To join this site click on log in in the top right hand corner.

This will take you to a link for the registation form.

• Username: the username you wish to use.
• E-mail: a valid email address is required. Later if you lose your password a replacement password will be emailed to you.
• Password and Confirm Password: the password you wish to use, it must be more than 5 characters in length. It is case sensitive.

Once you have completed this form you will be able to access the site immediately.

Logging In

To login select the log in link at the top right hand corner and complete the form. Cookies must be enabled for you to log in to a Plone site.

Content we would like you to add to OzZope

We are happy if you just experiment privately with this site.  We will be even happier if you  add content to share with other members.  So if you have a case study, a zope how-to in, a Python tip bit in  fact anything of interest to other ozzopistas then please add it to this site. In the Publish tab of your content select submit to signal content for approval by the Web Administrator.

Adding and editing content to OzZope

After you have logged click on My Folder which is located in the top navigation bar

You will notice a drop down box in the upper right hand corner of the center panel next to the "add new item" button. This gives you the list of content types you can add in this folder. For example select Document and a new document will be added.

Once a document has been added it takes you immediately to the edit page for that document.

Editing a document

The document can be edited directly in the web browser, using the form given.There are 3 main fields for a document that you will need to fill out:

• Title: a short title that will be shown at the top of the page, breadcrumbs, search interface, in the title of the browser and so on. This field is required.
• Description: a short lead in to the document, usually no more than 20 words to introduce the document and provide a teaser for the remainder of the document.
• Body Text: is the format for the body of the document. Here the rest of the document is written.  

If you wish to use the Visual Text editor, go to My Preferences located in the top navigation bar and selected Visual Editor from the drop down box

Alternatively you can use the following editing formats.

• Structured Text: the default setting. Structured text is a format for taking plain text and producing HTML without the user having to learn or type HTML. For more information on Structured Text please see the following links:
• An Introduction to Structured Text
• Structured Text Help
• HTML: any arbitrary HTML to can be entered by a user.
• Plain text: is plain ordinary text with no mark up. New lines are converted into <br> tags so the new lines will appear in the text.

If you do have your document as a file on your computer you can upload this instead of the body text. Use the upload button at the bottom of the page.

Once you have completed the editing of your document, click on the "save" button. If you correctly edited the document you will be returned to the document view and you can see how the document will be rendered. You can edit it again by selecting the edit tab. If you did not you will be shown the edit page with your errors highlighted, at this point your changes have not been applied.

Assign properties to a document

Any object can have extra properties on it and documents are no exception to the rule. Properties are also called metadata as they are extra data on an object about it. This form has several fields that are common to all objects.

• Allow discussion: lets this document be discussed by users who have the right to do so. If left in default, it will use the site wide policy - however you can manually alter this, should you need to.
• Keywords: is a slightly more complicated field that lets you alter the keywords for a document. Keywords are a way of assigning metadata to an object.

Publishing your document

By default documents are visible, which means people can access them, but they will not show up in the search or navigation. This allows you to be able to edit your document over as long a period as you want without having to worry about your document showing up to users.

When you are satisfied with your document you will need to publish your document. To do this, select the state tab. This page gives access to the publishing process.

• Effective Date: allows you to specify a date this content is effective from. Until this date is occurs, the content will not be published. If this date is not specified, then there will be no effect and the document will be published.
• Expiration Date: allows you to specify a date this content will expire on. After this date the content will no longer be published. If this date is not specified, then there will be no effect and the document will be published.
• Comments: provides an interface to add comments to this publishing process. These comments can be read by the person reviewing your content in the publishing process. Similarly if the reviewer rejects your content, they will be able to put comments here so that you will know why you content has been rejected.
• Change state: these are the states that document can be in. These are covered in more detail in Chapter 4, but for the moment you will want to publish your content, so select "Submit" and then save.

Your content will now be in the pending state and a reviewer will be able to review the content. The content reviewerwill review your content and decide wether or not to fully publish your content.

Publishing and reviewing content is covered in more detail in Chapter 4 of this book.

Adding and editing other forms of content

There are several forms of content that come by default in a Plone site and whilst its not worth listing how to edit all these in detail, a brief discussion of each content type follows.

Image

Images are graphical pieces of content. This content type usually ends with an extension such is: gif, jpg, png, tif or pict. Images can be displayed inside of the Plone CMS without having to download them to the local computer if the image type (extension) is viewable in the users web browser.

When you add an image, the id of the object is changed to be the file of the image. So if you upload an image called photo.gif, it will be accessible in Plone as photo.gif. When adding or uploading a new image you can select the image from your file system by using the browse button and selecting the file.

It is noteworthy that often Macintosh .pict files are not viewable by Microsoft browser platforms by default.

File

A file is any arbitary file that can be uploaded from your file system. This could be a plain text file or any sort of document such as Microsoft Word, Excel Spreadsheet, PowerPoint Presentation, Acrobat PDF and so on. When uploading a file using WEBDAV or FTP by default the content that is being uploaded will usually be represented as a File content object when its completed.

When you add a file, the id of the file is change to be the name of the file. So if you upload a file called book.pdf, it will be accessible in Plone as book.pdf.

Link

Link objects are the primary way for users to share URL's. These URL's can be internet resources or local resources. Links can contain metadata like any other content object. Please note that if you are going to link to a internet resource you should preface your link with the suitable protocol (e.g. http://) otherwise your link will possibly be incorrect.

You can add links your favourite pages within your Plone site, these are called Favorites. To add a Favorite click on the Plone arrow symbol located on the left of the navigation bar. This automatically adds a link to your folder for that page.

.Folder

Containers are the simplest and most powerful mechanism for organizing content. A Folder is a container that can house any sort of content object, such as Files, Documents, or any other content type. By default all content types can be added to a Folder.

Discussing content

Any piece of content in OzZope can be discussed. The owner of the content (otherwise known as the person who has created the content) the ability to discuss it by clicking on the Properties tab viewing the content. In the Allow Discussion section you can choose to allow discussion. The default radio button is the policy for the content object that has been set by the Site Administrator.

If the content can be discussed when viewing the content the discussion will be shown and users will be allowed to participate. What users can actually add comments is determined by the Site Administrator.

Your folder (or my stuff)

My stuff is enabled for each user and is a folder for each user where they can create and edit content easily. You can create content in area of the site you would like, however this folder allows you to easily access it. A site administrator can toggle the creation of user folders in the portal_membership tool. By default a Member gets the following:

• /Members/username (Folder)
• index_html (user's home page)
• .personal (Folder reserved for your portrait and other information)

Your preferences (or my preferences)

In the upper right hand corner of OzZope there is a my preferences link that brings you to the Personalize form. This personalization form allows you to set a number of preferences that will be used when you interact with Plone

E-Mail

At anytime you can change the email address associated with your account. This is used in a number of places in Plone. Most importantly if you lose or forget your password this is the address the system will email your password to.