ZMICustomization

Introduction

While working on AdytumSolutions projects as well as working on projects for PBS, I came up with a convenient way to beautify the otherwise rather unattracive default ZMI. All that is required is a .zexp import and un'tar'ing a dtml directory.

Process

Here's what we had to do:

• create a location in Zope to hold property information for the ZMI
• figure out what all the properties were, should be, and name them
• unify all the different but related properties spread across multiple files
• find all the color and style (including spacing/widths/heights) references that we wanted to customize
• replace current hard code with dtml references using the following:

     <dtml-with expr="zmi.properties">
     <dtml-var property_name>
     ...
     </dtml-with>
  
     <dtml-var expr="zmi.properties.property_name">
  

• export the GUI changes with the ZMI as a .zexp and tar up the dtml directory

Here's all you have to do:

• gunzip/WinZip? the dtml.tar.gz and zmi.zexp.gz files
• move the ZOPE_INSTALL/lib/python/App/dtml to a backup location
• move dtml.tar to ZOPE_INSTALL/lib/python/App
• un tar dtml.tar (thus creating a new dtml directory)
• move zmi.zexp to ZOPE_INSTALL/import
• in your ZMI web interface, go the the main frame at the root folder, scroll to the bottom, hit the "import/export" button, in the "import" section, enter zmi.zexp - this will create a folder called zmi at the root location (this folder holds the images and properties for the ZMI customization)

Screenshots

AdytumSolutions' ZMI

PBS Interactive's ZMI (Note: the screenshot shows an image that just says "PBS" - this is a borrowed image that the PBS Interactive team (a small part of PBS) is using. Also, AdytumSolutions is not implmenting this for PBS Interactive; one of our developers is currently employed there and thus we are showcasing his work here.)

Caveats

• this code is hackish and not pretty; ideally, "someone" would take out all the html-ish crud and move everything that should be in CSS to CSS... but we were in a hurry ;-)
• the table cell counts for the tabs is fixed; there is logic in the ZMI DTML for determining this number generally, and we need to use that
• the changes are only partially commented
• we made changes to suite our needs; your mileage may vary
• there is an incompatibility will this customization and certain views (like External Method views in the ZMI); we haven't taken the time to pinpoint this yet

Downloads

Here's where you can get the stuff:

ZMI Properties and images (a gzip ped Zope export)

ZMI DTML files (tarball)