Getting Started with Zope and Plone

Setting up Zope and (optionally) Plone is easy. In this tutorial, you will learn to create a Zope and Plone application and create a Plone site.

Getting Started with the Latest Version of Zope and Plone

Create the Zope and Plone Application

This first step is to create a Zope and Plone application.

Note

If you requested a Zope or Plone application when you signed up for your account, you’ll find a Zope and Plone application already installed for you. If you see a zope directory in your ~/webapps directory or a zope application in the control panel, you can skip this section of the guide.

1. Log in to the WebFaction control panel.

2. Click Domains / websites –> Applications. The Apps list appears.

3. Click the Add new () button. The Add page appears.

4. In the Name field, enter a name for the application.

5. In the App category menu, click to select Zope.

6. Click the Create button. Your application is created and a confirmation page appears.

   Note

   This step may take a few minutes to finish.

Create a Website Entry

The next step is to use the WebFaction control panel to hook up your domain to your Zope and Plone application.

1. Click Domains / websites ‣ Websites The Sites page appears.
2. Click the Add new () button. The Add page appears.
3. In the Name field, enter a name for the website record.
4. In the Subdomains list, click to select the domains to associate with the new site.
5. Click the Add new () button. A row is added to the Site apps table.
6. In the App menu, click to select the Zope and Plone application.
7. In the URL path field, enter /.
8. Click the Create button. The website record is created and a confirmation message appears.

Log in to the Zope Management Interface

The Zope Management Interface (ZMI) is the where you can control your Zope application. To use the ZMI, create an administrator password and log in.

1. Open an SSH session to your account.

2. Switch to the Zope and Plone application directory. Enter cd ~/webapps/app/zinstance, where app is the name of the Zope and Plone application, and press Enter.

3. Read adminPassword.txt for the admin user password. Enter cat adminPassword.txt and press Enter.

4. Open your Zope and Plone website at the domain you specified in the WebFaction control panel. A page like this should appear:

   

5. Click the Zope Management Interface link. A username and password prompt appears.

6. In the prompt, use admin as the username and the password from adminPassword.txt as the password. If you’ve logged in successfully, the Zope Management Interface appears.

With the Zope Mangement Interface, you can control Zope objects, control the Zope Object Database (ZODB) and more.

See also

For more information about using the ZMI, please see Using the Zope Management Interface at the Zope Community website.

Note

If you won’t be using Plone (just Zope), you can stop here. To learn about using Plone, continue on.

Create a Plone Site

If you will be using Plone, it’s time to create your Plone site.

1. Return to the Zope and Plone website domain’s root URL (for example, http://domain/).
2. Click the Create a new Plone site button. The Create a Plone Site form appears.
3. In the Title field, enter a title for Plone site.
4. Click the Create Plone Site. In a moment, your Plone, http://domain/Plone, site will appear.

You’ve now created a Plone site. While it’s already useful, there are still a few configuration steps we can take to make things work a little more smoothly.

Configure Plone to Send Email

Plone provides several features which can send email messages, but an SMTP server must be configured before it will be able to do so.

1. In the upper right corner of the page, click admin ‣ Site Setup. The Site Setup page appears.

   Note

   You may see a warning like this:

   

   Do not be alarmed; configuring email will dismiss this warning.

2. In the Plone Configuration list, click Mail. The Mail settings page appears.

3. In the SMTP server field, enter smtp.webfaction.com.

4. In the ESMTP username field, enter your mailbox username as it appears in the WebFaction control panel.

   See also

   To learn more about creating mailboxes and email addresses, please see the User Guide section Email.

5. In the ESMTP password field, enter your mailbox password.

6. In the Site ‘From’ name field, enter a name you would like to appear on email messages sent by Plone.

7. In the Site ‘From’ address field, enter an email address configured in the WebFaction control panel.

8. Click the Save button. Your changes are saved and a confirmation message appears at the top of the page.

Serve Your Site at the Root URL Path

While it’s nice to a have a Plone site up and running, the default URL is cumbersome to type. The next step is to reconfigure Zope to serve the Plone site at http://domain/ instead of http://domain/Plone.

Note

You should also preserve an entry point to the Zope Management Interface at this time. See Serving Plone at a Root URL Path and Virtual Host Monster Rules Prevent ZMI Access for details.

1. Log in to the ZMI. Open http://{domain}/manage in your browser.
2. In the list, click Virtual Hosting. The Virtual Host Monster pane appears.
3. Click the Mappings tab. A text area appears.
4. In the text area, enter domain/Plone and click the Save Changes button.

Now, when you visit http://domain/, your Plone site will load immediately.

Create a New Page

Finally, let’s create a new page to show off our handiwork.

1. Open your Plone site’s home page in your browser.
2. Click Add new ‣ Page. The Add Page form appears.
3. In the Title field, enter a title for new page.
4. In the Body Text field, enter some content for the page.
5. Click the Save button. The page appears with a confirmation message. A link to your new page will also appear in the horizontal navigation bar at the top of the page.

Congratulations! You’ve finished the getting started guide for Zope and Plone. To learn more about Zope and Plone, check out the Zope Community website and the Plone website. If you need help with some common problems, please see the Zope and Plone Troubleshooting section.

Getting Started with Plone 2.0.5

Because Plone 2.0.5 requires Python 2.3, a version of Python not offered by default on many WebFaction servers, a special procedure is required to get up and running with Plone 2.0.5.

To install Plone 2.0.5:

1. Create a Custom app (listening on port) application. Make a note of the port number assigned to the application, it will be required later.
2. Install Python 2.3.
   1. Switch to the Zope Custom app (listening on port) application directory. Enter cd ~/webapps/application, where application is the name of the application as it appears in the control panel, and press Enter.
   2. Create a directory to store source files. Enter mkdir src and press Enter.
   3. Switch to the directory you just created. Enter cd src and press Enter.
   4. Download the latest Python 2.3 source archive. Enter wget http://www.python.org/ftp/python/2.3.7/Python-2.3.7.tgz and press Enter.
   5. Extract the Python source from the archive. Enter tar -zxvf Python-2.3.7.tgz and press Enter. A new directory, Python-2.3.7 is created containing the Python source files.
   6. Switch to the Python 2.3.7 source directory. Enter cd Python-2.3.7 and press Enter.
   7. Configure the Python 2.3 installation. Enter ./configure --prefix=~/webapps/{application} and press Enter.
   8. Build Python 2.3. Enter make and press Enter.
   9. Install Python 2.3 Enter make install and press Enter.
   10. Return to the parent directory. Enter .. and press Enter.
3. Install Zope 2.7.
   1. Download Zope 2.7. Enter wget http://www.zope.org/Products/Zope/2.7.0/Zope-2.7.0.tgz and press Enter.
   2. Extract the Zope source from the archive. Enter tar -zxvf Zope-2.7.0.tgz and press Enter. A new directory, Zope-2.7.0 is created containing the Zope source files.
   3. Switch to the Zope source directory. Enter cd Zope-2.7.0 and press Enter.
   4. Configure the Zope installation. Enter ./configure --with-python=~/webapps/{application}/bin/python --prefix=~/webapps/{application} and press Enter.
   5. Build Zope. Enter make and press Enter.
   6. Install Zope. Enter make install and press Enter.
   7. Return to the parent directory. Enter .. and press Enter.
   8. Make a Zope instance. Enter ~/webapps/{application}/bin/mkzopeinstance.py and press Enter. A prompt appears for a path to the instance.
   9. In the prompt, enter /home/{username}/webapps/{application}/instance, where username is your WebFaction control panel user name, and press Enter.
4. Configure Zope.
   1. Open ~/webapps/application/instance/etc/zope.conf in a text editor.
   2. In the http-server section, edit the value of address to be the port number assigned to the Custom app (listening on port).
   3. Comment out the ftp-server section with a # character before each line of the section.
   4. Save and close the file.
5. Install Plone 2.0.5.
   1. Download Plone 2.0.5. Enter wget http://dist.plone.org/archive/Plone-2.0.5.tar.gz and press Enter.
   2. Extract the Plone source from the archive. Enter tar -zxvf Plone-2.0.5.tar.gz and press Enter. A new directory, Plone-2.0.5 is created containing the Zope source files.
   3. Switch to the Plone source directory. Enter cd Plone-2.0.5 and press Enter.
   4. Copy the contents of Plone source directory to Zope’s Products directory. Enter cp -Rp * ~/webapps/application/instance/Products/ and press Enter.
   5. Start Zope. Enter ~/webapps/application/instance/bin/zopectl/ start and press Enter.

You can now create a new Plone site. See Creating a Plone Site for details.