[ZDP] A first shot at a Zope Quickstart (part 1)

Maik Roeder roeder@berg.net
Wed, 24 May 2000 18:49:25 +0200


Hi Rik !


> > This would obsolete
> > ZBook Draft Submission Folders as the central repository
> > for Drafts. Maybe then Draft Submission Folders could
> > be used for an Approver or Editor to have another look
> > at a new chapter shortly before it is released ?
> 
> Hm. I'm not sure I follow you here.

I doubt that it makes sense to put _new_ Drafts right 
into the DraftSubmissionFolder of a Chapter in ZBook. 
In my opinion, a draft is something that needs to
be discussed with the "right" community. That means
you select a community, a subject, and a topic.
Place the draft there, and kindly ask for comments.
Collect the comments, integrate them, and then
announce that you have deleted the comments,
because you have integrated them in a new draft
that is now in a DraftsubmissionFolder of ZBook,
and has to be approved by someone, or reviewed
by someone. In your announcement you can directly
ask for a reviewer/approver.
 
> Do we need only to do straight advertisement. And afterwards get people
> complaining that they do not see where Zope contributed to their needs???
> In itself I thought somewhat balanced treament of what Zope is for and
> for who it is was a good idea. After all, people would expect straight out
> advertisement and a little balance will do no harm.

Yes, it is important not to make your introduction sound like an
advertisement. Still, I think it is good to show your enthusiasm
about how great Zope is. 
 
> > > There is more to Zope than just this. Zope is an advanced platform, and it
> > > is **well structured**.
> >
> > I would expect this anyway. This makes most sense if you mention how
> > it was in the ancient times when people create CGI scripts, and everything
> > was very fragmented.
> 
> Like now, still. Is this not one of our primary audiences? The
> php/asp/perl/python/ssi/whatever cgi scripters?

Ok, then you have to tell those people what a difference Zope makes to
them. Just being well structured does not mean much to people, you
have to tell them what the difference to CGI scripts, so they can 
see the benefits.
 
> > > So you should be prepared to do some thinking about the
> > > structure of your site. This *will* pay off in term of maintainability and
> > > ease of extending.
> > >
> > > Using Zope alongside another Web techniques
> >
> > Perhaps this should not be mentioned here.
> 
> Hm. it _is_ a newbie/prospective user question that come up on the list
> regularly, so it should go into the start of the document.

Maybe we can mention that Zope uses Python, and that Python is a glue
language.
 
> >> You may use Zope for free, but you are asked to put the Zope attribution
> > > buttion on your homepage or somewhere most appropriate on your site.
> >
> > This is not completely accurate. The new Zope license does not require you
> > to add such a button, if I remember right. It used to be different.
> >
> 
> I did not write require, did I?

OK. Still it should be mentioned that it is possible to not have the
attribution button on the page. You can tell people that they can
put it in another appropriate place.
 
> > I haven't read the rest of your document, but I will do so soon,
> > and send you more feedback.
> 
> Good, thanks again for your valuable input.

Here comes the next part:

> Setting up Zope
> 
> After you've downloaded the package, the setup procedure you'll have to
> follow depends on the platform you're working on and of questions whether
> you want Zope to integrate with existing webservers and so on.[links]

Mention that there are binary and source distributions.
 
> In a very generalized setup walkthrough you'll have to:
> 1) ensure you are running with the proper permissions on your system
> 2) unpack or execute (Windows) the distribution

Mention that there is an install wizard on windows

> 3) Perhaps/probably change some parameters for running Zope

Mention that you don't have to do much to start a development server.

> 4) Set a superuser name/password combination

Mention that on windows the wizard will ask you for that.

> 5) Startup Zope.
> In a typical Win32 setup session you could be up and running in 20 minutes -

Separate download time from install time. 

> if you have a reasonable connection to the web (but the Zope download is
> modest).

Mention the small size of an example Zope distribution, which will surprise
people who are used to installing programs with several hundred megabytes.

> In Linux ... [XXX complete]
>
> Zope will run on its own, but it has very good possibilities for integration

Mention that Zope has its own web server.

> with existing webservers. To test your first setup with Zope and to check it
> is running well, you probably are best off by setting up Zope on its own. In
> this way you will know if something has gone wrong with Zope at setup time.
> Afterwards you can then start integrating Zope with existing components,
> like external webservers.
> 
> If installation has gone well, you can test it by firing up your web browser
> and point it to http://localhost:<zopeport>, in which <zopeport> should be
> replaced by the port you installed Zope under (see the specific installing
> information).

Mention the standard port. Mention that localhost is the machine you
are working on.

> You should get a welcome page for you Zope installation. You
> can test whether you can authenticate with Zope by clicking the link
> pointing to the  management screens.
> 
> Getting Started
> 
> So now you have Zope running, now what. There are several options for
> getting started with Zope. If you just want experience the look and feel of
> Zope, the Tutorial [link] is your best bet [short explanation]. To be sure,
> the tutorial is probably your best bet anyway, but if you downloaded Zope to
> get some things done, here are some pointers.
> 
> [links]

Mention the ZDP portals for new Zope Users, Zope Users, Developers and so
on.
 
> Some Zope principles
> 
> To get started, you'll need to know something about Zope's architecture if
> you do not want to get hopelessly confused.
> 
> First: Zope is about object publishing. While this may sound technical
> (because it is), this should not deter you from using the system, as you
> will never need to use the objects directly.

Not clear.

> If you have never programmed
> much, or never programmed in an object oriented language, this is not the
> place to introduce you to it [link]

Link to Grokking OO.

> Suffice it here to state that objects are "self-contained" pieces of
> software with their own properties and behaviour. 

What do you mean by "self-contained" ?

> In Zope, they replace files.

Still, they are written in files.

> They live in the Zope database (well, they might live somewhere else,
> but that is not important now.) 

I think this needs to be expressed differently:

Zope is an Object Publishing system. Objects can have properties
and methods. Publishing an object means calling its index_html
method. (Index.html does not work because the point has a
special meaning in Python). The index_html method returns an
HTML file, which is then displayed in the browser. There are 
other methods that don't necessarily show HTML, but can be
used by calling them like normal Python methods.

[snip]

> 
> If your site is called www.zopesite.org, the url of file1 will be
> http://zopesite/folder1/file1. The url of folder2 will be
> http://zopesite/folder1/folder2 and the url of file4 will be
> http://zopesite/folder1/folder2/file3. Zope has a number of tricks to change

Use www.zopesite.org

[snip]

It already seems to me that it will be very important to make
mucho links to other resources. This is completely in line with
the role that I envision for the ZDP. Give each community
a place to share knowledge. Each topic is explained for
the specific community, and contains appropriate pointers
to good stuff.
 
Greetings,

Maik Röder