[Zope3-dev] DISCUSS: getting rid of the obscure "Title" convention

[Martijn Faassen]

Paul Everitt wrote:
[snip]
> Hmm, this brings up an interesting question regarding a question.  Can 
> the component architecture provide a formal, measurable answer to the 
> question: "What is content?"?  Even better question: Should Zope3 have 
> any concept of "content"?
> 
> As some know, I've had a broad, ambitious idea for expanding the meaning 
> of content.  Others have pointed out that making it too broad renders 
> the definition ineffective.

[snip discussion and examples]

This is very much similar to my question about what a 'Formulator Form'
would be in Zope3. A Formulator form is a persistent objects containing
form fields (also persistent). A form field has a way to present itself
(which I call widget after UI widget), and a 'validator' which knows how
to process contents. A field has 'content', such as a title and information
about what the HTML field should look like (size, etc), as well as 
information determining how the field should be validated (required or
not, minimum, maximum, etc). Validators and widgets are commonly associated
to the field *class*. Fields basically delegate stuff (render yourself,
validate yourself) on to their classes widget and validator.

It turns out it's very useful to treat such a form as a repository of
data about (user editable) record or object structure as well. Don't know
if that is content, but I do wonder what the entire framework would
look like in Zope3 terms. Widgets are presentation components, but in 
a sense fields and forms are too. I also can see widgets being adapters of
validator 'content objects'. Anybody know?

> Is "content" something with a specific interface (or set of interfaces), 
> or meets some other criteria?

That is a good question. Content is often in the eye of the beholder..

Regards,

Martijn