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Web Review on Open Source Software
Jeremy Dinsel writes "Web Review covers Open Source Software as an option for web development. They include several articles including topics such as the Apache, the GIMP and Linux. "
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To be able to work on their website you need to be assigned an account and password, which allows editing access to some subset of the site (e.g., you could be allowed to make pages under the "game world" area, or under the "server coding" section).
You are allowed to edit the main body of the page, but not the header or footer (only people with "admin" priv's can edit those). This way, the overall look of every page can be maintained consistently, while the page authors are allowed to do pretty much whatever they want.
Editing is done entirely through a web form, making it possible for just about anyone to work on the site. Also, it has a text -> HTML converter in it, so if you don't know HTML you're not totally stuck (though if you do know HTML you can make good use of it.)
I've been using Zope quite successfully for the last few months or so. I've been extremely happy with its ease of use, utility, examples + source code, etc...
Basically, I just used it as a way to quickly format some data without digging deeply into CGI. It's a lot more powerful in the ways it does data base queries and form outputs, but that was beyond my needs.
You need to know python to add functionality (create Zope Products). Additionally, you zope uses a Document Template Markup Language (DTML), that sort of looks like SSI's. DTML let's you do some fairly sophisticated things inside your HTML.
I'd say give it a shot...its free, and works well out of the box...
Jerry Steele
fjsteele@icaen.uiowa.edu
I've been using the predecessor of its ZServer component (called Bobo ) for quite a while. It's an excellent way to do fairly sophisticated CGI in a very nice language (Python) without a lot of fuss. Right now I'm gearing up to move everything over to full Zope, which I expect will make my life a great deal easier, what with the web-based management, sessions, database connectors, and pre-built application components.
There are some testimonials and users listed on the Zope site. Principia, the closed source forerunner of Zope, was shipped with some 5.x version of Red Hat on the CD of commercial applications. I'm continually meaning to get around to using it seriously, but never manage to find the time.
There are so many things wrong with that
phrase, the mind boggles.
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"The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
So, has anyone heard of this "Zope" application server before? Sounds interesting, but does anyone out there actually use it?
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