July 22, 2005. Using the Poseidon UML modeling tool and ArchGenXML, this presentation shows how to create a Plone product in a matter of minutes without writing a single line of code. The example used is ArtistSite, a model of artists, bands and recordings which is then transformed into a Plone product. Presented at the North America Plone Symposium in New Orleans, LA. (7/22/2005)

1. ArchGenXML / UML
and Plone
Plone Regional Symposium
New Orleans, LA
July 22, 2005
Nate Aune
Jazkarta Consulting
www.jazkarta.com

2. Who am I?
• Developer and owner, Jazkarta Consulting
(www.jazkarta.com)
• Musician - saxophonist and composer
(www.nateaune.com/music/)
• Founder of Plone4Artists project
(www.plone4artists.org)

3. Overview
• What is Archetypes?
• What is UML?
• What is ArchGenXML?
• Build a model using UML
• Transform the model into a Plone
• Questions?

4. What is Archetypes?
• Framework for developing Plone products
• Automatically creates view and edit pages
• Maintains unique object IDs
• Creates references between objects

5. Archetypes framework
• Field validation
• Standard security setup
• Alternate storage options
• Data transformation capabilities

6. Archetypes
architecture
• Schema
• Field
• Widget
• Field
• Widget
• ...

7. Example Archetype:
Artist
schema= Schema((
StringField('title'),
ImageField('photo'),
LinesField('instrument'),
))
class Artist(BaseContent)
schema = BaseSchema + schema
registerType(Artist,PROJECTNAME)

8. Widgets
schema= Schema((
StringField('title',
widget=StringWidget(
label=’Artist name’,
size=20),
),
ImageField('photo',
widget=ImageWidget(
label=’Headshot’),
),
LinesField('instrument',
widget=MultiSelectionWidget(
label=’Instruments’),
multiValue=1,
),
))

9. What is UML?
• UML = Uniform Modeling Language
• Standard widely-adopted graphical language
• Describes the artifacts of software systems
• Focus on conceptual representations

10. Artist:
Described in UML

11. Poseidon UML tool

12. What is ArchGenXML?
• Command line utility
• Auto-generates code from a UML model
• No round-trip support yet
• Custom code is preserved upon
regeneration

13. Why use ArchGenXML?
(part 1)
• You want to save time
• You are a lazy programmer
• You don’t like to reinvent the wheel
• You don’t like copying and pasting code
• You make heavy use of references and
interfaces

14. Why use ArchGenXML?
(part 2)
• You have big projects with many different
content types
• You want or need a well-documented
interface to your product
• You like structured model- and pattern-
driven software development
• You want to maintain your project in the
future without getting a headache

15. UML to Archetypes
using ArchGenXML
schema= Schema((
StringField('title',
widget=StringWidget(
label=’Artist name’
size=20),
),
ImageField('photo',
widget=ImageWidget(
label=’Headshot’),
),
LinesField('instrument',
widget=MultiSelectionWidget(
label=’Instruments’),
multiValue=1,
),
))

16. UML speak to AT speak
• product
• package
• content type
• class
• method
• operation
• field
• attribute
• property
• tagged value

17. In practice
• 1) Save your model to the Products dir
• 2) Run the ArchGenXML script
• 3) Restart Zope
• 4) Install the newly generated product
svn co svn://svn.plone4artists.org/trunk/ArtistSite

18. Running the script
$ cd /var/local/zope/instance1/Products
$ ArchGenXML/ArchGenXML.py -o ArtistSite ArtistSite.zuml
ArchGenXML 1.4 devel 4
(c) 2003 BlueDynamics GmbH, under GNU General Public License
2.0 or later
set outfilename [string] to ArtistSite
Parsing...
===============
opening zargo
XMI version: 1.2
using xmi 1.2+ parser
outfile: ArtistSite
Generating...
==============
method bodies will be preserved
>>> Starting new Product: ArtistSite
Generating class: Artist
$

19. ArtistSite product dir
$ ls ArtistSite
Artist.py __init__.py i18n skins
Extensions config.py refresh.txt version.txt
$
Restart Zope
Install product using QuickInstaller

20. Artist.py
• Inserts documentation
• Placeholders for custom code
• i18n message ids
• Using ArtistSite/model/generate_source.sh
• Inserts author information
• Creates i18n msg catalog .pot file
• strips HTML from doc strings

21. Add new artist

22. Edit artist form

23. View artist

24. Static vocabulary
• Define a static vocabulary of instruments

25. Dynamic vocabulary
Use ATVocabularyManager to manage list of instruments

26. Dynamic vocab cont...

27. Containment
Use the solid rhomb to make a strict containment
‘Artist’ instances can only be added to an ‘Artists’ instance

28. Artist container

29. Override base class
The artists folder will get large, so make it a BTreeFolder

30. References
Create a
direct association
results in:
Reference field
group to artist(s)

31. Group
edit form
Group is
associated
with artists

32. Reference Browser Widget
as default

33. Configure browser widget
Select the end point
Make multivalued
Specify relationship
Define query

34. Adding references

35. Back references

36. Back
references
Groups that
artist belongs to

37. Stereotypes
Add the ‘member’ stereotype to tell
ArchGenXML to subclass CMFMember

38. Registration
form
• SiteMember is installed
• Replaces default member
• Easy way to create new
member types

40. PloneMall
• Example of a sophisticated e-commerce
framework built using UML
• See the UML model here:
• http://www.plonemall.com/uml/UML-beta2.png/image_view_fullscreen

41. What I didn’t cover
• Methods
• Stereotypes
• actions, portal_tool, abstract, stub,
ordered
• Generalization (Interfaces)
• Workflow
• Unit testing

42. Acknowledgements
• Philipp Auersperg (Blue Dynamics)
• Jens Klein (jensens)
• Martin Aspeli (optilude)
• Fabiano Weimar dos Santos (xiru)
• Bernie Snizek (DrZoltron)
• Alan Runyan and Enfold Systems
• Plone community

43. Links
• ArchGenXML presentation - http://www.jazkarta.com/presentations/archgenxml-presentation
• ArchGenXML product page - http://plone.org/products/archgenxml
• ArchGenXML getting started tutorial by Jens Klein
• http://plone.org/documentation/tutorial/archgenxml-getting-started
• ArchGenXML manual (with screenshots)
• http://plone.org/documentation/archetypes/archgenxml-manual
• Intro to Archetypes by Sidnei da Silva, published on ZopeMag.com
• http://www.zopemag.com/Issue006/Section_Articles/article_IntroToArchteypes.html
• Archetypes: Customizing Plone in 60 seconds (PDF) by Andy McKay
• http://www.enfoldsystems.com/About/Talks/archetypes.pdf
• Archetypes Fields Quick Reference by Maik Röder
• http://plone.org/documentation/archetypes/arch_field_quickref_1_3_1
• Archetypes Widgets Quick Reference by Maik Röder
• http://plone.org/documentation/archetypes/arch_widget_quickref_1_3_1