Re: [Zope] ZPT tutorial

2005-06-22 Thread Bakhtiar A Hamid
> I'm sufficiently aware of Zope to know it provides a far more
> comprehensive build environment than PHP ever will and I would like to
> adopt it as my platform of choice, but it would be nice if the ZOPE
> support community was as newbie-friendly as the PHP crowd. Loads of
> tutorials and worked examples would be nice too. Reading a manual is no
> substitute for being shown how to build a web page using ZOPE and just
> reading through dozens of isolated examples of ZPT techniques makes
> progress very slow. I would much rather see a tutorial which starts of
> with a relatively complex but easily reproducible template which creates
> an interesting page, but then proceeds to de-construct what it does and
> how it does it.


just in case you've missed it,

open zmi
add "Zope Tutorial"

go through it

write up your exp for other new users jumping in!

hth
> 
> > or you could decide that Zope does some stuff which you must have, in
> > which case David H's stereotypical response
> >
> > > If you spent more time just *learning* Zope and HTML, etc and less time 
> > > rationalizing your lack of progress everyone would be happy.
> >
> > is appropriate.
> 
> I only need to rationlise it when people constantly keep telling me to
> read the Zope Book as if that is the solution to everything. Fortunately
> there are a few people here who can still remember suffering the same
> plight as I am currently in an I'm grateful to them for their help.
> 
> > Good luck.
> >
> > --
> > Mark Barratt
> > Text Matters
> >
> > Information design: we help explain things using
> > language | design | systems | process improvement
> > __
> > phone +44 (0)118 986 8313  email [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > skype mark_barratt  web http://www.textmatters.com
> 
> --
> John
> 
> 
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> 


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Re: [Zope] ZPT tutorial

2005-06-22 Thread Andrew Milton
+---[ John Poltorak ]--
| On Tue, Jun 21, 2005 at 11:04:12PM +0100, Mark Barratt wrote:
| >

[Snip]

| > Most (not all) of the people who hang out here have all three of these 
| > skill sets, and like many skilled people, they find it hard to 
| > understand that the skills they have seem arcane to beginners. You 
| > should also understand that nobody (AFAIK) is 'them' with an interest in 
| > making Zope easy and helping you. You depend on the kindness of 
| > strangers, so politeness and gratitude pay.
| 
| Yes, I am aware of this. I also think that this list is not really 
| appropriate for newbies, but in the absence of an alternative, this is 
| where I ask my newbie questions.

There's also #zope on irc.freenode.net, although you have to put up with a
certain amount of heckling :-)

People are willing to give you direction, but, will also tell you to consult
the zope book. If you let them, they will also completely redesign your
application for you so it fits better with the way they think it should work
(so don't let them do that to you :-)

Even though #zope is sometimes a harsh mistress, it makes me proud to see
people who have survived it, helping people on the mailing lists themselves
now.

Oh, it also pays to be patient, while people might not be talking in a flurry
of activity, someone usually has at least half-an-eye on the channel and will
respond to you eventually.

-- 
Andrew Milton
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Re: [Zope] ZPT tutorial

2005-06-22 Thread John Poltorak
On Tue, Jun 21, 2005 at 11:04:12PM +0100, Mark Barratt wrote:
> John Poltorak wrote:
> > 
> > I was on a course over the weekend where ordinary people in their 70's 
> > with no technical ability were knocking together websites in just a few 
> > hours with no prior training and no understanding of the 
> > underlying concepts involved. Why should Zope be just as easy?
> 
> Because Zope is hard. You can make some great sites/applications with 
> Zope but for all except the very simplest you need
> 
> . advanced understanding of html and xml
> or
> . a thorough grounding in programming principles
> or
> . a working knowledge of Python
> 
> - and preferably all three.

Whilst Zope can be used for developing extremely complex sites, that 
shouldn't preclude it as a development tool for simple sites. I think 
expertise only develops through extended usage of Zope, but there is just 
so much to learn, although I don't see a need to be an expert in numerous 
fields before touching Zope.

 
> Most (not all) of the people who hang out here have all three of these 
> skill sets, and like many skilled people, they find it hard to 
> understand that the skills they have seem arcane to beginners. You 
> should also understand that nobody (AFAIK) is 'them' with an interest in 
> making Zope easy and helping you. You depend on the kindness of 
> strangers, so politeness and gratitude pay.

Yes, I am aware of this. I also think that this list is not really 
appropriate for newbies, but in the absence of an alternative, this is 
where I ask my newbie questions.
 
> In addition, Zope is heading fast into even less friendly territory. 
> DTML, which is technically 'mucky' but reasonably easy to grasp for 
> non-programmers, is increasingly deprecated. Through-the-web editing 
> likewise. I'm not saying these trends are bad, just that they are 
> happening, they make the learning curve steeper, and that they lock out 
> almost all casual users unless they have the skills noted above.
> 
> The alternative in the Zope world is Plone, where you can get a site up 
> and rolling in very little time (as long as you are happy for it to look 
> and operate like almost every other Plone site on the planet).

I looked at Plone but it is way too slow for the server I'm using. Besides 
that customisation looks like another learning cliff.
 
> or there's PHP, where the communities are probably more newbie-friendly 
> and there are loads of tutorials.

I'm sufficiently aware of Zope to know it provides a far more 
comprehensive build environment than PHP ever will and I would like to 
adopt it as my platform of choice, but it would be nice if the ZOPE 
support community was as newbie-friendly as the PHP crowd. Loads of 
tutorials and worked examples would be nice too. Reading a manual is no 
substitute for being shown how to build a web page using ZOPE and just 
reading through dozens of isolated examples of ZPT techniques makes 
progress very slow. I would much rather see a tutorial which starts of 
with a relatively complex but easily reproducible template which creates 
an interesting page, but then proceeds to de-construct what it does and 
how it does it.
 
> or you could decide that Zope does some stuff which you must have, in 
> which case David H's stereotypical response
> 
> > If you spent more time just *learning* Zope and HTML, etc and less time 
> > rationalizing your lack of progress everyone would be happy.
> 
> is appropriate.

I only need to rationlise it when people constantly keep telling me to 
read the Zope Book as if that is the solution to everything. Fortunately 
there are a few people here who can still remember suffering the same 
plight as I am currently in an I'm grateful to them for their help.
 
> Good luck.
> 
> -- 
> Mark Barratt
> Text Matters
> 
> Information design: we help explain things using
> language | design | systems | process improvement
> __
> phone +44 (0)118 986 8313  email [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> skype mark_barratt  web http://www.textmatters.com
 
-- 
John


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Re: [Zope] ZPT tutorial

2005-06-22 Thread Peter Bengtsson
> 
> I think we (the Zope community) should try to be clearer in telling
> newcomers what the 'entry requirements' are.
> 

My preference is to "lie" about the complexity. Newcomers are
welcoming it much more then. Because if you say it is easy people will
blame themselfs if they get stuck and to avoid embarrasment they will
try a little harder. Try giving someone a logic puzzle and say "it's
dirt easy, it'll take you 2 minutes" and they'll try really hard. If
you say "don't bother because you need a basketballsized brain to do"
they will give up and neither learn nor attempt.

Let's keep the fluff around the meat welcoming. So instead of 
"You must have previous knowledge of XHTML 1.0" we can say "Previous
experience of HTML will help understanding how ZPT's work but it's not
a requirement"

-- 
Peter Bengtsson, 
work www.fry-it.com
home www.peterbe.com
hobby www.issuetrackerproduct.com
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Re: [Zope] ZPT tutorial

2005-06-22 Thread Chris McDonough
The Zope Book says this in its preface FWIW:

To make effective use of the book, you should know how to use a web
browser and you should have a basic understanding of HTML (Hyper Text
Markup Language) and URLs (Uniform Resource Locators). You don't need to
be a highly-skilled programmer in order to use Zope, but some
programming background (particularly object-oriented programming) will
be extremely helpful.



On Wed, 2005-06-22 at 09:04 +0100, Mark Barratt wrote:
> Andreas Jung wrote:
> > --On 21. Juni 2005 23:04:12 +0100 Mark Barratt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
> > wrote:
> > 
> >> or there's PHP, where the communities are probably more newbie-friendly
> >> and there are loads of tutorials.
> >>
> > Don't compare PHP with Zope. PHP is a tiny language compared to the fat 
> > Zope frameworks. Working with Zope on the scripter level (ZPT, DTMl, 
> > ZSQL) requires similar skills as a PHP programmer. If you want to go 
> > beyond you have approach open-minded and come a with some solid 
> > knowledge in programming and understanding architectural issues in Zope. 
> > But when I read some questions here then I have the impression that 
> > people except that Zope solves their problems although neither they 
> > don't understand the problems themselves nor have the basic skills to  
> > reach the goal.
> > That's not a but being newbie-friendly but one can expect as certain 
> > level of knowledge when you're working with Zope...e.g. the knowledge 
> > how HTML works (that's something kids learn at school nowadays).
> 
> I agree with all this, though I suspect you underestimate how little 
> many newcomers know, and not just about HTML, where they may have been 
> inflicted with Front Page or learned in Dreamweaver, where you don't 
> have to either write code or do things 'properly'. But also about the 
> big leap required to get from Something to  tal:content="template/title|context/title">Untitled Document.
> 
> I think we (the Zope community) should try to be clearer in telling 
> newcomers what the 'entry requirements' are.
> 

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Re: [Zope] ZPT tutorial

2005-06-22 Thread Mark Barratt

Andreas Jung wrote:
--On 21. Juni 2005 23:04:12 +0100 Mark Barratt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:



or there's PHP, where the communities are probably more newbie-friendly
and there are loads of tutorials.

Don't compare PHP with Zope. PHP is a tiny language compared to the fat 
Zope frameworks. Working with Zope on the scripter level (ZPT, DTMl, 
ZSQL) requires similar skills as a PHP programmer. If you want to go 
beyond you have approach open-minded and come a with some solid 
knowledge in programming and understanding architectural issues in Zope. 
But when I read some questions here then I have the impression that 
people except that Zope solves their problems although neither they 
don't understand the problems themselves nor have the basic skills to  
reach the goal.
That's not a but being newbie-friendly but one can expect as certain 
level of knowledge when you're working with Zope...e.g. the knowledge 
how HTML works (that's something kids learn at school nowadays).


I agree with all this, though I suspect you underestimate how little 
many newcomers know, and not just about HTML, where they may have been 
inflicted with Front Page or learned in Dreamweaver, where you don't 
have to either write code or do things 'properly'. But also about the 
big leap required to get from Something to tal:content="template/title|context/title">Untitled Document.


I think we (the Zope community) should try to be clearer in telling 
newcomers what the 'entry requirements' are.


--
Mark Barratt
Text Matters

Information design: we help explain things using
language | design | systems | process improvement
__
phone +44 (0)118 986 8313  email [EMAIL PROTECTED]
web http://www.textmatters.com

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Re: [Zope] ZPT tutorial

2005-06-21 Thread Andreas Jung



--On 21. Juni 2005 23:04:12 +0100 Mark Barratt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:

or there's PHP, where the communities are probably more newbie-friendly
and there are loads of tutorials.

Don't compare PHP with Zope. PHP is a tiny language compared to the fat 
Zope frameworks. Working with Zope on the scripter level (ZPT, DTMl, ZSQL) 
requires similar skills as a PHP programmer. If you want to go beyond you 
have approach open-minded and come a with some solid knowledge in 
programming and understanding architectural issues in Zope. But when I read 
some questions here then I have the impression that people except that Zope 
solves their problems although neither they don't understand the problems 
themselves nor have the basic skills to  reach the goal.
That's not a but being newbie-friendly but one can expect as certain level 
of knowledge when you're working with Zope...e.g. the knowledge how HTML 
works (that's something kids learn at school nowadays).


-aj




pgpG7KMOJzwM4.pgp
Description: PGP signature
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Re: [Zope] ZPT tutorial

2005-06-21 Thread Jens Vagelpohl


On 21 Jun 2005, at 23:23, Tamas Hegedus wrote:


Hi,


In addition, Zope is heading fast into even less friendly  
territory. DTML, which is technically 'mucky' but reasonably easy  
to grasp for non-programmers,



> is increasingly deprecated.

I just started to learn Zope recently. I choose dtml over page  
templates to learn as it

=> seemed to me easier (maybe as I am a non-programmer);
=> has the possibility to build dynamic SQL queries;
=> was written in the Book to exist forever.

I would like to know that 'increasingly deprecated' means by  
everybody (I mean here: in the www-programmers-word), or just by Zope.


That's FUD and not true. DTML is not being deprecated, period. Don't  
believe anyone who says that. Everyone should choose the tool they  
work with best, and DTML is suitable for many people. There's more  
people who choose to use ZPT nowadays, but that does not mean DTML  
will be deprecated.


jens


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Re: [Zope] ZPT tutorial

2005-06-21 Thread Paul Winkler
On Tue, Jun 21, 2005 at 10:10:06PM +0100, John Poltorak wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 21, 2005 at 03:15:33PM -0400, Paul Winkler wrote:
> > On Tue, Jun 21, 2005 at 07:29:20PM +0100, John Poltorak wrote:
> > re. zopelabs.com:
> > 
> > > It probably is very useful, but I know I'd get hopelessly lost because 
> > > there is just so much stuff on it.
> > 
> > So you prefer to ignore it?
> 
> Just how much time should you spend on something when you are deriving no 
> benefit just increasing frustration?

Sometimes, answering questions on the mailing list feels exactly 
like that :-P

> I was on a course over the weekend where ordinary people in their 70's 
> with no technical ability were knocking together websites in just a few 
> hours with no prior training and no understanding of the 
> underlying concepts involved. Why should Zope be just as easy?

I highly doubt the stuff they were "knocking together" was
a sophisticated application, e.g. anything on the order of CMFDefault, not
to mention CPS or Plone.  There's a big difference between developing
web apps and slapping together some static HTML.

> There is a quantum leap between the tutorial and being able to do anything 
> useful with a website. What the tutorial needs to to handhold you through 
> putting together something like the homepage of zope.org.

That would be an immense tutorial!
There are some case studies of similar sites in Andy McKay's excellent
"Plone Book". But they depend on reading and understanding
many chapters before you get that far.

Jon, I know this is frustrating for you. You are encountering
the (in)famous "Z-shaped learning curve".  You have hit the upslope.
At this point, the trivial stuff (mostly) makes sense to you, but
there's a vast-looking chasm between where you are and where
you want to be. We've all been there. It *does* get better. Really.
But it can take months of perseverance to reach the other side.
And there's not really any way to skip the hard part.

You might find this interesting.
It was written by Chris McDonough years ago (back in the
pre-ZPT days).
http://www.zope.org/Members/mcdonc/HowTos/gainenlightenment

-- 

Paul Winkler
http://www.slinkp.com
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Re: [Zope] ZPT tutorial

2005-06-21 Thread Tamas Hegedus

Hi,

In addition, Zope is heading fast into even less friendly territory. 
DTML, which is technically 'mucky' but reasonably easy to grasp for non-programmers,

> is increasingly deprecated.

I just started to learn Zope recently. I choose dtml over page templates 
to learn as it

=> seemed to me easier (maybe as I am a non-programmer);
=> has the possibility to build dynamic SQL queries;
=> was written in the Book to exist forever.

I would like to know that 'increasingly deprecated' means by everybody 
(I mean here: in the www-programmers-word), or just by Zope.


Does this mean that it would be better to deep into ztemplates?
In this case what are the alternatives to build sql queries on an easy way?

Thanks in advance,
Tamas

--
Tamas Hegedus   | phone: (1) 919-966 0329
UNC - Biochem & Biophys | fax:
5007A Thurston-Bowles Bldg  | mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Chapel Hill, NC, 27599-7248 | http://www.biomembrane.hu/cv/hegeduse.htm
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Re: [Zope] ZPT tutorial

2005-06-21 Thread Mark Barratt

John Poltorak wrote:


If I spend a couple of days on something and make no progress, I'd say 
it's 'too much work'. Wouldn't you.




Yes

I was on a course over the weekend where ordinary people in their 70's 
with no technical ability were knocking together websites in just a few 
hours with no prior training and no understanding of the 
underlying concepts involved. Why should Zope be just as easy?


Because Zope is hard. You can make some great sites/applications with 
Zope but for all except the very simplest you need


. advanced understanding of html and xml
or
. a thorough grounding in programming principles
or
. a working knowledge of Python

- and preferably all three.

Most (not all) of the people who hang out here have all three of these 
skill sets, and like many skilled people, they find it hard to 
understand that the skills they have seem arcane to beginners. You 
should also understand that nobody (AFAIK) is 'them' with an interest in 
making Zope easy and helping you. You depend on the kindness of 
strangers, so politeness and gratitude pay.


In addition, Zope is heading fast into even less friendly territory. 
DTML, which is technically 'mucky' but reasonably easy to grasp for 
non-programmers, is increasingly deprecated. Through-the-web editing 
likewise. I'm not saying these trends are bad, just that they are 
happening, they make the learning curve steeper, and that they lock out 
almost all casual users unless they have the skills noted above.


The alternative in the Zope world is Plone, where you can get a site up 
and rolling in very little time (as long as you are happy for it to look 
and operate like almost every other Plone site on the planet).


or there's PHP, where the communities are probably more newbie-friendly 
and there are loads of tutorials.


or you could decide that Zope does some stuff which you must have, in 
which case David H's stereotypical response



If you spent more time just *learning* Zope and HTML, etc and less time 
rationalizing your lack of progress everyone would be happy.


is appropriate.

Good luck.

--
Mark Barratt
Text Matters

Information design: we help explain things using
language | design | systems | process improvement
__
phone +44 (0)118 986 8313  email [EMAIL PROTECTED]
skype mark_barratt  web http://www.textmatters.com

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Re: [Zope] ZPT tutorial

2005-06-21 Thread David H




John,

If you spent more time just *learning* Zope and HTML, etc and less time
rationalizing your lack of progress everyone would be happy.

David




John Poltorak wrote:

  On Tue, Jun 21, 2005 at 03:15:33PM -0400, Paul Winkler wrote:
  
  
On Tue, Jun 21, 2005 at 07:29:20PM +0100, John Poltorak wrote:
re. zopelabs.com:



  It probably is very useful, but I know I'd get hopelessly lost because 
there is just so much stuff on it.
  

So you prefer to ignore it?

  
  
Just how much time should you spend on something when you are deriving no 
benefit just increasing frustration?

 
  
  
Granted, zopelabs.com has flaws. It's harder to find stuff than it
should be.  Nevertheless, browsing that site, along with reading the
Zope book (the old print version), was instrumental in getting me from
knowing nothing, to the point where I became a full-time zope developer.
We didn't even have the great resource of zopewiki.org back then.
Use that too, zopewiki is your friend.
There are tons of good links from http://zopewiki.org/PageTemplates

  
  
Thanks. I'll check that.
  
  
In general, I don't know how you expect to make any progress when your
typical response to the (many) suggestions you receive on this list is
"I can't read that, it's too much work".

  
  
If I spend a couple of days on something and make no progress, I'd say 
it's 'too much work'. Wouldn't you.

I was on a course over the weekend where ordinary people in their 70's 
with no technical ability were knocking together websites in just a few 
hours with no prior training and no understanding of the 
underlying concepts involved. Why should Zope be just as easy?

 
  
  

  Most of the newbie stuff about macros 
is probably quite old by now so I doubt whether I'd find it with a 
sequential browse through the Cookbook. 
  

"probably"? "doubt"? 



  It's disappointing to find that the link from Newbies under the ZOPE 
section does not function.
  

True that. I don't know what happened to zopenewbies.net.
 


  What I really need is something like a ZPT macro which defines a header 
and footer and leaves a slot in the middle for my own content. I don't  
expect to be able to write my own macro for quite a while - too many 
pitfalls... I'm not even sure is that is how I should be approaching 
writing a home page.
  

Have you tried the tutorial that comes with Zope?
It includes at least one simple example of macros - see lesson 4.

Not sure how to run the tutorial?  The default index_html for a new Zope 
server tells you:

"""There is a built-in interactive Zope Tutorial which gets you started
with some simple tasks using the Zope managment interface. To use the
tutorial, go to any Folder and select Zope Tutorial from the add list
and click the Add button. Provide a name for the tutorial and click Add
to begin working with the tutorial.
"""

  
  
There is a quantum leap between the tutorial and being able to do anything 
useful with a website. What the tutorial needs to to handhold you through 
putting together something like the homepage of zope.org.
 
  
  
-- 

Paul Winkler
http://www.slinkp.com

  
  

  




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Re: [Zope] ZPT tutorial

2005-06-21 Thread John Poltorak
On Tue, Jun 21, 2005 at 03:15:33PM -0400, Paul Winkler wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 21, 2005 at 07:29:20PM +0100, John Poltorak wrote:
> re. zopelabs.com:
> 
> > It probably is very useful, but I know I'd get hopelessly lost because 
> > there is just so much stuff on it.
> 
> So you prefer to ignore it?

Just how much time should you spend on something when you are deriving no 
benefit just increasing frustration?

 
> Granted, zopelabs.com has flaws. It's harder to find stuff than it
> should be.  Nevertheless, browsing that site, along with reading the
> Zope book (the old print version), was instrumental in getting me from
> knowing nothing, to the point where I became a full-time zope developer.
> We didn't even have the great resource of zopewiki.org back then.
> Use that too, zopewiki is your friend.
> There are tons of good links from http://zopewiki.org/PageTemplates

Thanks. I'll check that.
> 
> In general, I don't know how you expect to make any progress when your
> typical response to the (many) suggestions you receive on this list is
> "I can't read that, it's too much work".

If I spend a couple of days on something and make no progress, I'd say 
it's 'too much work'. Wouldn't you.

I was on a course over the weekend where ordinary people in their 70's 
with no technical ability were knocking together websites in just a few 
hours with no prior training and no understanding of the 
underlying concepts involved. Why should Zope be just as easy?

 
> > Most of the newbie stuff about macros 
> > is probably quite old by now so I doubt whether I'd find it with a 
> > sequential browse through the Cookbook. 
> 
> "probably"? "doubt"? 
> 
> > It's disappointing to find that the link from Newbies under the ZOPE 
> > section does not function.
> 
> True that. I don't know what happened to zopenewbies.net.
>  
> > What I really need is something like a ZPT macro which defines a header 
> > and footer and leaves a slot in the middle for my own content. I don't  
> > expect to be able to write my own macro for quite a while - too many 
> > pitfalls... I'm not even sure is that is how I should be approaching 
> > writing a home page.
> 
> Have you tried the tutorial that comes with Zope?
> It includes at least one simple example of macros - see lesson 4.
> 
> Not sure how to run the tutorial?  The default index_html for a new Zope 
> server tells you:
> 
> """There is a built-in interactive Zope Tutorial which gets you started
> with some simple tasks using the Zope managment interface. To use the
> tutorial, go to any Folder and select Zope Tutorial from the add list
> and click the Add button. Provide a name for the tutorial and click Add
> to begin working with the tutorial.
> """

There is a quantum leap between the tutorial and being able to do anything 
useful with a website. What the tutorial needs to to handhold you through 
putting together something like the homepage of zope.org.
 
> -- 
> 
> Paul Winkler
> http://www.slinkp.com


-- 
John



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Re: [Zope] ZPT tutorial

2005-06-21 Thread Paul Winkler
On Tue, Jun 21, 2005 at 07:29:20PM +0100, John Poltorak wrote:
re. zopelabs.com:

> It probably is very useful, but I know I'd get hopelessly lost because 
> there is just so much stuff on it.

So you prefer to ignore it?

Granted, zopelabs.com has flaws. It's harder to find stuff than it
should be.  Nevertheless, browsing that site, along with reading the
Zope book (the old print version), was instrumental in getting me from
knowing nothing, to the point where I became a full-time zope developer.
We didn't even have the great resource of zopewiki.org back then.
Use that too, zopewiki is your friend.
There are tons of good links from http://zopewiki.org/PageTemplates

In general, I don't know how you expect to make any progress when your
typical response to the (many) suggestions you receive on this list is
"I can't read that, it's too much work".

> Most of the newbie stuff about macros 
> is probably quite old by now so I doubt whether I'd find it with a 
> sequential browse through the Cookbook. 

"probably"? "doubt"? 

> It's disappointing to find that the link from Newbies under the ZOPE 
> section does not function.

True that. I don't know what happened to zopenewbies.net.
 
> What I really need is something like a ZPT macro which defines a header 
> and footer and leaves a slot in the middle for my own content. I don't  
> expect to be able to write my own macro for quite a while - too many 
> pitfalls... I'm not even sure is that is how I should be approaching 
> writing a home page.

Have you tried the tutorial that comes with Zope?
It includes at least one simple example of macros - see lesson 4.

Not sure how to run the tutorial?  The default index_html for a new Zope 
server tells you:

"""There is a built-in interactive Zope Tutorial which gets you started
with some simple tasks using the Zope managment interface. To use the
tutorial, go to any Folder and select Zope Tutorial from the add list
and click the Add button. Provide a name for the tutorial and click Add
to begin working with the tutorial.
"""

-- 

Paul Winkler
http://www.slinkp.com
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Re: [Zope] ZPT tutorial

2005-06-21 Thread J Cameron Cooper

 John Poltorak wrote:


On Tue, Jun 21, 2005 at 07:04:48PM +0100, Peter Bengtsson wrote:


How about the 2 chapters in the Zope book?



I just don't find this book very helpful at all. It's written as a 
manual
rather than tutorial and reminds me of a book which explains how to 
chop

down a tree if you are interested in putting up some bookshelves.

What I did find useful, though, was this worked example of how to put
together a simple application:-

http://www.plope.com/Books/2_7Edition/SimpleExamples.stx#1-6

That was much more useful than anything else I've come across so. Just
wish there were a few more examples.



Interesting. If you like examples, be sure to get familiar with 
Zopelabs.com (zope cookbook)



It probably is very useful, but I know I'd get hopelessly lost because 
there is just so much stuff on it. Most of the newbie stuff about 
macros is probably quite old by now so I doubt whether I'd find it 
with a sequential browse through the Cookbook.
It's disappointing to find that the link from Newbies under the ZOPE 
section does not function.


What I really need is something like a ZPT macro which defines a 
header and footer and leaves a slot in the middle for my own content. 
I don't  expect to be able to write my own macro for quite a while - 
too many pitfalls... I'm not even sure is that is how I should be 
approaching writing a home page.


You think it is harder than it is. I can show you by no more than
copy/paste from the ZMI help system.

The macro page (from Help! > Zope Help > ZPT Reference >
metal:define-slot) we will call 'master.html'::

  
Hello World
  

A client page (from metal:fill-slot)::

  
Hello Kevin Bacon
  

In CMF/Plone/etc, one would usually say 'context' instead of 'container'
because of the skins sytem.

It is not a great intellectual leap to replace "Hello" with header-type
page structure, and replace the whitespace after the slot with
footer-type structure.

--jcc

--
"Building Websites with Plone"
http://plonebook.packtpub.com/

Enfold Systems, LLC
http://www.enfoldsystems.com
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Re: [Zope] ZPT tutorial

2005-06-21 Thread John Poltorak
On Tue, Jun 21, 2005 at 07:04:48PM +0100, Peter Bengtsson wrote:
> > > How about the 2 chapters in the Zope book?
> > 
> > I just don't find this book very helpful at all. It's written as a manual
> > rather than tutorial and reminds me of a book which explains how to chop
> > down a tree if you are interested in putting up some bookshelves.
> > 
> > What I did find useful, though, was this worked example of how to put
> > together a simple application:-
> > 
> > http://www.plope.com/Books/2_7Edition/SimpleExamples.stx#1-6
> > 
> > That was much more useful than anything else I've come across so. Just
> > wish there were a few more examples.
> > 
> 
> Interesting. 
> If you like examples, be sure to get familiar with Zopelabs.com (zope 
> cookbook)

It probably is very useful, but I know I'd get hopelessly lost because 
there is just so much stuff on it. Most of the newbie stuff about macros 
is probably quite old by now so I doubt whether I'd find it with a 
sequential browse through the Cookbook. 

It's disappointing to find that the link from Newbies under the ZOPE 
section does not function.

What I really need is something like a ZPT macro which defines a header 
and footer and leaves a slot in the middle for my own content. I don't  
expect to be able to write my own macro for quite a while - too many 
pitfalls... I'm not even sure is that is how I should be approaching 
writing a home page.



 
> > 
> > 
> > > Andreas
> > >
> > > --
> > 
> > 
> > --
> > John

> -- 
> Peter Bengtsson, 
> work www.fry-it.com
> home www.peterbe.com
> hobby www.issuetrackerproduct.com



-- 
John



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Re: [Zope] ZPT tutorial

2005-06-21 Thread Peter Bengtsson
> > How about the 2 chapters in the Zope book?
> 
> I just don't find this book very helpful at all. It's written as a manual
> rather than tutorial and reminds me of a book which explains how to chop
> down a tree if you are interested in putting up some bookshelves.
> 
> What I did find useful, though, was this worked example of how to put
> together a simple application:-
> 
> http://www.plope.com/Books/2_7Edition/SimpleExamples.stx#1-6
> 
> That was much more useful than anything else I've come across so. Just
> wish there were a few more examples.
> 

Interesting. 
If you like examples, be sure to get familiar with Zopelabs.com (zope cookbook)

> 
> 
> > Andreas
> >
> > --
> 
> 
> --
> John
> 
> 
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> 


-- 
Peter Bengtsson, 
work www.fry-it.com
home www.peterbe.com
hobby www.issuetrackerproduct.com
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Re: [Zope] ZPT tutorial

2005-06-21 Thread J Cameron Cooper

John Poltorak wrote:

Does a ZPT tutorial exist anywhere?


How about:

http://www.zope.org/Documentation/Articles

Specifically:

http://www.zope.org/Documentation/Articles/ZPT1

http://www.zope.org/Documentation/Articles/ZPT2

There's something odd about the rendering of the second one, but it's 
all there in the source.


It's a shame these aren't done anymore.

See also:

http://www.zope.org/Wikis/DevSite/Projects/ZPT/SimpleTutorial
http://www.devshed.com/c/a/Zope/ZPT-Basics-part-1
http://plone.org/documentation/tutorial/zpt

All of which were found from the first page of:

http://www.google.com/search?q=zpt+tutorial


--jcc

--
"Building Websites with Plone"
http://plonebook.packtpub.com/

Enfold Systems, LLC
http://www.enfoldsystems.com
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Re: [Zope] ZPT tutorial

2005-06-21 Thread David H




John Poltorak wrote:

  On Tue, Jun 21, 2005 at 01:24:18AM +0200, Andreas Pakulat wrote:
  
  
On 20.Jun 2005 - 23:45:34, John Poltorak wrote:


  Does a ZPT tutorial exist anywhere?
  

How about the 2 chapters in the Zope book?

  
  
I just don't find this book very helpful at all. It's written as a manual 
rather than tutorial and reminds me of a book which explains how to chop 
down a tree if you are interested in putting up some bookshelves.

What I did find useful, though, was this worked example of how to put 
together a simple application:-

http://www.plope.com/Books/2_7Edition/SimpleExamples.stx#1-6

That was much more useful than anything else I've come across so. Just 
wish there were a few more examples.


 
  
  
Andreas

-- 

  
  

  

John,
Someone put this up some time ago.  Lots of Dtml->Zpt examples. 
Sounds like you might wanna take a look.

http://www.zope.org/Members/peterbe/DTML2ZPT/#example1

David





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Re: [Zope] ZPT tutorial

2005-06-21 Thread John Poltorak
On Tue, Jun 21, 2005 at 01:24:18AM +0200, Andreas Pakulat wrote:
> On 20.Jun 2005 - 23:45:34, John Poltorak wrote:
> > 
> > Does a ZPT tutorial exist anywhere?
> 
> How about the 2 chapters in the Zope book?

I just don't find this book very helpful at all. It's written as a manual 
rather than tutorial and reminds me of a book which explains how to chop 
down a tree if you are interested in putting up some bookshelves.

What I did find useful, though, was this worked example of how to put 
together a simple application:-

http://www.plope.com/Books/2_7Edition/SimpleExamples.stx#1-6

That was much more useful than anything else I've come across so. Just 
wish there were a few more examples.


 
> Andreas
> 
> -- 


-- 
John


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Re: [Zope] ZPT tutorial

2005-06-20 Thread David H




Everyone,

I think the ZPT tutorials are excellent.  Both "Using Page Templates"
and "Advanced Page Templates" are worth reading more than once.  

David


Andreas Jung wrote:

  
--On 20. Juni 2005 23:45:34 +0100 John Poltorak <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
  
  
  
Does a ZPT tutorial exist anywhere?


  
  
Aren't the *three* ZPT chapters in the Zope Book good enough?
  
  
-aj
  

  




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Re: [Zope] ZPT tutorial

2005-06-20 Thread Andreas Jung



--On 20. Juni 2005 23:45:34 +0100 John Poltorak <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:



Does a ZPT tutorial exist anywhere?



Aren't the *three* ZPT chapters in the Zope Book good enough?

-aj


pgpRrnfGY61Jv.pgp
Description: PGP signature
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Re: [Zope] ZPT tutorial

2005-06-20 Thread Andreas Pakulat
On 20.Jun 2005 - 23:45:34, John Poltorak wrote:
> 
> Does a ZPT tutorial exist anywhere?

How about the 2 chapters in the Zope book?

Andreas

-- 
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Re: [Zope] ZPT tutorial

2005-06-20 Thread Peter Bengtsson
Don't know of a good tutorial but I know there are many. I'm sure that
plone.org has some good ones.

In case you already know your DTML, this little howto has helped people a lot.
http://www.zope.org/Members/peterbe/DTML2ZPT

On 6/20/05, John Poltorak <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 
> Does a ZPT tutorial exist anywhere?
> 
> 
> --
> John
> 
> 
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work www.fry-it.com
home www.peterbe.com
hobby www.issuetrackerproduct.com
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