[Zope] Content Management System

2000-10-12 Thread Seb Bacon

This query started out in a separate thread about permissions, but it's
sufficiently important to me to pose again here.

I've been struggling to make the CMS abilities of zope user-friendly enough
for 'joe average' end-users.  Really it's designed for a 'power' content
manager who delegates, secures, and generally has taken the time to study
all the Content Management docs, etc.  However, most of my clients don't
have those kinds of requirements and aren't that technologically savvy, so I
end up coding ultra-simplified interfaces for them on a per-project basis.

I know you can restrict permissions on just about every available method,
and I am aware of the current skinnable zope project, which may improve the
situation drastically.  But I'm interested to know, how many of you offer
the Zope TTW interface to clients as a content management system, and how
many just use it as a development interface?  I'm beginning to wonder if
content management and system administration should be split out into
separate subsystems.  Or if a CMS Tool Kit should be developed.  (workflows,
syndication, etc...).  But I'm still far from being a zope power user
myself, and have yet to appreciate the range of its potential.

What do you people think?

Seb.


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Re: [Zope] Content Management System

2000-10-12 Thread Rik Hoekstra


 This query started out in a separate thread about permissions, but it's
 sufficiently important to me to pose again here.

 I've been struggling to make the CMS abilities of zope user-friendly
enough
 for 'joe average' end-users.  Really it's designed for a 'power' content
 manager who delegates, secures, and generally has taken the time to study
 all the Content Management docs, etc.  However, most of my clients don't
 have those kinds of requirements and aren't that technologically savvy, so
I
 end up coding ultra-simplified interfaces for them on a per-project basis.

 I know you can restrict permissions on just about every available method,
 and I am aware of the current skinnable zope project, which may improve
the
 situation drastically.  But I'm interested to know, how many of you offer
 the Zope TTW interface to clients as a content management system, and how
 many just use it as a development interface?  I'm beginning to wonder if
 content management and system administration should be split out into
 separate subsystems.  Or if a CMS Tool Kit should be developed.
(workflows,
 syndication, etc...).  But I'm still far from being a zope power user
 myself, and have yet to appreciate the range of its potential.

 What do you people think?


The PTK might offer you some help in this respect. Zope as a CMS _is_
possible, but IMO you'll have to wrap the parts of the management interface
that you want to expose to your users and hide the rest. This will
effectively limit you as to what you will let your users add to Zope, but in
a CMS situation, this will probably be the case anyway. The management
interface as is won't mean much to most of them, but custom forms can also
call the manage methods.
It's probably a good idea to use something like the HTML Widgets product
that was recently announced here, or the HiperDom thing.

For most of the user management parts you will probably need someone with
affinity for web developing, though as long as you keep the tasks
constrained, some simple instructions will probably suffice.

I have been developing something similar in what should be a course
framework (a product that I don't seem to be able able to finish) that is
geared toward an educational situation. It's predecessor has been in use at
a university for some time and it seems to suffice as least as good as
commercial packages.

hth

Rik


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Re: [Zope] Content Management System

2000-10-12 Thread Christian Scholz

Hi!

 I know you can restrict permissions on just about every available method,
 and I am aware of the current skinnable zope project, which may improve the
 situation drastically.  But I'm interested to know, how many of you offer
 the Zope TTW interface to clients as a content management system, and how
 many just use it as a development interface?  I'm beginning to wonder if
 content management and system administration should be split out into
 separate subsystems.  Or if a CMS Tool Kit should be developed.  (workflows,
 syndication, etc...).  But I'm still far from being a zope power user
 myself, and have yet to appreciate the range of its potential.
 
 What do you people think?

We have some client who use Zope for (at least partly) doing CMS
on their site. But these are quite simple (thus no commitments, etc.)
When switching from a database centered approach to a more Zope based
(e.g. doing it via Zope Products) I actually splitted the management
interface in one for the main manager (we) and one more simple and
configurable one for the clients (starting with /admin ).

I now used it in two subprojects and it seems to work. The only thing
I need to think about more specifically is how to factor out the 
client-side of the management interface more clearly as right now
it's very much weaved into the actual classes.

Also I am thinking about possibilities to split the actual data from
the presentation and to make the presentation pluggable. But this is
quite raw at the moment ;-)

cheers,
  Christian


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Re: [Zope] Content Management System

2000-10-12 Thread Joachim Werner

 I'm beginning to wonder if
  content management and system administration should be split out into
  separate subsystems.  Or if a CMS Tool Kit should be developed.
(workflows,
  syndication, etc...).

We (iuveno) are currently preparing a major project to write a full-featured
CMS on base of Zope. The first client will be a university, but the system
will also be usable in commercial environments, and it will be open source
from the first day on (except for the client-specific stuff of course).

The first draft of the general architecture is as follows:

There is a ZClass- or Python-product-based toolkit that provides the
standard functionality, like base classes, workflow logic, etc.

Plugin ZClasses implement the actual organization logic, so you can choose
between building a university, a sports club, or maybe a consulting business
by just choosing the corresponding modules.

Chromes (logos, stylesheets, ...) and Views (page layouts) are also
implemented as plugins.

There will be a full-fledged workflow/project management component (at least
in the long run).

The concept will build upon ideas from the PTK and the ZDP-tools.

There is a very simple prototype we will make public after some clean-ups.
We are checking at the moment if we should set up a now project homepage or
wiki or join an existing effort like the ZDP-tool-based initiative of Maik
Röder on or the PTK.

BTW: My experience with "dumb users" working with the Zope interface is
quite positive. As long as they just have to add, change or delete
predefined objects it doesn't seem to be that bad. They just shouldn't have
to know about DTML or even acquisition.

Joachim.





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Re: [Zope-dev] Zope Content Management System

2000-08-24 Thread Rik Hoekstra



Hi there, I am working on a project and have been looking at the Zope
Content Management System as part of the solution. However, I have a couple
of questions. From what I have seen so far, the page generation is all done
through the Zope Management Interface, and the content of the page is done
through a textarea requiring the user to have knowledge of the zope
system(DTML) and HTML. With type type of solution I am looking for however,
I need page content to be generated be users that have little or no
knowledge of HTML. What I am wondering is if it is possible to integrate
the
Zope content management system with Cold Fusion as I can allow users with
no
knowledge of HTML to use an interface designed with Cold Fusion to create
page content. I do not wish to build a content management system from
scratch with Cold Fusion. Any suggestions and/or comments would be very
helpful.

Um, intergration with Cold Fusion would be strange I think. WHat your
question is, probably, is whether you can you wysiwyg HTML editors with
Zope. Some minor inconveniences aside that mostly have to do with file
extensions, the answer is yes. As Zope speaks ftp and WebDAV and a host of
other protocols, you can easily prepare Zope content with tools like
HomeSite and Dreamweaver (and many other tools). Just try it out on a Zope
installation

hth

Rik


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Re: [Zope-dev] Zope Content Management System

2000-08-24 Thread Dieter Maurer

Troy Coburn writes:
   I need page content to be generated be users that have little or no
  knowledge of HTML 
  Any suggestions and/or comments would be very
  helpful.
You may want to look at Wiki's, especially the ZWiki product.
You find it (and information about Wiki) at zope.org.


Dieter

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