and dtml-with and dtml-var. So far so good. Each of the sub objects can put up its own links for configuration, etc. Some of the sub objects might be pageable (e.g. have links to next 10 items, previous 10), or they might be configurable (you could go to a screen to establish filtering parameters for that object). What I'm looking for is the simplest possible effective way to manage these links so that after the customization operation or the next page oeration, or whatever is handled, the original page is displayed (and of course any affected objects are updated). In some cases there may be a side-excursion made before the page is re-displayed (e.g. for "next 10 items", there is no side excursion), for "update filtering parameters" or update object, a separate form will be brought up). I should mention that the same objects may appear in the same or different forms on different pages, i.e. there isn't just one main page. Some alternatives I can see are: 1. Use javascript, and do a history.go(-1) or -2, as the case may be to go back to the original page. Disadvantage: requires an extra round-trip, probably would have to make sure page wasn't cached, may break user's model of how navigation works (if he made a mistake in the configuration, he'd have to go forward, rather than backward, to retrieve the configuration form, for example). 2. Use a pop-up window. Redraw the original when done. Advantage: by labelling the main window "main" or whatever, it's easy for unrelated objects to "return" to the main application by (1) causing "main" to reload and (2) deleting their own window. 3. Use frames. Seems overly complex. But maybe this is just a general aversion to hacking to much html. 4. Use existing zope infrastructure to finesse this. I'm not sure how to do this--my main confusion centers around how much state to I have to preserve (and where?) to re-create exactly the same request that I had at a previous level--in a totally generic fashion. 5. Build some sort of Product that represents this model directly. This seems the most promising, if not the easiest. Can someone point me to any prior art on this, or offer any suggestions? It seems to me that since zope is supposed to be about "object publishing", then this application should (ideally) be dead-easy. But at the moment I'm scratching my head. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! P.S. Does anyone else think this facility would be useful? Bob Sidebotham [EMAIL PROTECTED] __ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Photos - Share your holiday photos online! http://photos.yahoo.com/ ___ Zope maillist - [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope ** No cross posts or HTML encoding! ** (Related lists - http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-announce http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-dev )
[Zope] The meaning of Zope
>From http://www.kabalarians.com/male/zope.htm Zope Your first name of Zope has given you an expressive, diplomatic, and refined nature. Although you have a good appreciation of material values, business ability, and skill in organizing and managing others, your success is restricted by a lack of self-confidence and initiative. You have very expensive tastes, and your desires could well exceed your initiative in providing for them through your own efforts. Personal appearance is important to you. You are always well-groomed yourself, and you judge others by your own standard. You do not like to rough it or use much physical energy. Through your diplomatic ways you are able to call on the assistance of others to avoid such matters. You have good business judgment but lack the confidence to carry out your own ideas unless assisted by an associate. From a desire to eat too many rich foods, your health could suffer through kidney and generative troubles or any problems affecting the fluid functions of the body. Bob Sidebotham [EMAIL PROTECTED] __ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Shopping - Thousands of Stores. Millions of Products. http://shopping.yahoo.com/ ___ Zope maillist - [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope ** No cross posts or HTML encoding! ** (Related lists - http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-announce http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-dev )
Re: [Zope] Problems with adding tutorial
After much playing around I determined that the problem was Python 2.0. I downgraded zope to 2.2.4 and still had the identical problem with python 2.0. Then when I downgraded python to 1.5.2 the problem finally went away. Bob --- Aleksander Salwa <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Keep in mind that the latest STABLE version is Zope 2.2.4. > Officially supported (by Zope) release of Python is still 1.5.2. __ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Shopping - Thousands of Stores. Millions of Products. http://shopping.yahoo.com/ ___ Zope maillist - [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope ** No cross posts or HTML encoding! ** (Related lists - http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-announce http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-dev )
[Zope] Problems with adding tutorial
(I submitted this as a bug report, and then I later discovered this list. So perhaps it's overkill to send this here, too. Normally I would have sent it here first, then filed a bug report if it was obvious that it was a new bug. So I apologize for the redundancy). When I click "ADD" to add a zope tutorial, I get a dialog box from my browser that says "unable to locate server localhost:8080". If I click anything else, then the server seems to restart (I'm running with z2.py -D). I don't get any error messages, other than the server restart messages. If I do two ADD's in a row (i.e. attempt to add the tutorial a second time), then the server terminates after restarting once. I did see the messages regarding creating a non-admin user and authenticating as that user (by first terminating the zope process). I did all that. Any ideas? I'm a complete newbie, so it'd be helpful to be able to run through the tutorial. Please note that I'm using the latest zope tarball: Linux Mandrake 6.0, zope2.3.0a1, Python 2.0, Communicator 4.6. Thanks, Bob Sidebotham [EMAIL PROTECTED] __ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Shopping - Thousands of Stores. Millions of Products. http://shopping.yahoo.com/ ___ Zope maillist - [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope ** No cross posts or HTML encoding! ** (Related lists - http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-announce http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-dev )
