Chapter 1: Introducing Zope

This chapter explains what Zope is and who it's for. It describes in broad strokes what you can do with Zope. You also learn about the differences between Zope and other web application servers.

Anonymous User - May 27, 2002 5:06 pm:
 The second sentence should read:

 You _will_ also learn about the differences between Zope and other web application servers.

Anonymous User - June 28, 2002 8:56 pm:
 I've heard good things about Zope.

 Plone looks cool.

 I would really like to be able to use this product - but the SLOW PERFORMANCE of the zope.org site forces me
 to say no.
 I'm going through this site at 6pm (PST) on a Friday night, and it is dog slow. In addition, I can tell from
 the dates on the comments that overall traffic is not too heavy.
 As a business person, I can tell you that this product will never be as successfull as others out there
 unless performance is improved DRAMATICALLY.

mcdonc - June 28, 2002 9:12 pm:
 That was probably me. I was copying large chunks of the Zope Book around and generally otherwise giving
 Zope.org a workout. Sorry..
 I wouldn't necessarily judge Zope solely on the performance of Zope.org at any given time. There is no other
website I know about that lets psuedoanonymous people *write and run their own code* on the website itself.
Lots
of people write bad code. ;-) It's not really the framework's fault. It's intended as more of a demonstration
of the flexibility and security of Zope rather than the raw speed of Zope. Also, FWIW, the comment dates mean
 very little. Zope.org does a much more than just serve this book. There are over 20,000 discrete pieces of
 content in this site, many of which are writable (not just readable).
Note also that the largest known Zope cluster has serviced peak load of 900 requests per second. I think this
 is a good indicator that Zope is fast enough for almost anything, given the right setup and environment.
 It's quite understandable to want to judge Zope based on Zope.org, but you'd help yourself by doing a bit
 more research before jumping to any conclusions.

mcdonc - June 28, 2002 9:14 pm:
 One other thing: if you think Friday night isn't "geek night" for Zopists who use Zope.org, I'd have to
 disagree. ;-)

Anonymous User - July 27, 2002 11:56 pm:
 Yup (in regards to perfomance). I'm admining a site that on a single 200mz (actually 233 underclocked to 200
for stability) debian box , running Zope for multiple department squishdot's and the wiki's (awesome intranet
 tool!) , acting as an appletalk fileserver for over thirty machines, email, and even a covert tinymush
 server(!) and trust me, Zope is the least of my worries. It gets pounded constantly by departmental dudes
whacking stuff on and off all day. It don't even blink. As to learning Python, don't worry! Theres a tutorial
 in the standard python distro that'll have you up to scratch in an afternoon. It's that easy!

Anonymous User - Aug. 16, 2002 6:21 pm:
I have about 500 hits per second on a songle IIS site. 1 processor - no tuning - no cluster. I use ZOPE and I
 like it: But more performance would be very apreciated.

Anonymous User - Aug. 17, 2002 8:44 pm:
Does somewhere exist a detailed profiling analysis for zope? I mean relly detailed so we could have a look at
 bottlenecks... on the other side Zope IS fast and doing the profiling shouldn't be so difficult.

Anonymous User - Sep. 30, 2002 9:50 am:
 Comments are cool, but maybe you guys could move them to a separate section or just rotate them and display
 one or two at the top of the page or something. I get tired of reading peeps arguing about grammar and
 rhetoric and what people think about the site and the product. I am interested in getting an overall picture
 of what Zope can do and how Zope does it. The comments (constructive criticism) are mostly distracting and
 are really meant for the webmaster(s) or Zope developers anyway.

Anonymous User - Jan. 13, 2003 5:49 am:
 yeap. Reducing the number of comments would be better. It's hard to scroll so much.

What Is Zope?

Zope is a framework for building web applications. A web application is a computer program that users access with a web browser over the Internet. You can also think of a web application as a dynamic web site that provides not only static information to users but lets them use dynamic tools to work with an application.

Anonymous User - May 30, 2002 7:29 pm:
 Should be "... a framework for building a special kind of web application. Generally, a web application is a
 computer program accessed with a web browser; the special kind of web applications built with the framework
 provided by Zope can also be thought of as dynamic web sites that both provide static information to users
 and allow those users to work with dynamic tools." Or something: at a minimum, change "provides not only" to
 "not only provides". JEL

Web applications are everywhere, and web users work with them all the time. Common examples of web applications are sites that let you search the web, like Yahoo, collaborate on projects, like SourceForge, or communicate with other people over e-mail, like HotMail. All of these kinds of applications can be developed with Zope.

Anonymous User - May 6, 2002 2:15 am:
 Some examples of real-world Zope applications would be helpful.

Anonymous User - May 19, 2002 12:34 pm:
 ... with URLs so we can see them...

Anonymous User - May 30, 2002 7:30 pm:
 ... or a reference to some chapter where such real-world examples are discussed in detail... JEL

Anonymous User - June 1, 2002 10:43 am:
 "HotMail" is official "Hotmail", I believe.

Anonymous User - June 26, 2002 8:45 pm:
 Zope example: 
 IDGNOW! Brasil http://www.idgnow.com.br

Anonymous User - July 16, 2002 10:06 am:
 Try www.bikiniteam.lt...it's all Zope and looking great!

Anonymous User - Aug. 11, 2002 11:16 am:
 THE Norwegian communist newspaper: www.klassekampen.no. Works great!

Anonymous User - Sep. 24, 2002 8:01 pm:
 Now I can sure that a China Website www.rons.net.cn is built all by Zope and Other Open Source Softwares!

Anonymous User - Oct. 12, 2002 1:24 am:
 go to www.netcraft.com  and click on "whats this site running" 
 type in the URl minuse any http:// and hit enter. 

 The site www.klassekampen.no is running Zope/(Zope 2.5.1 (source release, python 2.1, linux2), python 2.1.3,
 linux2) ZServer/1.1b1 on Linux. FAQ
 Linux users include Rackspace, Dialtone Internet, VA Software and www.alignmentsoftware.com

 [- If People took 1 second out of their life to think before saying something they would end up saving
 themselves valuable time and make themselves look alot smarter -]

Anonymous User - Oct. 16, 2002 4:21 am:
 URL[HTTP://WWW.ASMILE.Y365.COM]

Anonymous User - Dec. 4, 2002 5:52 pm:
 I am newbie to ZOPE and this site -> http://www.idgnow.com.br <-- really great 
 I wish I could have source code to study :)

Anonymous User - Aug. 6, 2003 8:42 am:
 another powerful site 
 http://www.cbsnewyork.com/

So what do you get when you download Zope? You actually get a lot of things. Zope consists of several different components that work together to help you build web applications. Zope comes with:

A Web server

Zope comes with a built in web server that serves content to you and your users. Of course, you may already have an existing web server, such as Apache or Microsoft IIS and you may not want to use Zope's. Not to worry, Zope works with these web servers also, and any other web server that supports the Common Gateway Interface (CGI).

A Web based interface

When you build web applications with Zope, you use your web browser to interact with the Zope management interface. This interface is a development environment that lets you do things like create web pages, add images and documents, connect to external relational databases and write scripts in different languages.

An object database

When you work with Zope, you are mostly working with objects that are stored in Zope's object database. Zope's management interface provides a simple, familiar way to manage objects that resembles the way many common file managers work.

Relational integration

You don't have to store your information in Zope's object database if you don't want to, because Zope works with other relational databases such as Oracle, PostgreSQL, Sybase, MySQL and many others.

Scripting language support

Zope allows you to write web applications in a number of different languages, like Python, Perl, and Zope's own Document Template Markup Language (DTML).

Anonymous User - July 23, 2002 6:23 pm:
 Sentences like "You actually get a lot of things." are a waste. It's why so much documentation is long and
 unfinished. The information content of that sentence is 0 or even negative. It pushes an opinion. It causes
 us to wonder if the author is sticking to the facts or has an agenda. We, the readers, will decide what we
 care about. And if we do care about quantity, we will judge for ourselves whether it is "a lot". Fluff is
 very annoying when skimming rapidly for meat.

dave_newton - Aug. 12, 2002 8:33 pm:
 HOw ironic.

Anonymous User - Aug. 14, 2002 10:44 am:
 for a reference guide is may be superfluous, but it outlines a good point in a introduction

Anonymous User - Aug. 17, 2002 3:53 pm:
 Haha - s/he makes a 5 line comment about a short sentence. I cant 
 imagine documentation written by him/her.

Anonymous User - Jan. 15, 2003 8:36 am:
 Testing

These are just some of the compelling features that have made Zope so popular for developing web applications. Perhaps Zope's best feature of all is its friendly, open source license. This means that not only is Zope free of cost for you to download, but you are also free to use Zope in your own products and applications without paying royalties or usage fees. Zope's open source license also means that all of the "source code" for Zope is available for you to look at, understand, and extend. Zope does not lock you into a proprietary solution that could hold you and your web users hostage.

Anonymous User - Apr. 19, 2002 9:55 am:
 "This means that not only is Zope free of cost for you to download, [..]"
 This is not a correct explanation of 'open source license' as this license does NOT implicitly mean that a
 product is available for free. This paragraph should better be written like:
 "[first two sentences stay untouched] This means that you are free to use Zope in your own products and
 applications without paying royalties or usage fees. Zope's open source license also means that all of the
"source code" for Zope is available for you to look at, understand, and extend. Besides that, Zope is free of
cost for you to download, which is NOT implicit to the open source license but a matter of fact at this time.
 Like that, Zope does not lock you into a proprietary solution that could hold you and your web users
 hostage."
 comment by: webmasterATmoritz-naumann.de

Anonymous User - Apr. 22, 2002 2:29 pm:
 Rubbish, learn to use the language properly before you start correcting native speakers. This is a valid
 usage of the "not only" idiom -- it is quite acceptable for the first clause to be a true statement which is
 not necessarily implied by the preceeding section.

Anonymous User - Apr. 27, 2002 2:31 pm:
 Why use the term "open source" at all, because it has been used to describe a philosophy with regard to the
 benefits of distributing source code rather than keeping it under proprietary wraps. As such, "open source"
 is not appropriate to describe a particular license. Otherwise, I think the description is quite clear.

Anonymous User - May 1, 2002 12:32 pm:
 The statement is in regard to the license, not open source licensing in general. It's reflecting that Zope's
 license has certain properties, such as being free, etc. It's not saying that open source licensing means
 software is free, it's saying this particular open source license is offering free software. Using the term
 "open source" in conjunction with "license" is merely adjectival.

Anonymous User - May 3, 2002 4:59 pm:
 You guys ought to stop arguing subtle semantics.

Anonymous User - May 14, 2002 2:34 pm:
I agree with the first poster- there are important differences which after one has explored the various sides
 can anticipate, and as written just paints over. free and Free, and available source...

Anonymous User - May 30, 2002 7:35 pm:
Pshaw to all of that: what I find discouraging (and inappropriate) in the paragraph in question is not merely
the over-simplification, but the insulting promotional/marketing language: no kind of license if friendly, by
 gum. It would be better to describe the license (accurately) and simply omit the emotive, hype. JEL

Anonymous User - June 8, 2002 5:31 pm:
wow, you guys and grrls are bitching like this over something that's AND free to download AND free to use ...
 real cute, barbies. :-|
 (just testing this feature, really! not wasting my time here at alllll ;-)

Anonymous User - June 26, 2002 4:50 pm:
 Am I obligated to give my code back if I add a module to Zope?

 I am doing a contract and thinking about using Zope. But I don't think the guy who hired me wants me to give
 away anything that may reveal his business practice.
 Thanks

Anonymous User - June 26, 2002 4:57 pm:
 No, not at all.  See the ZPL license at http://www.zope.org/Resources/ZPL

Anonymous User - July 18, 2002 3:11 pm:
 The GNU license DOES NOT require you to give away code that you have written 
 that is based on GNU licensed code. The gist (as I understand it) is that, IF 
 YOU DISTRIBUTE IT (sell or give) then you cannot prevent the recipient from 
 (a) using it on multiple machines, or (b) passing it on to other users (still 
 under the GNU license).

Anonymous User - Oct. 11, 2002 3:49 am:
 gosh! U r in fact wisenheimer's!!! but it's fun though

Anonymous User - Nov. 23, 2002 1:54 pm:
 The clauses' subjects are different; "not only that...but also that" would be parallel, but repeating "also"
 is poor. Better: Join the sentences and enumerate, e.g., "...license, which (1) gives you free access to the
 source code and its ingenuity, (2) lets you adapt it to your own needs, and (3) invites you to apply it
 freely, even in writing programs for profit."
  -- Marshall Price (Miami, FL) d021317c at AOL.

Anonymous User - Jan. 1, 2003 5:00 am:
 " Am I obligated to give my code back if I add a module to Zope?

I am doing a contract and thinking about using Zope. But I don't think the guy who hired me wants me to give
  away anything that may reveal his business practice.
  Thanks"

 Ooo, Sounds like an intersting "business practice"

Anonymous User - Jan. 17, 2003 9:39 am:
Amazing, all this bickering, you wouldn't think open source teams exist. Can't wait for someone to get exited
 over the punctation. Go for it...

From a business perspective, there are three key ideas to understanding what Zope can do for you: powerful collaboration, simple content management, and web components. The following sections are mostly oriented towards business people making decisions about Zope, so if you are interested in jumping right in, skip to the next chapter, Using Zope.

Anonymous User - July 23, 2002 6:30 pm:
 Again with the hype. Knock it off! Readers can decide for themselves whether something is "powerful" or
 "simple". Who trained the author? Microsoft?

Anonymous User - July 28, 2002 10:03 am:
 Do you mean really that the author himself is not free to give his opinion on the product, or does everyone
 have to ask for your permission when speaking about his own work??...as far as I'm concerned there's freedom
 of expression on civilised countries...where do tou live?

Anonymous User - Aug. 5, 2002 5:47 am:
 I'm not not a native english speaker, so I'm sorry if I make some mistakes. But I agreed with the first
 comment. I'm tired of applications that permanently boast about being the greatest. It's not necessary to
 inflationate the documentation with such adjetives. Do you know sombody that would say that his product is
 not the best and the gratest?

Anonymous User - Sep. 30, 2002 4:56 am:
I've read a range of books that range from program/platform evangelism to extremely objective to the point of
 giving a very honest comparison of the program/platform to its main competitors (I do tend to be impressed
 with the latter more :). At the same time this is a introductory book and not a specifically so you want to
 not cram the information into the lowest volume - some lighter descriptive sentences help the book be less
 daunting.

Powerful Collaboration

Years ago, Zope's core technologies were designed by Zope Corporation for an Internet Service Provider that provided web pages for newspapers. These newspapers in turn wanted to provide web pages for

their

customers. To scale in this environment, Zope was designed to safely delegate control to different groups of users at any level in the web site. Safely delegating control means considering these things:

1. Presenting information in an easy to understand way. Most people understand clicking on folders better than issuing database commands, so Zope uses an interface that resembles a simple file manager, like Microsoft Windows Explorer and other popular file managers.
2. Command line tools can be difficult to use and people are generally more comfortable using web browsers, so Zope was designed to be used almost exclusively through a web browser.
3. Collaborative environments require tools to allow users to recover from their mistakes and to work without interfering with each other, so Zope has Undo, Versions, and other tools to help people work safely together.

Anonymous User - Nov. 23, 2002 2:04 pm:
 Did you have to the infinitive, "to delegate," split? ;)
  -- Marshall Price (Miami, FL) d021317c at AOL

These features make Zope an ideal environment for programming and authoring web content by groups and sub-groups of users.

Anonymous User - Apr. 24, 2002 3:40 am:
 I am wondering if Zope -- only-- works with IE or
 can it use Opera or Mozilla.....
 they are browsers also.......

Anonymous User - Apr. 25, 2002 5:45 pm:
 my friend uses mozilla and it works perfectly

Anonymous User - Apr. 27, 2002 7:31 pm:
 Well I guess it does I'm using Opera right now to access the admin interface.

Anonymous User - Apr. 28, 2002 11:30 pm:
 OmniWeb 4.1 works

Anonymous User - May 2, 2002 10:40 pm:
 <b>Konqueror</b> works, too.  (If Konqueror is in bold, you can use html 
 stuff...)

Anonymous User - May 14, 2002 10:51 am:
 ... andi if i see a <b></b> near the word "konqueror" what does it mean? :-P MaNdRiCuS

kaleissin - May 16, 2002 12:44 pm:
What the browser actually gets is, of course, html, so any browser that handles html goes. All the hard stuff
 is done one the server.

Anonymous User - May 20, 2002 1:45 am:
I think Windows Explorer is a file system browser - Internet Explorer is a web browser. (Is there some way to
 turn off the comments? - they really get in the way of the story)

mcdonc - May 20, 2002 8:47 am:
 Yes, click the COM button above or below.

Anonymous User - Aug. 2, 2002 3:48 am:
 I couldn't get this to work with Mozilla. I have cookies enabled and I even set up JavaScript so that the js
 on this page can set cookies ... but no go. The JavaScript sources look like there would be an alternative
 URL one could open (something like .../IntroducingZope.stx?suppresscomments=1) but I can't quite figure it
 out just from looking at the code. Could someone who is more knowledgeable follow up with a URL for those of
 us who are not fortunate enough to have a compatible browser?
 (Followup question: Does Zope generally assume users will have JavaScript ... in order to be able to do
 useful things?)

Anonymous User - Aug. 5, 2002 6:01 am:
 Sorry, but I'm using Opera 6 and COM button doesn't work with it.

Anonymous User - Aug. 12, 2002 4:10 pm:
 "COM" button is not the "Comment" button nearby but an icon "COM off" on the top or bottom bar.

 By the way, its boring to read a book without comments ;-)

Anonymous User - Oct. 5, 2002 3:15 am:
 This is the ideal time to join with zope and use Pythen

 We also planning to embed this technology for our company intranet and internet site. 

 babie from Srilanka

Anonymous User - Oct. 11, 2002 4:17 am:
 I'm using IE - cookies are not required

Anonymous User - Jan. 28, 2003 12:14 pm:
Using Mozilla (1.2). 'Com off' works perfectly, for god's sake ! I would never finish the book with all these
 useless comments otherwise...
 PR

Simple Content Management

Many web applications are traditionally built in three layers. Data and other information is stored in databases, the programs that drive the behavior of the application are stored in files in one location, and the HTML and other layout and presentation information is stored somewhere else.

Anonymous User - Dec. 12, 2002 7:09 am:
It does not have all the basic features of a CMS.It does not have content creation facility.It just seperates
 the so called "content" (data) and presentation.

While this has advantages, it also has disadvantages. Different kinds of tools and expertise must be used to work with the different components. All the different components may need to have their own kind of security and maintenance concerns. Many of these kinds of tools are not manageable from a web browser or from simple command line or GUI tools like FTP.

Anonymous User - June 13, 2002 2:46 pm:
I think FTP is a communication protocol and not a tool, especially GUI. Unless you mean WinFTP32 or other GUI
 ftp clients. However most of the ones I work with are command line-based.

Anonymous User - June 17, 2002 6:07 am:
 File Transfer Protocol (FTP) strictly interpreted, is not a tool. However, many tools have been developed to
simplify the process. Dreamweaver has an in-built FTP tool, as does FrontPage and more traditionally, WS_FTP.
 The majority of web designers and developers eschew the command line method in favour of these 'tools'

Anonymous User - July 1, 2002 10:34 pm:
 I think he might mean the Unix command line "ftp" program.

Anonymous User - July 12, 2002 1:01 am:
 a) the unix utility ftp doesn't have a gui
 b) how can you say "command line or gui tools like" - and then only provide one example? doesn't the
 pluralisation (if that's a word) require multiple examples?

Anonymous User - July 12, 2002 1:05 am:
 I am unconvinced that this "disadvantage" is valid. In my experience, you quite offen have different people,
with different skillsets familiar with different tools responsible for content, interface, application logic,
 and database administration. Making them all learn a tool can not be considered beneficial.

Anonymous User - Aug. 6, 2002 5:23 pm:
 quit cutting the hairs people

Anonymous User - Aug. 9, 2002 9:36 pm:
 The expression is "splitting" hairs.

Anonymous User - Sep. 3, 2002 7:39 am:
 the last one is funny!

Anonymous User - Nov. 21, 2002 8:14 pm:
 Understanding that this is extrememly hypocritical...
I can't believe how many people are using these comments simply to point out such minor technicalities in the
 document. Who cares if FTP, the protocol, isn't a tool. The functionality that that protocol provides is
 probably well known by anyone who is reading this, and when used properly can be very affective for
 completing a number of tasks. So in that since, anything that can be used to improve convenience can be
 considered a tool.
 Quit wasting time cluttering this document with useless comments and just read the material, keeping in mind
 that the person who wrote it, did it as a favor to those who want to use their product, which is free, and
 probably no one here is directly supporting with the exception of causing traffic on this website.

Anonymous User - Jan. 17, 2003 9:55 am:
 Quit wasting time cluttering this document with useless comments
 Quit wasting time cluttering this document with useless comments
 Quit wasting time cluttering this document with useless comments
 Quit wasting time cluttering this document with useless comments

 Oooops

Anonymous User - Jan. 21, 2003 2:59 am:
 ha ha - have read some of the drivel appended to this doc.
 seems that Zope can be used for chat too...

 all this creative energy could be put to good use, a shame it's being wasted with no direction but to
 criticise and crap on.

In Zope, all of these components are brought together into one coherent system. All require a common set of services: security, web-based management, searching, clustering, syndication and others. By bringing together all of these concepts into one manageable system, Zope enables you to use one set of skills and one set of tools to develop complex web applications. In addition, centralizing our model means Zope can more easily work with other external tools, like relational databases, GUI web editors, and other systems that can inter-operate with Zope.

Anonymous User - Oct. 11, 2002 4:23 am:
 does this affect security aspects?!

Web Components

The Web is a growing, dynamic platform. The web has evolved enough standards and APIs that creators of services, products, and technology can think in terms of the web as an architectural model to develop their applications around, instead of just a means of distributing static HTML documents to users.

Evidence of this is sprouting up in many locations. Microsoft's .NET architecture envisions a world of web components running on remote systems, providing specific services to applications around the world. Frontier, by UserLand Software, pioneered a simple web services protocol called XML-RPC to allow web components to communicate with each other (Zope also works with XML-RPC, which is discussed in Chapter 10, "Advanced Zope Scripting"). With web components, the model of a person sitting in front of the browser is no longer the only model of the web.

Anonymous User - Oct. 11, 2002 4:26 am:
 fine, now the machines can entertain themselves.
 so finally we may leave the game

Anonymous User - Nov. 13, 2002 1:04 pm:
 Wondering if anyone is talking about porting the Zope package, in its entirety, to the .NET platform. Surely
 a massive undertaking, but thanks to Python .NET support as a result of ActiveState's hard work, is such an
 endeavor possible and/or feasible?

Zope History

In 1996 Jim Fulton, the CTO of Zope Corporation and Python guru, was drafted to teach a class on CGI programming, despite not knowing much about the subject. Jim studied all of the existing documentation on CGI on his way to the class. On the way back from the class, Jim considered what he didn't like about traditional CGI based programming environments: its fragility, lack of object-orientation, and how it exposes web server details. From these initial musings, the core of Zope was written on the plane flight back from the class.

Zope Corporation went on to release three open source software packages to support web publishing, Bobo, Document Template, and BoboPOS. These package were written in Python. They have evolved into core components of Zope providing the web ORB (Object Request Broker), DTML scripting language, and object database. Zope is still mostly written in Python with a few performance-critical sections in C.

Anonymous User - June 4, 2002 8:25 pm:
 These packages were written in Python.

Anonymous User - Aug. 1, 2002 10:46 pm:
 The book says package (singular) and the first comment says (should be) packages. Plural. Period.   --RAW--

Back then, Zope Corporation had developed a commercial application server based on their three open source components. This product was called Principia. In Novermber of 1998, investor Hadar Pedhazur convinced Zope Corporation to open source Principia. This became Zope, which was given its own home at Zope.org.

asparagi - Oct. 4, 2002 6:46 pm:
 November not NoveRmber.

Anonymous User - Oct. 11, 2002 4:42 am:
 now we will remember u, of course - asparagus caput (spargelsch�del) head

Who Can Benefit from Zope?

It takes a lot of people working together to create web services. To manage and coordinate these people on large-scale sites can be a difficult task. We've identified some common roles in this scenario to be aware of:

• Consumers use the site to locate and work with useful content.
• Business Users create and manage the site's content.
• Site Designers create the site's look and feel.
• Site Developers program the site's services.
• Component Developers create software intended for distribution.
• Administrators keep the software and environment running.
• Information Architects make platform decisions and keep track of the big picture.

Zope is a platform upon which Site Developers create services to be turned over to Site Designers and Business Users, and Component Developers distribute new products and services for Zope users world wide.

Anonymous User - Sep. 17, 2002 3:50 pm:
 Well, you zope guys sure like to make enumerations of roles and (unconnected) pieces.
 There is a pipeline of content (=text/grafik) from creation to the consumer, all right.
 And there is a editing machinery where content gets processed,
 the machinery for that being developed and managed.
 - *Consumers* = content consumers = unauthorised end user = viewer = (newspaper) reader
 - *Business Users* the content creator/maintainer = authorised editor
 - *Site Developers* create the editing machinery
 - *Site Designers* work hand in hand with Site Developers and make it pretty for editors and consumers.
 - *Admins* keep the machine running
 - *Information Architects* have the big money bags to boss around, but what is their connection to Zope and
 the remaining staff?
 - *Component Developers* do what? Isn't software just content=text=bits?
 And what exactly is a service and a product?
 These are far too foggy abstract marketing words for me.

Anonymous User - Oct. 11, 2002 4:56 am:
 why do u bother then.
zope means apps server with integrated content management system - building a platform for all this people no
 matter how u call them to interact in whatever means. right?

Zope can install Zope products that are focused on different audiences. For instance, Squishdot is a popular weblog, written in Zope, that is useful right out of the box. Squishdot users won't necessarily see that Zope is underneath. Other Zope products, such as Zope Corporation's Content Management Framework, take the same approach, targeting audiences that need not know of Zope's existence underneath.

How Can You Benefit From Zope?

We've looked at the Zope philosophy and architecture, now let's survey some of of the applications of Zope. All sites solve different problems, but many sites tackle a set of common issues daily. Here are some of the main uses of Zope:

To Present Dynamic Content

You want to tailor your web site's presentation to its users, integrate information in databases and provide users with searching. You'd also like to make your web site automate and facilitate your business processes. Can your web site react intelligently to visitors in order to provide a compelling experience? Zope allows you to make every page dynamic. It comes with facilities for personalization, integrating information in databases and searching.

To Manage your Web Site

A small web site is easy to manage, but a web site that serves thousands of documents, images and files needs to provide powerful management tools. Can you manage your site's data, business logic and presentation all in one place? Can you keep up with your content, or is it getting out of hand? Zope gives you simple and powerful tools for handling gigabytes of web content. You can manage your logic, presentation and data all from your web browser.

To Secure Your Web Site

When you deal with more than a handful of web users, security becomes very important. It is crucial to organize users and be able to safely delegate tasks to them. For example, folks in your engineering department may need to be able to manage their web pages and business logic, designers may need to update site templates, and database administrators need to manage database queries. Can your system handle thousands of users, perhaps linked to your existing LDAP or other user databases with flexible security rules? Zope allows you to scale your site to thousands of site managers and millions of visitors. You can simply control security policies and safely delegate control to others.

To Provide Network Services

Right now most web sites serve users, but soon web sites will need to serve remote computer programs and other web sites. For example, you'd like to make your news items automatically available to wire service web sites. Or maybe you want to make products for sale on your site automatically searchable from a product comparison site. Can you leverage your existing data and business logic to create network services or will you have to start over from scratch? Zope's built-in support for networking makes every Zope site a network service. Your business logic and data can be accessed over the web via HTTP and XML-RPC.

To Integrate Diverse Content

Your content is strewn all over the place, in relational databases, files, web sites, FTP archives, XML. Can you unify your data into one coherent application? Does your system support web standards so that you can integrate content from legacy systems and new systems that you will add in the future? Zope supports web standards allowing you to use your existing data, infrastructure and filesystems.

To Provide Scalability

So you struck it rich and now you're getting more hits than you ever imagined. Now you need to handle a dramatically greater level of traffic than before. Can you move your site to a different database and server platform and spread the load across multiple servers? Can your web site grow to handle your success? Zope allows your web applications to scale across as many machines as necessary to handle your load. Zope makes it possible to maintain a small site that can turn into a huge site overnight based on its "ZEO" technology (see Chapter 13, "Scalability and ZEO" for more details).

Anonymous User - Jan. 16, 2003 10:43 am:
 ich bin nur ein tester

What Zope Gives You

Let's take a closer look at the Zope features that allow you to build and manage dynamic web sites.

Anonymous User - May 19, 2002 12:48 pm:
As a business decision maker, I want to see what the "...and more" features are. Group calendars?
Automatically
 expiring content? Automatic 'forgot my password' emails for users? This information needs to be up front and
 center - business people don't necessarily care about XML-RPC, object orientedness, DOM, etc, or understand
 it. The 'HOW CAN YOU BENEFIT FROM ZOPE' section reads like marketer's gibberish. Prove it, without having to
 make me create my own Zope site or read the entire damn Zope book!

Anonymous User - May 19, 2002 1:52 pm:
 Zope is a framework that programmers use for creating dynamic web-based applications. It is not itself an
 application. Products built on top of Zope (such as Squishdot and CMF, and the roughtly 500 other products
 that you can browse at http://www.zope.org/Products) offer these kinds of services.

Anonymous User - May 31, 2002 7:46 pm:
 Were I reading this introduction for information on creating a Zope site with e-commerce capabilities (and I
 am), this is where I would look.

Anonymous User - July 5, 2002 3:37 pm:
 Maybe when someone who self-identifies as "a business decision maker" takes the time to comment that a
 section reads like "marketing gibberish", young turks might take a moment to pause and consider rather than
 sweeping it away with a glib bit of sophistry.
 I feel the same way ... I'm not a business decision maker ... I have 30 years of tech-doc experience, and
 have been fighting this sort of window-dressing (with decreasing success) for years / decades. This is a
 lovely pamphlet, a lovely bit of evangilization, and it's all abstracted by at least one level too much.
 Heck, it isn't even an executive summary!
 Ok ... we're here, and we're reading; we don't need more sizzle. Where's the beef?!

Anonymous User - Sep. 5, 2002 3:33 pm:
 I have to agree about the "marketing gibberish" aspect here. It is certainly NOT too early to give a
 fine-grained real-world example here. Several would be better.
You need to battle against the fact that many products / marketers - ESPECIALLY in this niche - abuse so much
 of the kinds of phrasing you've used so far - I need hard-fact explanations. High-level over-generalizations
 have repeatedly stung anyone deciding on software.
 For instance, "dynamic" - this is such a loaded, vague, and multiply-defined term, the only way to really
 tell me what you mean is to spell it out step-by-step in detailed terms from the perspective of "Okay, I'm
 sitting in my chair in front of my computer... Now what?"
 Not only for experienced people who have heard myriad examples of software PR BS, but perhaps more
 importantly for beginners who are new to the field (like me) who are just trying to figure out what does
 what.

mcdonc - Sep. 5, 2002 3:40 pm:
 I've "fixed" the "marketing gibberish" in the 2.6 version of the Zope Book at
 http://www.zope.org/Documentation/Books/ZopeBook/2_6Edition/index_html. As soon as Zope 2.6 comes out this
 will become the canonical Zope Book, and everybody can be happy. ;-)

Anonymous User - Sep. 30, 2002 10:40 am:
Zope supports SOAP? The most recent docs on zope.org pertaining to SOAP (June 2002) categorically states Zope
 does not yet support SOAP, and I didn't find anything else to show otherwise. Yes, I know about Zope and
 XML-RPC and have used it.

Unique Management Environment

The first thing you'll notice about Zope is that it lets you manage your site's data, logic, and presentation right in your web browser. This means that Zope is easy to use and is remotely administrable. Zope lets you collaborate with others to interactively develop your web site.

Built-in Tools

Zope comes with site management tools, a web server, a search engine, database connectivity, security and collaboration services, and more. Out of the box, Zope gives you everything you need to build a powerful web site.

Open Standards Support

Zope excels at gluing together diverse data because of its support for open standards. Zope supports Internet standards including SQL, ODBC, XML, DOM, FTP, HTTP, FastCGI, XML-RPC, SOAP, and more.

Open Source Licensing

With Zope you don't just get an application, you get the source and a community. Since Zope is open source you are not held hostage by a single vendor; you're free to use, distribute and adapt Zope to fit your needs. Zope also benefits from an active user and developer community. The community improves Zope's support, audits Zope's security, fixes bugs, and adds features.

Extensibility

Zope can be extended in many directions. Third party applications can be easily created and distributed. The Zope community has produced hundreds of Zope add-ons for everything from credit card processing to web discussions.

Zope Alternatives

There are many tools available to help you build web applications. Early in the history of the web, simple web applications were built almost exclusively with CGI programs written in Perl or other languages. Now there are a host of options ranging from open source frameworks like PHP, to commercial options such as Allaire's Cold Fusion, Java application servers, and Vignette's Story Server.

Anonymous User - May 18, 2002 3:20 pm:
 A nice PHP application framework which is commercial is http://www.logicreate.com (FYI).

Anonymous User - May 25, 2002 10:29 am:
 Vignette.....god help you...

Anonymous User - July 12, 2002 1:48 am:
 I think using the phrase "held hostage" twice in a single chapter is a bit much.
I actually find the phrase too sensationalistic to be used outside of the tabloids, but will (grudgingly) put
 up with it once.

mcdonc - July 12, 2002 8:34 am:
 I happen to agree that it's a bit much.  But out of curiosity what will you do if you see it again?  Sue?

Anonymous User - Aug. 7, 2002 6:16 am:
 Not all Java application servers are "commercial options"! You could write BEA Weblogic or IBM Websphere, if
 you wanted to mension a commercial vendor, or JBoss as an open source alternative.

Zope offers a unique mix of features, some similar to, and some very different from, features offered by other web application tools. Zope is easy to use, open source, powerful, and provides support for many different kinds of applications. Here is a short list of common web tool drawbacks and Zope's advantages:

• Some tools do not offer a simple file manager like user interface, and are hard to use. Zope has a simple user interface.
• Some tools require complex configuration. Zope is easy to install and requires no configuration before you begin using it.
• Some tools require using unfamiliar and proprietary development tools. Zope works with any standards-compliant web browser and no other tools will be required to use this book.
• Some tools don't scale as well as Zope does to handle large numbers of developers and users. Zope has a consistent, powerful user management system that can scale to many users with unique, easily managed privileges.
• Finally most closed-source, commercial tools don't let you extend, customize, and redistribute them. Zope is open source.

Anonymous User - May 19, 2002 1:01 pm:
 Quote: "Zope is easy to install and requires no configuration before you begin using it." Then what am I
 missing? I signed up with a freezope site, it tells me to check the /information and faq pages, yet there's
 nothing there to help me get started, except the advice that I should read the Zope book. When I got to my
subdomain there's nothing there. How can this be if Zope "requires no configuration"? The most dubious advice
is to read the Zope book, I've been at it for half an hour and still I'm in the introduction section.
PUH-LEEEEZZ!

mcdonc - May 23, 2002 12:11 am:
 Please note that Zope is a framework for creating applications. It is not itself a specific out-of-the-box
 end-user-usable application. If you're trying to compare Zope to something like a weblog system or a
 "website-in-a-box" system like Manila, you're almost certainly comparing apples with oranges. On the other
 hand, I've you've ever tried to set up Midgard, EGrail, or other similar application development frameworks,
 you would likely take more kindly to the ease in which Zope can be installed. Note also that if you don't
 have half an hour's worth of patience, Zope is almost certainly not for you. ;-)

Zope Community

Zope was one of the first tools of its kind to become open source. Since opening up the code to Zope, the user base has grown tremendously.

The Zope community consists of Zope users and developers. Many of the community members are professionals such as consultants, developers and web masters, investing their time and money into supporting Zope. Others are students and curious hackers, learning how to use a cool new tool. The community gets together occasionally at conferences but spends most of its time discussing Zope on the many Zope mailing lists and web sites. You can find out more about the many Zope-related mailing lists at http://www.zope.org/Resources/MailingLists.

Anonymous User - Apr. 26, 2002 12:42 pm:
Having used dreamweaver to manage sites...zope allows you to manage sites. Dreamweaver is a great layout tool
 but ...zope allows you to manage sites.

Anonymous User - Sep. 17, 2002 4:07 pm:
 could you make the url an href please

Now that you've learned about Zope's features and history, it's time to start using it. In the next chapter you'll learn how to get up and running with Zope. Since Zope is free, you can download the latest version, and begin working immediately.

Anonymous User - Apr. 24, 2002 3:52 am:
 What advantage does Zope have over
 Dreamweaver or Namo Webeditor in designing
 the website pages???

Anonymous User - Apr. 26, 2002 8:27 pm:
 you might use Dreamweaver to design a template, but then go through zope's web interface to write specific
 content for each individual page - at least, that's how it looks to me from what I've read so far.

Anonymous User - July 23, 2002 7:39 pm:
 Dreamweaver  is mainly a "design tool", not a comprehensive web application framework. 

 With dreamweaver you can produce "web pages" organized in a fairly basic "web site" of a rather static
nature. Dreamweaver is meant for visually-oriented developers who do not mind delivering sub-par bloated code
 to http clients.
 Zope allows you to build "web applications", whose components can be highly-aware "objects". Those objects
 can grealty increase your site's modularity, flexibility and extensibility using such mechanisms as
 inheritance. As an example, a sub-section object will look for its own "header" object and if it does not
 have one, it inherits its parent's.
 So if you want to build a web application which lives and breathes, is managed and edited by a group of
 people, Zope is for you.

Anonymous User - Aug. 17, 2002 8:36 pm:
You can also use Zope & Dreamweaver together. Even without destroying the logic in the zope templates,
since
 DW leaves them untouched. I's really useful if you collaborate with a designer (or developer, depends on
 point of view ;)) on a project at the same point of time