G'day,
Zope Weekly News is a digest of some of the useful and interesting
events which have occurred on the various Zope mailing lists and the
Zope.org site. It is published each Wednesday evening.
New Products and Announcements
* Paul Everitt announces Sybase support in a joint press release.
http://lists.zope.org/pipermail/zope/1999-November/013946.htmlhttp://www.digicool.com/News/Sybase
* "Zen" released ZRadius, a product which allows you to authenticate
web users via the Radius authentication protocol.
http://www.zope.org/Members/Zen/ZRadius
* Anthony Pfrunder announces VisualZope 0.1a. From his web page:
Basically, the "goal" of VZ is to provide a SIMPLE visual
editing system for graphic designers which works cross-browser
and takes advantage of the acquisition and role systems within
Zope. What follows is a brief description of the components
which make up the final VZ system (probably more accurate than
previous posts).
http://163.182.196.200/zwiki/VisualZope
* Jeff Sheldon has started a weblog of his experiences with Zope.
Jeff Sheldon is new to Zope, and is not a professional programmer.
His weblog is a valuable resource to those also starting out with
Zope.
http://weblogs.userland.com/zopeNewbies/stories/storyReader$0
Updates
* Zope 2.1.0 beta 2 has been released. This release includes fixes
for issues found in beta 1, an updated load_site.py script and
Martijn Pieters' patches to implement try/except/else and
try/finally in DTML. Unless something major comes up, this will be
the final beta before 2.1.0 final.
http://www.zope.org/Products/Zope/2.1.0b2/
* "4am" has submitted an update to his PythonMethod product. It
allows methods, written in Python, to be created via the Zope web
management interface.
http://www.zope.org/Members/4am/PythonMethod
* "Drew" contributed an update to his Photo product. It generates
thumbnail views of images at the user's preferred size. Requires
PIL.
http://www.zope.org/Members/Drew/Photo
* Itamar Shtull-Trauring announced ZCache v0.2. ZCache is a Python
Product which allows you to cache expensive methods, taking strain
off your server. It also generates 'Last-Modified' headers,
aiding browser and proxy caches.
http://lists.zope.org/pipermail/zope/1999-November/014115.htmlhttp://www.zope.org/Members/itamar/ZCacheZope.org items
* "Zen" submitted a tip he picked up from Michel Pelletier. He
explains how volatile attributes work, and how to populate them
when your object is loaded from the database. Volatile attributes
are attributes which do not get written to the database, and are
good for data which changes frequently.
http://www.zope.org/Members/Zen/tips/VolatileAttributes
* "AlexR" submitted a How-To detailing the use of the DTML entity
syntax. "DTML entities" are chunks of DTML which look like this:
"&dtml-title_or_id;"
http://www.zope.org/Members/AlexR/EntitySyntax
Notable Discussions
* DTML is a HUGE topic this week. Discussions spill across several
lists. A very good job is done of identifying DTML's weak points.
Many hold that the difficulty in using DTML comes from it's roots
as a reporting language-- it isn't supposed to be used for logic.
The problem is, there isn't yet an easy replacement for DTML as a
programming language. Python Methods are cited as an excellent
start on providing a means of moving logic out of DTML.
Christopher Petrilli mentions that DC is looking at grooming
Python Methods for inclusion in Zope.
Others feel that reporting vs. programming is a forced
distinction, and that it is awkward to have to use two different
solutions. The claim that generating HTML is actually a rather
complex task, and the powerful but ugly features of DTML are a
necessary evil.
DTML is compared to Perl! <gasp!> Otherwise, lots of very useful
tips for using DTML are revealed. An excellent read for DTML
beginners and wizards alike.
http://lists.zope.org/pipermail/zope/1999-November/013710.htmlhttp://lists.zope.org/pipermail/zope-dev/1999-November/002088.htmlhttp://lists.zope.org/pipermail/zope-dev/1999-November/002102.html
* Darcy Clark alerts the list of Jon Udell's latest article
mentioning Zope. Jon's article discusses the ease of using Zope
with Windows databases, the pain of using it with Unix databases,
cheers ODBC, and jeers lack of a similar magic bullet for Unix.
The thread then continues to discuss the relative merits of
various free databases and using them with Zope.
http://www.byte.com/column/BYT19991104S0001http://lists.zope.org/pipermail/zope/1999-November/013711.html
Also, Karl Fast does an excellent job of summarising the thread,
generating more sage comments.
http://lists.zope.org/pipermail/zope/1999-November/013762.htmlhttp://lists.zope.org/pipermail/zope/1999-November/013812.htmlhttp://lists.zope.org/pipermail/zope/1999-November/013813.htmlhttp://lists.zope.org/pipermail/zope/1999-November/013840.html
* Francois-Regis CHALAOUX posed a question about using Zope with
virtual hosting. Several useful responses were generated.
http://lists.zope.org/pipermail/zope/1999-November/013678.htmlhttp://lists.zope.org/pipermail/zope/1999-November/013688.html
* Ben Galbraith submitted a comparison of Zope and Cold Fusion and
solicited comments. Some of the usual suspects offer theirs.
http://lists.zope.org/pipermail/zope/1999-November/013730.html
* Otto Hammersmith started a thread about Zope and security. In it,
he speaks of some of the security pitfalls that unsuspecting Zope
users could experience. Brian Lloyd submits some solutions.
http://lists.zope.org/pipermail/zope/1999-November/013779.html
* Paul Everitt wrote in to remind us that there is a
zope-dev(a)zope.org list for technical discussions. A brisk
discussion developed to debate what constituted a technical
discussion.
http://lists.zope.org/pipermail/zope/1999-November/013796.html
* Theodore Patrick launched a lengthy thread with questions about
the effect of threading in Zope. A number of folks from Digital
Creations provide answers. The discussion moves on with high
volume and content to the topics of benchmarking and performance
tuning Zope.
http://lists.zope.org/pipermail/zope/1999-November/013808.html
* Farzad Farid revives the uncacheable image thread. Because
Acquisition can lead to different URLs being generated for images
when viewed from different locations, it makes caching difficult
and can generate excessive traffic. Others offer advice to solve
this problem.
http://lists.zope.org/pipermail/zope/1999-November/014021.html
* David Harrison asks zope-dev how to return an image generated
on-the-fly by an External Method. Answers found.
http://lists.zope.org/pipermail/zope-dev/1999-November/002107.html
Mike Pelletier
Hi,
I'm pleased to announce:
BoboMail Version 0.3
====================
BoboMail is a so-called webmail application using Zope's ZPublisher and
ZTemplates. It provides mail access through a web interface and is
distributed under the GNU GPL.
Current features:
* read, write, reply, forward and delete messages
* direct support for the following MIME types:
message/rfc822, message/delivery-status, multipart/alternative,
multipart/mixed, multipart/report, multipart/related,
text/plain, text/html, text/x-vcard, image/jpeg,
image/png, image/x-xpixmap, image/gif
* works with POP3-servers
* easy to modify and to customize through HTML-templates
* modular design provides easy interface for other authentication
methods and mail protocols
* provides optionally its own fast multithreading webserver
(BoboMailHTTPD)
* multi-lingual support (i18n) - currently English and German
For more information go to http://bobomail.sourceforge.net
Call for help: Can anyone help to improve the speed by making a Python-C
module
for a RFC822-/MIME-parser with Swig (e.g. of the c-client library) ?
Henning
PointOne is pleased to announce our fist public beta release of
OpenTicket. OpenTicket is a trouble ticketing/problem tracking system
that stores its data in a SQL database. Supported databases include
MySQL, Oracle, and Postgresql.
A demo and downloads are available on the web site:
http://openticket.point-one.net
^Roman
in the spirit of
zope/hidden/show/easter/tell
its monday
to announce a work in progress that i would appreciate
greatly any feedback, criticism
http://www.drawingincode.com
<humour>
...i first met Mozilla in San Fransisco, april
of 1998. Early in the party were a few Netscape
people cheery and looking up. They failed to notice
the twent dollars lying on the floor that was to buy
all my brewski's that evening. Fortunatly the Cisco
buses had yet to arrive (they look everywhere)..
</humour>
thank you, michael patrick bolger
zope/member = "merton"
michael(a)lifeplant.com
As several people have noticed, www.zope.org is back. The problem was
some trivial hardware mishandling - an insufficiently seated ethernet
cable.
Of course, it's quite frustrating for *all* of us when the site is
unavailable, and our service provider is properly contrite. We're sorry
about the disruption - we don't expect it's going to happen again...
Ken Manheimer
klm(a)digicool.com
LinuxProgramming.com is now under the management of internet.com, home to
several Linux sites (including Linux Today, Linux Planet, and LinuxStart).
We're on the lookout for anything of interest to Linux and BSD programmers,
and obviously Zope would fall under that category. Please share your stories
of Zope: success stories, product announcements, and tutorials. We don't
expect you to work for free, so in-depth tutorials will be rewarded with $$.
We're working to bring Zope and other open-source tools the wider exposure
they deserve, and we appreciate your help. Questions, comments, or idea can
be sent to me at kreichard(a)internet.com.
--Kevin Reichard
Managing Editor, Linux/Open Source Channel
internet.com
G'day,
Zope Weekly News is a digest of some of the useful and interesting
events which have occurred on the zope-announce mailing list and
the Zope.org site. It is published each Tuesday before noon(ish).
Any opinions contained in the Zope Weekly News are those of the
chronicler exclusively.
Announcements
* imeme.net is offering an exceptional, low-end Zope hosting
package. Not only do you get Zope (with some nice Products), but
they throw in email (supported by the also exceptional WorldPilot
package, or any IMAP client) and a mailing list (managed by
MailMan), lagniappe. Try free for two weeks.
http://www.zope.org/Members/mindlace/imeme
* ZopeBrasil has a new address.
http://www.zopebrasil.cjb.net/
* Alexandre Ratti has translated the last two ZWN issues into
French, and has posted them on the fledgling Zope-France site.
Additional translations should appear here, as time permits.
Thanks, Alexandre!
http://www.zope-france.org/ressources/azh/
* James Orbin <jorbin33(a)hotmail.com> would like to set up (or would
like to participate in) a Zope users group for Ohio. If you are
interested, please write James, or see:
http://lists.zope.org/pipermail/zope-announce/2000-March/000137.html
New Products
* Software Product: ListMate Table Generator, by "heiko.stoermer"
"ListMate is a ZClass based product that allows zope users to
easily define, create and administer table structures. Use it
for intranet or internet presentation of all kinds of tabular
data, such as delivery services, hardware lists, ip-adresses,
contacts, addresses, ... It contains a complete administrative
toolset so that handling and maintenance are very easy."
http://www.zope.org/Members/heiko.stoermer/ListMate
Updates
* Software Product: GenericUserFolder (GUF), by Stuart Bishop
GUF has been revved up to 1.2.2. This is strictly a bug-fix
release, and deals with all reported bugs. GUF is a tool for
rolling your own UserFolder (the object which authenticates users
of a Zope server).
http://www.zope.org/Members/Zen/GenericUserFolder
* Software Product: LDAP authentication adapter product, by "rossl"
Version 0.98.3 has been released. This release includes changes
proposed by LDAPUserFolder users, and is being called
"non-urgent". If you intend to upgrade, please read the product
page carefully. This product makes it possible to authenticate
Zope users using an external LDAP database.
http://www.zope.org/Members/rossl/LDAPAdapter
* Software Product: Wide String support for ZPublisher, by "htrd"
The wstring package has been updated to v0.2. This package is
actually a set of patches to Zope to make it support wide strings.
This update works with Zope 2.1.6.
http://www.zope.org/Members/htrd/wstring/Zope.org items
* How-To: Postmortem Debugging In Zope, by Chris McDonough
This How-To provides a twist on Michel Pelletier's The Debugger Is
Your Friend document. Using the postmortem feature of the pdb,
you can examine the state of your server at the point where the
last exception occurred. This can be very handy when you don't
know why an exception is being thrown.
http://www.zope.org/Members/mcdonc/HowTos/pm-debug
* Tip: Zope and regular content via ProxyPass, by "bfordham"
This tip describes how to serve the root of a site from a Zope
server, but serve specific portions of the site via Apache.
http://www.zope.org/Members/bfordham/docs/zope_and_others
* News Item: New Zope.org feature: Author feedback, by "MikeP"
Now you can send feedback to the author of any content on
Zope.org. There is a link to this feature at the bottom of each
appropriate page.
http://www.zope.org/Members/MikeP/feeback_news
--
Mike Pelletier.
http://www.zope.org/Members/jfarr/Products/LocalFS
This mainly fixes problems with the tree view. OK, so I slipped in a
user-requested 'feature' there at the end. I'm just excited that people are
actually starting to create their own custom views.
- Fixed a bug in __getitem__ that broke the mapping protocol,
i.e. localfs['subobject'].
- Fixed a problem with tree tag items from separate localfs instances
affecting each other's state.
- Prevented exceptions in localfs tree rendering from crashing the
management interface.
- Added 'Display in Tree View' option to disable displaying LocalFS
objects in the management tree.
- Added LocalFile properties display_size and display_mtime which return
formatted properties. The size and mtime attributes now return an integer
and a DateTime object, respectively. This should make the LocalFile
object more useful for creating custom directory views.
--jfarr
Ive uploaded an updated version of my patch to support...
* Unicode strings in ZPublisher; unicode fields in forms
* Unicode strings as object properties
* Unicode strings that work well with dtml
http://www.zope.org/Members/htrd/wstring
I've been waiting to release this version for a while (waiting for
zope 2.1.6, which fixed some relevent bugs), so it's reasonably
stable. However I wouldn't use it for anything important before Python
1.6, when I will switch over to the built-in unicode type.
I would be grateful for any feeback,
Toby Dickenson
tdickenson(a)geminidataloggers.com
G'day,
Zope Weekly News is a digest of some of the useful and interesting
events which have occurred on the zope-announce mailing list and
the Zope.org site. It is published each Tuesday before noon.
Any opinions contained in the Zope Weekly News are those of the
chronicler exclusively.
Announcements
* First Commercial Zope Tutorial, by "beehive"
"beehive is pleased to announce a first: a series of inexpensive
commercial Zope tutorials! Our first tutorial is availible
today, in German. This tutorial will be availible in English
within 2 to 3 weeks."
The first tutorial (about ZClasses) is 62 pages long, and
represents at least 3 months work on the part of beehive.
http://www.zope.org/Members/beehive/1stcomtutorial_html
* Zope site in Portuguese (br), by "Infotronic"
"Infotronic has created a new site (ZopeBrasil) that will have
Zope information in portuguese (br) language, and will lead the
efforts to localization of Zope."
"If you speak Portuguese, visit it!"
http://www.zope.com/Members/ZopeBrasil
* Portuguese Zope Mailing List, by "hramos"
Another Portuguese resource! This appears to be a general-purpose
zope mailing list, like zope(a)zope.org. To subscribe, send email
to zope-pt-subscribe(a)egroups.com.
http://www.zope.org/Members/hramos/PT_Zope_MailingList
New Products
* Software Product: jcForceAuth, by "jephte"
"jcForceAuth forces users to authenticate, even if they view
anonymous content. This is particularly suitable for an
intranet."
http://www.zope.org/Members/jephte/jcForceAuth
Updates
* Zope.org material in PDF format, by "AlexR"
AlexR has updated his PDF versions of the 158 How-Tos and 54 Tips
contained on the Zope.org site. Handy for offline reference and
printing.
http://www.zope.org/Members/AlexR/ZopeDocsZope.org items
* How-To: View and print all code from methods in a folder or
ZClass, by "jwashin"
This How-To contains a code snippet (and instructions for use)
which will find and display all the DTML source in a given ZClass.
This can be useful when examining other people's ZClasses.
http://www.zope.org/Members/jwashin/viewZClassMethods
--
Mike Pelletier.