PlominoHow to easily build Plone custom applications
through the web
with small development knowledge Eric BREHAULT Plone Conference 2010

Il manque :- une liste de produits/services fin 2007- une price list pour fin 2007- le taux de pntration prvisionnel espr par cibles pour fin 2008,- la rentabilit attendue d'ici fin fin 2008- la dfinition, l'organisaiton et l'animation de la force de vente-

Plone is so powerful

With no Zope/Plone development knowledge and good Plone usage knowledge, you can build a powerful intranet:you can structure the site easily,

you can manage users access rights and workflows in a very granular way,

you can extend Plone standard features with a lot of excellent products.

But you might need a custom app

Your intranet is just perfect, but at some point, you need a purchase management application.

Of course, you want this application to be integrated into your intranet.

What can you do ?

Create a content type ?

Plone is a CMS, a purchase request might be considered as a content-type.Let's go:

1 schema (made with ArchgenXML or Dexterity)+ few collections+ 1 workflow (made with uworth.northstar)

= approximately what you need

Not that easy

Even if you do not necessarily need to be a developer to use the mentionned tools, it will still imply you have a good knowledge of:What a schema is.

How Plone workflows work.

How to deploy custom products.

Will it fit the needs ?

Theoretiocally, the Purchase request is just a content-type approach should work.

Practically, you will have to deal with hundreds of small and funny extra-requirements:the request form has 2 specific fields when you order furnitures,

the approval workflow is not the same if you belong to the HR department, unless the manager is in vacation,

the price list is provided in a monthly updated CSV file stored on a LAN shared disk,

Etc.

Will it fit the needs ?

So, practically, you will have to heavily tune the basic content-type behaviour.

And if you are not a Plone expert, you are lost.

One could oppose that what has been described here is not a simple application but a quite complex one.If complex applications cannot be easily produced by non Plone experts, that is fair enough.

My opinion:It is not a complex case, it is just the difference between a theorical case and a real case.

Most part of time, real applications are not content-types.

Non Plone experts must be able to produce real business applications.

"Let no man ignorant of Plone enter here."
Plato

Plomino allows to develop, deploy and maintain custom applications entirely from the Plone web interface.

There is no schema, no data model, the application designer does not have to worry about the persistence, he/she will design forms, data will be saved accordingly.

Everything can be scripted in order to adapt the behaviour to fit the actual needs.

Plomino principles

Add a new Plomino database as any Plone content-type,

The database is the root element which support the entire application.

Design some forms in TinyMCE,

A form offers a layout and a set of fields.

Forms allow to create documents, or provide useful screens (menu, search, reports, etc.),

Documents are just a set of items. The items may match the form fields, or not.

Create some views to list / filter / sort the documents in different ways.

Create a Plomino application

Forms are created using TinyMCE.

A form is just a freely editable rich text content where the user can insert:Fields,

Actions,

Hide-when formulas,

Sub-forms.

Create Plomino forms

DEMO

A field can be:Editable: the user enters its value and it is stored in the document,

Computed: a formula computes its value and it is stored in the document,

Computed for display: a formula computes its value but is not stored,

Computed on creation: a formula computes its value at creation time.

Field modes

DEMO

Plomino provides a set of basic fields:Text, Rich text, Number, Date/time, File attachement, Selection list.

And also advanced fields:Names: to select Plone members.

Doclinks: to create links between documents.

Datagrids: to manage editable dynamic tables.

Google chart and Google visualization: to create rich charts or maps.

Different field types

DEMO

Formulas are used to script the regular Plomino behaviour:Compute field values,

Implement some custom actions,

Hide some part of a form contextually,

Process documents,

Handle events,

Handle redirections,

Etc.

Formulas are written in Python, and are compiled as Python scripts.

Formulas everywhere

DEMO

2 applications:Flood alert SMS subscription mechanism

Map display, connection to an external realtional database, export to CSV.Hydro-sensors maintenance system

Visit planing, visit sheet import/export.

Business cases

DEMO

Adour river flood forecasting agency

Contacts databaseConnexion with Plone members.Complex queries.Large amount of contacts (> 8000)

Business cases

DEMOInternational Council for Science

Project monitoring applicationAdvanced reporting,

Complex forms,

Workflow.

Business cases

DEMOUnited Nations Environment Programs

Business cases

Extremely various Plomino applications, built by extremely various people:Archeologists,

Lawyers,

Real estate managers,

Librarians,

And even Plone experts.

Any example in the room ?

Is it serious ?

Alexander Limi said yesterday: Recruit people.

A TTW application builder like that is good for non-experts.

But can it meet development standard expectations ?

Let's see how Plomino handles:Deployment,

Maintenance,

Debugging,

Testing,

Content synchronization.

Deployment and maintenance

Plomino provides an import/export mechanism.

The design (the application structure) can deployed over HTTP from a server to another (even from between a Plone 3 and a Plone 4 instance).

It can be exported as XML (and then imported back somewhere else).

The resulting XML can be managed in a SVN (or other) repository.

It allows partial import/export.

DEMO

Debugging

Plomino debug mode

Debugging as usual:Zope debug mode

Clouseau

ZDB

plone_log

Testing

Testing as usual:Selenium

Doctests

With doctests, the principle is to create a blank Plomino db, then import your current XML design version, then run your scenarios.

It can be then automated on Hudson.

Testing

Import basic-example db >>> f = open(os.path.join(dir, "samples", "basic-example.xml")) >>> id = folder.invokeFactory('PlominoDatabase', id='basic-example') >>> db = getattr(folder, 'basic-example') >>> db.at_post_create_script() >>> wf_tool = self.portal.portal_workflow >>> wf_tool.doActionFor(db, 'publish') >>> xmlstring=f.read() >>> db.importDesignFromXML(xmlstring) >>> db.refreshDB() >>> f.close()

Testing

Scenario >>> browser.open(base_url+'/basic-example') >>> 'Birthday' in browser.contents True >>> browser.getLink('Birthday').click() >>> browser.getControl(name='personName').value = 'Eric' >>> browser.getControl(name='birthDate').value = '1974-10-20 00:00' >>> browser.getControl(name='personCategory').value = ['Friend'] >>> browser.getControl(name='plomino_save').click() >>> '20-10-1974' in browser.contents True >>> browser.open(browser.url+"/EditDocument") >>> browser.getControl(name='personCategory').value = ['Relative'] >>> browser.getControl(name='plomino_save').click() >>> browser.open(base_url+'/basic-example') >>> browser.getLink('All birthdays').click() >>> 'October 20' in browser.contents True

Thank you

Questions ?

Anybody interested in sprinting on Plomino ?

Makina Corpus

For all questions related to Plomino,please contact ric Brhaulteric.brehault@makina-corpus.com

Tel : +33 950 463 703

www.makina-corpus.com

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