[Zope-CMF] Suggestions

[seb bacon]

* Ioan Coman <ioan@usa.net> [010528 11:46]:
> Hello!

Hello

> Your product is too complicated for me.

It's important to realise that the CMFDefault portal is an example
implementation using the content management framework.  It means to
create your own portal you'll need to spend a fair bit of time
learning the framework and working out who the CMFDefault site works,
but you'll find it does a lot of what you need, I think.

> When I render the navigation site map from left (or from top)
> I test has_attr 'item_type' and I append at end :
> 
> <dtml-var absolute_url>/view_news
> <dtml-var absolute_url>/view_idea
> <dtml-var absolute_url>/view_document
> <dtml-var absolute_url>/view_item
> <dtml-var absolute_url>/view_image
> <dtml-var absolute_url>/view_link

This is a good example of what the CMF does well.  Each content type
inside the CMF knows how to display itself through its actions
property.  This property, and some others, is accessible through the
'portal_types' tool, which is one of the tools in the root of your
CMFDefault site.

> I have the user manager and security already built.
> I have 70% from the forum I want to create,
> just I must change it a bit (see LocalForum, WikiForum, IForum).
> I have to think about site skins
> (maybe a skin is a folder with pictures and methods
> and current skin is a property of root folder, or is in a cookie)

If you've already spent a lot of time on your own system, and your
requirements are set and definite, it may not be worth the extra time
investment in using the CMF, because you'd probably end up rewriting
everything from scratch.  I did :)  On the other hand, if you expect your
requirements to change over time, or you have not come up with a
satisfactory solution to all your problems, you might benefit from
using a common framework.  The CMF skins tool is very neat, and is
stored in a cookie, btw.

> Do you have a topic forum about CMF or PTK,
> or should I enable zope-dev to receive emails!

zope-cmf@zope.org is the mailing list.  go to http://cmf.zope.org/doc
for some starting points for documentation.  expect to have to dive
into the source a bit to really understand it at this point, though,
since not all the user-friendly documentation exists as yet. 

hth.  seb.