[Zope3-dev] Re: Bug 358/359, 367 fixed

[Marius Gedminas]

On Fri, Mar 04, 2005 at 11:28:39AM +0100, Roger Ineichen wrote:
> > > Not at all, if the customer is building a Z3 app, they  should use Z3MI.
> > > If the customer is using a CMS built in Z3, that CMS should provide a
> > > complete interface of its own, even if it does re-use some bits of Z3MI...
> >
> > For reference, this is what we're doing with SchoolBell.  Most end
> > users will download a self-contained application and never see the ZMI
> > at all.  Or, you can add the schoolbell package to your Zope 3's path
> > and wire it in with ZCML, allowing you to add a whole SchoolBell
> > instance to your site via the ZMI.  Once you're "in" the SchoolBell
> > instance, the ZMI isn't supported.  You use SchoolBell's interface.
> > 
> > If you're curious, you can explore this further with our new release
> > candidate for SchoolBell 1.0:
> > http://www.schooltool.org/releases/schoolbell1.0/ ;-)
> 
> Thanks for this info, I will try it later on a linux machine;-)
> 
> I do not mean there is no reason to do it this way. I was just
> proposing, that a custom UI not has to have no relation to the
> ZMI. If a custom UI uses the same structure of a ZODB, it's easier
> to understand if you switch form one UI to another.
> 
> Perhaps I have to ask another question. If you develope a
> custom UI. Is there really a reason that I can't manage it in 
> the ZMI directly?

ZMI has a lot of things that are not necessary for the problem domain
and confuse the end-users.

ZMI does not look nice by default (this is fixable).

> I think a application should be 100% manageable 
> in a ZMI or in a custom UI. Sure you use only the custom UI
> for endusers. But I like it if all application work also in the 
> ZMI and a custom UI is optional.

The way I see it, a slick custom UI for end-users is mandatory.  ZMI is
optional.  We do use standard views with some custom CSS and sometimes
custom page templates where we can get away with it.  Sometimes changes
in Zope 3 core (e.g. the recent change for the rendering of widget
errors) break our CSS rules.  This makes us want to move further away
from ZMI.

> Is the SchoolBell also manageable in the ZMI?
> (Hm, perhaps I better try it, then asking such question)

<rhetorical_question>
What is ZMI?
</rhetorical_question>

All the standard views are there -- for example, you can go to
/++etc++site and fiddle with things in there.  This is not officially
supported -- if you break things there, you're on your own.  Our custom
skin does not use the zmi_xxx menus, so navigation is difficult.  The
skin is changed by a BeforeTraversalEvent subscriber, and you cannot
change it back (because ++skin++Foo wants to be the first thing in the
URL).

Besides, I agree with Steve Alexander that ZMI should not be an integral
part of Zope 3.

Marius Gedminas
-- 
I've been in the sun for a week.  I took the bold step of leaving my
laptop at home.  I found only 4K messages pending when I returned.
	-- Keith Packard
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: Digital signature
Url : http://mail.zope.org/pipermail/zope3-dev/attachments/20050309/c4b31068/attachment.bin