ZopeSkel turned six this year, and many changes are underway. Learn where it came from, what is happening now, and where the system is headed.

1. ZopeSkel
the past, present and future
Cris Ewing
Cris Ewing, Developer LLC
Plone Conference 2012
Arnhem, the Netherlands

2. Overview
• The beginning
• The early years
• The awkward adolescense
• The No-Fun ZopeSkel BBQ Sprint
• The transition to templer
• The future

3. In The Beginning
Photo by
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center via Flickr
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/6143668219/) - CC-BY

4. Products

5. ArchGenXML

7. Content Types Only

8. Photo by
JD Hancock via Flickr
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/jdhancock/3440716774/) - CC-BY

9. • Need to create egg packages
• Need to create things other than ATCT
• Need a tool to help

10. 25/05/2006
Image by heyitsopower via Flickr
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/heyitsopower/4864376100/) - CC-BY

11. First checkin:
Daniel Nouri

13. • basic_package (from PasteScript)
• basic_namespacepackage
• basic_zope

14. • June, 2006 (0.2)
• plone_core (hannosch)
• July-August, 2006 (0.3)
• plone2_theme (davconvent)
• nested_namespace (hannosch)
• plone_app (hannosch)

15. • January-March, 2007
• plone3_buildout (optilude)
• plone3_theme (justizin)
• plone25_theme (davconvent)

16. June, 2007
• ZopeSkel is now 1 year old
• Provides nine templates
• Seven contributing authors
• nouri, davconvent, hannosch, optilude,
brcwhit, justizin, pelle
• Version 1.0 tagged September, 2007

17. Late 2007
• Archetype template added (pjesi)
• Recipe template for buildout recipes (tarek)
• Hosting buildout template (wichert)
• Version 1.3 in December, 2007

18. and then....
localcommands

19. • Added December 12, 2007 (mustapha)
• Enhance a package already created
• Initial offerings include:
• portlet
• browser view
• zcml meta directive
• content type

20. • Shortly after, ATSchema added
• Iteratively build AT Content Type schema

21. ...and there was much rejoicing

22. Photo by Caylin via Flickr
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/10279741@N00/3593353427/) CC-BY-NC-ND

23. Too Many Questions

24. archetype (from ZopeSkel#archetype)
-----------------------------------
title The title of the project
default: 'Plone Example'
namespace_package Namespace package (like plone)
default: 'plone'
package The package contained namespace package
(like example)
default: 'example'
zope2product Are you creating a Zope 2 Product?
default: False
version Version
default: '0.1'
description One-line description of the package
default: ''
long_description Multi-line description (in reST)
default: ''
author Author name
default: 'Plone Foundation'
author_email Author email
default: 'plone-developers@lists.sourceforge.net'
keywords Space-separated keywords/tags
default: ''
url URL of homepage
default: 'http://svn.plone.org/svn/plone/plone.example'
license_name License name
default: 'GPL'
zip_safe True/False: if the package can be
distributed as a .zip file
default: False

26. WTF??!?
zope2product: Are you creating a Zope 2 Product?

27. Too Many Templates

28. • archetype • plone3_portlet
• basic_namespace • plone3_theme
• basic_zope • plone_app
• nested_namespace • plone_hosting
• plone • plone_pas
• plone2.5_buildout • recipe
• plone2_theme • silva_buildout
• plone3_buildout

29. Photo by cwgoodroe via Flickr
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/cwgoodroe/3009281516/) - CC-BY-NC-ND

30. Too Much Code
especially too much code repeated

31. difficult to track drift

33. Dependency Problems

34. • Local commands need a package to be in
the working set
• This means that paster must ‘install’ your
new package
• Your package must also depend on
PasteScript (which depends on PasteDeploy
and Paste)

35. local commands
=>
Heavy Paste Dependency

36. two little lines
setup_requires=["PasteScript"],
paster_plugins=["zopeskel.localcommands"],

37. Three Big Problems

38. One Big Question

39. who is ZopeSkel for?

40. October 2-5, 2009

41. Five Developers
• Joel Burton
• Chris Calloway
• Josh Johnson
• Chris Rossi
• Cris Ewing

42. Make ZopeSkel Easier

43. Goals
• Clean up templates
• Improve questions
• Wrap `paste create -t` to improve
interactions

44. Outcomes
• bin/zopeskel script
• hides `paste create -t`
• provides inline validation of answers
• provides inline help for questions
• provides ‘classes’ of questions
• gives good feedback, and provides hooks
for feedback from new templates

45. Outcomes
• An official ‘maintainer’ for ZopeSkel

46. Outcomes
• A plan to break up ZopeSkel
https://github.com/collective/ZopeSkel/blob/2.x-maintenance/SPLITTING-PROPOSAL.txt

47. Anti-Outcomes
• Failure to publicize the outcome sufficiently
• Failure to fully document the plan
• Failure to clean up existing docs still
advising ‘the old way’ (paster create -t)

48. ↓ blame this guy ↓

49. Photo by Laura Molnar via Flickr
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/moosepics621/2207683464/)CC-BY-NC-ND

50. Enter “templer”

51. • Goal to ‘break up’ monolithic ZopeSkel
• Work starts in early 2010
• Provide templates in packages of related
functionality.
• Keep it working ‘the same’ for newcomers

52. Breaking Up

53. templer.core
• vars (questions)
• base templates
• control script (wrapper of `paster create`)
• structures
• ‘docs’ for eggs
• licenses

54. What are Structures?
• paster templates that you don’t ‘run’
• shared filesystem layout
• reduce repetition
• allow injection of files and folders in
response to questions

55. templer.core
templer.buildout

56. templer.buildout
• Provides templates for:
• basic buildout
• zc.buildout recipes
• Provides structures for:
• bootstrap.py

57. templer.core
templer.buildout
templer.zope

58. templer.zope
• Provides templates for:
• basic zope package (my.package)
• nested zope package (my.nifty.package)

59. templer.core
templer.buildout
templer.zope
templer.plone

60. templer.plone
• Provides templates for:
• basic plone package (my.package)
• nested plone package (my.nifty.package)
• archetype-based add-on
• plone tile
• Provides structures for:
• GenericSetup profile (basic and nested)

61. templer.core
templer.buildout
templer.zope
templer.plone
✓archetype • plone3_portlet
✓basic_namespace • plone3_theme
✓basic_zope ✓plone_app
✓nested_namespace • plone_hosting
✓plone • plone_pas
• plone2.5_buildout ✓recipe
• plone2_theme • silva_buildout
• plone3_buildout

62. What about Local
Commands?

63. Photo by
Matthew via Flickr
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/purplemattfish/3918004964/) - CC-BY-NC-ND

64. templer.localcommands
templer.plone.localcommands
templer.plone[localcommands]

65. this is OPTIONAL

66. Rebuilding

67. ZopeSkel Should
‘just work’

69. Paste

70. templer
Paste

71. ZopeSkel
templer
Paste

72. ZopeSkel is a
templer application

73. easy_install zopeskel

74. Templates
✓archetype • plone3_portlet
✓basic_namespace • plone3_theme
✓basic_zope ✓plone_app
✓nested_namespace • plone_hosting
✓plone • plone_pas
• plone2.5_buildout ✓recipe
• plone2_theme • silva_buildout
• plone3_buildout

75. Local Commands
• Plone
• browserview
• browserlayer
• portlet
• Archetypes
• at_contenttype
• at_schema_field

76. What’s Next?

77. Need Templates
• dexterity (underway)
• buildouts (unify with installers)
• theme templates (diazo, traditional?)

78. Local Commands
• viewlet
• utility
• z3c form
• dexterity schema builder
• ???

79. Shameless Plug

80. and beyond that?

81. Crushinator

82. Crushinator
• No PasteScript/PasteDeploy/Paster
• No specific templating system
• Cheetah
• Jinja
• python string formatting??
• Questions and filesystem structures
independent

83. Questions?
cris@crisewing.com
cewing
@crisewing