[Zope] DTML or TAL

David Burton eloquence@eloquent-designs.f2s.com
Thu, 23 May 2002 14:36:57 +0100


My understanding is that there are things that you can do in DTML that you can't readily do in TAL, and that making the optimum use of all of them you end 
up with the following:

DTML Documents - mainly only used for storing basic content
ZPT - Basic Presentation Logic - particularly where this will need to be editable by designers
DTML Methods - More sophisticated presentation logic (and most likely more used to generate a section of a page)
Python Scripts - Still more complex presentation logic, and/or business logic.

Personally I'd hate to see either ZPT or DTML vanish, since I have a particular use for both - often prototyping mostly in DTML to work things out quickly and 
then creating a final version using ZPT and Python Scripts to separate out the code and presentation where proper design will be necessary... 

ZPT is definitely easier for the designers - you'll have a tough time getting most WYSIWYG editors to let you enter any DTML, let alone not breaking existing 
DTML....

On the other hand, I'd be keen to see a 'Static Text' document type, which would be like a DTML Document in many ways - editable from the ZMI, history 
storage, history viewing, etc, but not parsed for any tags, so presentation would (theoretically) be quicker.

David

23/05/2002 14:17:53, Jens Vagelpohl <jens@zope.com> wrote:

>chris,
>
>your statement about the future of DTML is incorrect.
>
>DTML support will be retained and even improved in the future. the 
>difference in DTML- and ZPT-support is simply how much time we are spending 
>on it. more time is going into ZPT because we use it more extensively 
>internally and the take-up in the community seems to indicate the same is 
>true for a large part of zope developers out there.
>
>devshed is not lazy and out of date for publishing an article about DTML. 
>DTML is as valid and future-proof a templating system for zope as ZPT is.
>
>jens
>
>
>On Thursday, May 23, 2002, at 07:56 , Chris Withers wrote:
>
>> Oliver Marx wrote:
>>>
>>> Reading the ZopeBook.pdf one get the impression the DTML is on its way out
>>> and TAL on its way in.
>>
>> Yup.
>>
>>> Is that the case?
>>
>> Well, ZPT rather than TAL, but yet...
>>
>>> If yes, why does Devshed then post an article about DTML?
>>
>> They're lazy and out of date? ;-)
>>
>> *grinz*
>>
>> Chris
>
>
>
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