[ZDP] BackTalk to Document The Zope Book (2.5 Edition)/Using Basic Zope Objects
nobody@nowhere.com
nobody@nowhere.com
Mon, 09 Sep 2002 12:37:08 -0400
A comment to the paragraph below was recently added via http://www.zope.org/Documentation/Books/ZopeBook/current/BasicObject.stx#3-48
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Congratulations! You've just used Zope to create an HTML page.
You can carry out the creation and editing in one
step rather than two by using the *Add and Edit* button
on the add page.
% Anonymous User - Apr. 26, 2002 12:03 am:
Didn't we just make a DTML page?
% Anonymous User - Apr. 26, 2002 10:02 pm:
While using the DTML input template, there is nothing 'D' about the example yet.
% Anonymous User - June 25, 2002 2:13 am:
Can anyone tell me what is the difference in Page Template and DTML template as in both the cases we pasted
some HTML code?
% Anonymous User - Sep. 8, 2002 5:32 pm:
Hello? This is a huge oversight. The only reason I'm interested in Zope is its DTML type abilities. Someone
forgot to write this section of the book.
% mcdonc - Sep. 8, 2002 11:18 pm:
What is a huge oversight? What section of the book are you looking for? Did you notice the two chapters of
this book with "DTML" in their titles in the book's table of contents? Did you try to read those?
% Anonymous User - Sep. 9, 2002 10:09 am:
I, like most people I'll assume who are reading this book, have come here to find out what Zope is and what
it does (and not so much the details of its interface). The heading of *this* section of the book is "Editing
DTML Documents", leading me to believe there will be some coverage of that specific topic. From other
comments, I know I'm not alone in that.
What you're asking me to do (in jumping to the DTML chapters) is to already know what I'm looking for and go
straight to it. Why would I be reading this book if I already knew that? I have started from the beginning in
order to get educated about Zope. I've read this far and I am still waiting to figure out the meat of what
Zope does. Other comments have indicated that other readers are having the same experience.
The very essence of this great book commenting technology should be for the maintainers to take what readers
are saying and improve the book so that it better meets the readers' needs. Is this not so? Perhaps the
authors are so familiar with Zope that they cannot understand the perspective of people who only have a
tenuous idea what the software is intended to facilitate.
% mcdonc - Sep. 9, 2002 12:37 pm:
Errr... you mentioned DTML. It would make sense that you may want to read the chapters about DTML in that
case.
Constructive criticism is of course welcome -- this is why you are encouraged to make comments to this book. But
"it doesnt tell me what I want to know" isn't helpful because I have almost no idea what you do want to know.
You've made it clear that the current material is insufficent. Help us make it better by telling us in
concrete terms what can be done to make it better.
But before you do so, know that I have tried to address the comments made to this book as best possible in
the latest development release of the Zope Book at
http://www.zope.org/Documentation/Books/ZopeBook/2_6Edition. The revision of the book that you're reading
right now is the 2.5 edition, and it hasn't had the benefit of being run through comment-editing cycle while
the 2.6 edition has.
As soon as we can come up for air over at Zope Corporation, Zope 2.6 will be out and that revision of the
Zope Book will become "current". You may wish to read the 2.6 edition's first few chapters as it tones down
some of the "gee whiz" factor of the current book's narrative. I think this tone may be at the heart of your
complaints, and you may get a better overview of Zope from the 2.6 edition than this edition.