[Zope-PTK] Status update

Shane Hathaway shane@digicool.com
Fri, 26 Jan 2001 15:20:52 -0500


PTK gang,

I imagine Tres will be posting a more formal status update sometime
soon, but I thought I'd share my own perspective as well.

To help folks get a better understanding of skins, I've written the
following:

http://www.zope.org/Products/PTK/ZWiki/SkinsProposal

This week Tres and I created a new tool, portal_types, which was the
last thing we needed in order to separate the PTK from its ZClass
roots.  As of today, a "Portal (new)" is just as feature complete as a
ZClass-based portal.  Update your CVS sandbox and try it out!  (Again,
don't forget to use "cvs up -d" instead of just "cvs up".)

We added the "CookieCrumbler" to PTK base, fixed a couple of bugs, and
made it a part of a standard PTK install.  If you've been trying to use
LDAP/NT/etc user folders with the PTK, this is great news for you
because it means you can just drop in your special user folder.  The
cookie crumbler automatically converts cookie-based authentication into
the form of authentication understood by most user folders.

Also we recently added a transparent membership mechanism which means
that your users from special user folders can have associated member
properties.  This is similar to what ZPatterns does, but the difference
is that it's already installed for you when you create a portal.  This
move is designed to smooth the PTK learning curve.  It also removes the
need for that awful warning that used to show up when you were logged in
outside the portal.

I asked if there is anyone out there who could create a new icon for
portals but got no responses.  So I guess that's a unanimous "it's good
enough".

So it's been a good week for the PTK.  I think it's almost time to
release a 1.0 alpha (maybe even beta) version.  Note that it will no
longer be necessary to do any ZClass imports to install.  Just install
PTKBase and PTKDemo.

If you'd like to assist with the PTK, writing documentation is a good
idea now.  But make sure you base your documentation on the ZClassless
version.

I'm excited about the prospects for the workflow enhancements, how about
you folks?  I did a Google search for "introduction to workflow" and
found a good JDJ article.  Do you guys have any pointers to other
articles that describe all the elements of workflow without assuming a
specific architecture?  (I find that most workflow descriptions are
based on assumptions that are inaccurate or not useful in Zope
architecture.)

Other things to think about are squishdot-like discussions, Dublin Core
solidification, and support for the Membership product.

Shane