[Zope-CMF] How do you share a Skin Layer Folder between Portal instances?

[Shane Hathaway]

Jon Edwards wrote:
> It's my understanding that portal_skins folders work very similarly to the
> Transparent Folders product. What if you set up transparent folders
> containing your shared skins, outside the portal instances, and then put the
> name of the folders in the portal layers list? Probably wouldn't work by
> default, but maybe with some tweaking?

The current implementation is specifically designed *not* to allow a
layer to come from anywhere but inside the portal_skins tool.  This
makes it so that it is not necessary to verify access to layers. 
Security verification isn't possible anyway since skins are currently
determined before authentication occurs.

That could all be changed, of course, if there were a good reason.  I
have not heard a good reason yet. :-)  IMHO the right answer for Chris
is to use filesystem-based skins.

You could always just eliminate the portal_skins tool and use
transparent folders instead.  You wouldn't have any control over layer
ordering, though, and you'd have a hard time keeping up to date with CMF
releases.  (Unfortunately, this is the route Iuveno appears to have
taken.)

Shane