[Zope] Creating my first product

Nolan Darilek nolan_d@bigfoot.com
Mon, 08 May 2000 22:22:35 -0500


So I've finally managed to work out my menu issues, and I'm already
trying to cause more trouble. :)

I'm trying to implement a journal/rants page. I've done something like
this on another site, so I copied my code and worked from what I did
manage to accomplish. I'm using the dtml-calendar tag to search
through a Z Catalog and locate objects with a date_entry property
which equals the current cell's date. The calendar renders nicely, and
AFAIK everything should work.

The problem though is that I couldn't accomplish what I wanted to with
a DTML document, so I created my own Journal Entry product which
incorporates some of the changes which I'd like. But, I'm a bit
confused about properties and their indexability. I'm creating the
product completely in DTML, and am curious; how do I define a
property? I see how I can define a propertysheet and attach properties
to that, but is it somehow possible to define properties directly on
the object? Or do all objects use propertysheets transparently?

And, if I add a property to an object, how do I index it in a Z
catalog? I added a 'basic' propertysheet and then placed an
entry_date property of type date within that, but I didn't have much
luck with that, even after adding the entry_date to the meta_types of
the Z catalog; I was never able to receive any search results. Should
I use 'basic.entry_date' instead of just 'entry_date' in searches?

Thanks.