ZoPe Content Management Framework

I considered using this with [CmfWiki] instead of ZWiki for this WebLog. So far it hasn't felt sufficiently useful and fully-baked for me to work with. Here's a log of my attempts...

Mar 27 '01

• install 2.3.1b3 (just save old site in renamed subfolder)

• load [CMF](1.0b) products

Mar 28

• not clear on usage of Topics:

• created "[CMF] Site" object id=[Thought Flux]; edit configuration screen

• start browsing documentation:

• find that on [CMF] site, trying [Add To Favorites] doesn't work!

• basic content author docs:

Mar 29

• stop worrying about documentation, just try adding some content.

• type=News:

  • note that all types require an [ID] to be defined, like a name/[URL]. Which is kinda weird/annoying. Are users going to get annoyed when they try a simple entry [ID] ("AOL") and it gets rejected for non-uniqueness? Are site editors/webmasters going to be annoyed by [IDs] with spaces or other punctuation in them?

  • Fields are Title, Description, Subject. Jeez, none of them sound like the body of the blurb. Maybe use the first few words as the Title, then slide rest into Description? Put a keyword in Subject? Ah, these are just Meta, you enter them then get a next screen with a Body field! The Description became the Lead-In.

  • can Structured Text be used in all fields?

  • status apparently starts as Private: you have to submit it for Review. Then it becomes Pending. Have to figure out how to Review/Accept it.

Then some new attempts in Sept'01 on my iMeme server

• get instrux http://cmf.zope.org/download/CMF-1.1/INSTALL.txt

  • confirm appropriate Zope version running

• get tarball

• get [WinSCP] for doing file transfers

  • can't log in; turns out I never changed my re-defaulted passwords from the server change in July'01.

    • get [PuTTY], try to log in with that, can't; this confirms that I have a password problem. Search emails, find references, fix passwords

• connect

  • try to transfer, keep getting denied; check out [Newbie Journey] page (http://imeme.net/wiki/NewbieJourney), realize I have to do a chown on directories so that non-root id/pw will work.

  • copy over tarball (into /usr/local/zope/instance/Products)

• back to [PuTTY]

  • go into folder where I put tarball, do tar to unzip it

• restart Zope: nope

• turns out I mis-interpreted the instructions: just within Products you need the individual [CMF]* subdirectories, not the [CMF] owner directory with the subdirectories underneath. Ultimately I left the whole tree within Products and did an ln -s to the subdirectories.

Work in [CMF]

• Add CMF Site at webseitz called private

• configure site (not carefully, need to revisit email settings)

• go out of management screen, use direct new [URL]

• choose Folder contents from sidebar. (First time, all you see is the Members folder.)

• Hit New... button. **When use Document vs News Item types?**

  • sounds like not much

  • let's try News item first for some diary entries.

    • what ID do I want to use?

      • ignore it, get sequential integer (would be nice/easy, but not supported, could try to track numbers myself)

      • use a Wiki Name, hoping that [CMFWiki] will point to it. But that requires knowing what you're going to say before you write it.

    • other fields

      • Title (this appears in the News box)

      • Subject (haven't found this used anywhere) (it appears this is typically used as list of keywords; supposedly a dictionary of values can be set up with the portal_metadata tool.

      • Description (Dublin Core.Description) (also used as the Lead-in paragraph) (I guess a short item might use this only) (this appears when you hit the recent-news link, and also when you View the individual entry)

      • Body (not on initial creation screen, get there with Change/Edit)

      • dates (see Edit all metadata link on Edit metadata page)

        • see Creation Date and Last modified date, but can't edit them

        • can see and edit Effective Date and Expiration Date

  • doesn't appear until you hit the Publish button

  • hey, doesn't seem to render like Structured Text!

    • after playing with values for metadata Format, and various other things, came to preliminary conclusion that news items can't use Structured Text! Posted to list asking for confirmation.

• consider member issues for a moment

  • for public portal, do I want my userID to be Bill Seitz so it's a Wiki Name?

  • more importantly, want private portal to be private! If I turn off Anonymous permissions to View in the folder, then I can't even log in, since I can't View the Login form. Posted question to list Sept19.

• try adding a Document

  • has radio button to toggle Structured Text

  • has a Description field, never flagged as a "Lead", as in News. Doesn't seem to appear anywhere.

  • after Publishing, doesn't appear in News listing. (So I guess you'd use a News item to blog the document. Or manually add it to the Home page.)

  • if I can get Structured Text to work for a News item, is there really a need for Documents, or do I prefer to just use Wiki for document? (Think about my current "static" documents, would I like them to be Wiki?)

    • I'd probably make the portal home page as a Roadmap to key wiki pages. Then maybe have a box that pulls part of Recent Changes (last n pages updated).

• next step: install [CMFWiki]

  • ugh, have to get from CVS

    • see day 1 notes from ZopeZen

      • see also day 2 on skins, day 3 on workflow and metadata

  • just noted that my public space on http://cmf.zope.org support [CMFWiki]. But I don't want to start relying on that server for anything...

• I wonder if I should be using the Blark product? Or Swishdot, which is apparently in the Squishdot CVS?

• tried posting questions to [CMF] list, got no answers. Now I'm mad. Should I rethink this? While zwiki would be great for bigger thoughts, it wouldn't solve my blogging problem.

  • tried again, got reasonable answer to question about protecting site, using folder.

    • similar but more clear answer at old posting

• trying to get [CMFWiki] via CVS

  • download [WinCVS], install

  • server is cvs.zope.org

  • see ReadOnlyAccess

• before figuring out how to install [CMFWiki], decided to try the one available in my member space on [CMF] site. Created the [CMFWiki], but then couldn't edit any pages. Emailed shane, since his [ID] was mentioned in source of error code.

• also thinking about how to migrate zwiki pages to [CMFWiki]. Got reply to see extensions/migrate.py

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