A Collection of Usage Notes about the Zope 3 Web Framework

How-To's:

• Connect a file, directory or directory tree to the underlying filesystem.
• Make use of the ZCatalog? component, for indexing other components.
• Install SQLObject and sqlos together.

On the Zope website, there is extensive developer documentation on what Zope 3 exactly is. Highly recommended reading.

• Objectives of Zope 3
• Getting Zope 3 Set Up
  • Installing Zope 3 under Linux
  • Installing the PostgreSQL Connector for Zope 3
  • Creating a Server Instance in which to run your site
  • Starting Up a Server Instance
• Learning to Use Zope 3
  • Grasping the Basic Programmer Concepts
  • Grasping the Zope Management Interface Concepts
• Developing with Zope 3
  • Developing a Content Component
  • Creating your own Zope Package
• Learning More About Zope 3
  • Zope3 SIG Meeting Notes
  • Notes on book: Zope 3 Developer's Handbook
  • Notes on book: Web Component Development with Zope 3
  • Zope 3 Roadmap
  • Zope 3.1 Release Notes
• Zope 3 Musings
  • The context object

One item to note is that any part of Zope that falls outside of the "zope.app" package is usable outside of the Zope application server, i.e. in non-Zope programs. Such packages are minimal interdependencies, although most depend on "zope.interface".

Remember that Zope "packages" are not the same as Zope "applications". A package is a bundle of functionality, typically a set of components and represents building blocks. A Zope "application" is a set of configuration files that bring together a specific collection of components in order to produce some specific complex functionality.

Sources of Information on Zope 3

Zope 3 provides a powerful, dynamically constructed tree of documentation about the APIs in the specific installation. It is accessible from the [Help] button in the Zope Management Interface (ZMI) or the URL "/++apidoc++" of your site.

• Zope 3 Coding Standard
• Zope 3 Development Web Site
• Zope 3 Dev Mailing List
• Zope 3 Users Mailing List"
• IRC Channel: #zope3-dev at irc.freenode.net
• Zwiki IRC Channel: irc://irc.freenode.net/#zwiki
• Benji's "Zope 3 Quick Start Guide
• Zope 3 in 30 Minutes

Developing with Zope 3

Developing with Zope 3 means writing components in Python. It is much more programmer-oriented than Zope 2. The steps toward creating such a component are:

1. Define the interface(s) by which your component will export its functionality.
2. Implement unit tests against those interface(s).
3. Implement the component internals.
4. Produce configuration information.
5. Implement functional tests for your component.
6. Produce usage documentation.

Defining your Interface(s)

Our code will be placed at $HOME/myzope/lib/python/boom

First create a file interfaces.py where we will keep our interfaces. Later we will implement these interfaces one by one, with strong support of unit testing.

Implementing Unit Tests against Your Interface(s)

Implement the Internals of your Component

Produce Configuration Information

Implementing Functional Tests for Your Component

Producing Usage Documentation

Zope 3 Conceptual Blocks

• Pluggable Authentication Utility (PAU) (docs: zope/app/authentication/README.txt)
  • Credentials Plugins: Basic HTTP Auth, Session
  • Authenticator Plugins: Principal Folder, Group Folder
• Utilities
  • Menus (and sub-menus)
  • Error Reporting
  • FSSync
  • Authentication
• Site Managers (local and global)
  • Registry of adapters and utilities
• Adapters
  • Views
  • Skins, Layers
• Integer-ID Facility
• Catalog and Index
• Vocabularies (small collections) and Sources (large collections)
• Generic User Preferences system
• ZCML
• Traversal Adapters
  • ++debug++
• HTTP Request Recorder

To Be Discussed...

• persistence
• security
• transactions
• full-text indexing
• XML support
• content negotiation
• caching
• database connectivity
• sessions
• search
• directory
• membership
• reviewing
• syndication

1. How do I give my components a management interface? Do I need to?
2. ZMI actions
3. ZMI views