Dexterity

Description

Dexterity content subsystem for Plone: info for the developers.

Introduction

Dexterity is a subsystem for content objects. It is intended to replace the default Archetypes system from Plone 5 and onward and can be already used with Plone 4.

• Dexterity Developer Manual.
• How Dexterity is related to Archetypes

ZopeSkel templates

Please see ZopeSkel page for project skeleton templates for Dexterity.

Here is an example how to create your own add-on using the buildout below

cd src
../bin/paster create -t dexterity yourcompany.app

Edit buildout.cfg and add:

eggs =
    yourcompany.app

develop =
    src/yourcompany.app

Then rerun buildout to get your new add-on skeleton included in the configuration

cd ..
bin/buildout

Now you can start adding content into your add-on

cd src/yourcompany.app
../../bin/paster # Shows availablility of addcontent command
../../bin/paster addcontent -l # Shows available templates (content, field, behavior, etc...)

Buildout example

Below is a sample example which will install

• Plone 4.1 beta 1
• Dexterity 1.0 beta 7
• Paster command + Dexterity templates

Please tune the versions according the latest available releases.

buildout.cfg:

[buildout]
parts =
    instance
    zopepy
    i18ndude
    zopeskel
    test
    paster
    omelette

extends =
    http://dist.plone.org/release/4.1b1/versions.cfg
    http://good-py.appspot.com/release/dexterity/1.0b7?plone=4.1b1

# Add additional egg download sources here. dist.plone.org contains archives
# of Plone packages.
find-links =
    http://dist.plone.org/release/4.1b1
    http://dist.plone.org/thirdparty

extensions =
    mr.developer
    buildout.dumppickedversions
    buildout.threatlevel

sources = sources

versions = versions

# Reference any folders where you have Python egg source code under development here
# e.g.: develop = src/my.package
# If you are using the mr.developer extension and have the source code in a
# repository mr.developer will handle this automatically for you
develop =


# Create bin/instance command to manage Zope start up and shutdown
[instance]
recipe = plone.recipe.zope2instance
user = admin:admin
http-address = 8080
debug-mode = off
verbose-security = on
blob-storage = var/blobstorage

eggs =
        Plone
        plone.app.dexterity

# Some pre-Plone 3.3 packages may need you to register the package name here in
# order their configure.zcml to be run (http://plone.org/products/plone/roadmap/247)
# - this is never required for packages in the Products namespace (Products.*)
zcml =


# zopepy commands allows you to execute Python scripts using a PYTHONPATH
# including all the configured eggs
[zopepy]
recipe = zc.recipe.egg
eggs = ${instance:eggs}
interpreter = zopepy
scripts = zopepy

# create bin/i18ndude command
[i18ndude]
unzip = true
recipe = zc.recipe.egg
eggs = i18ndude

# create bin/test command
[test]
recipe = zc.recipe.testrunner
defaults = ['--auto-color', '--auto-progress']
eggs =
    ${instance:eggs}

[paster]
recipe = zc.recipe.egg
eggs =
   ZopeSkel
   PasteScript
   PasteDeploy
   zopeskel.dexterity
   ${instance:eggs}
entry-points = paster=paste.script.command:run

# create ZopeSkel command
[zopeskel]
unzip = true
recipe = zc.recipe.egg
eggs =
    ZopeSkel
    ${instance:eggs}

# symlinks all Python source code to parts/omelette folder when buildout is run
# windows users will need to install additional software for this part to build
# correctly.  See http://pypi.python.org/pypi/collective.recipe.omelette for
# relevant details.
[omelette]
recipe = collective.recipe.omelette
eggs = ${instance:eggs}

# Put your mr.developer managed source code repositories here, see
# http://pypi.python.org/pypi/mr.developer for details on format for this part
[sources]
collective.developermanual = svn http://svn.plone.org/svn/collective/collective.developermanual

# Version pindowns for new style products go here - this section extends one provided in http://dist.plone.org/release/
[versions]

Content creation permissions

By default, (global) Dexterity content types are addable to a folder if the editor has the cmf.AddPortalContent permission.

You might want to fine-tune permissions so that only certain privileged members are allowed to create certain content types.

Note

This behavior differs from Archetypes behavior where each content type was automatically assigned a permission for controlling its creation.

Create a permission with collective.autopermission in configure.zcml

<include package="collective.autopermission" />
<permission id="yourcompany.app.AddSuperContent" title="yourcompany.app: Add Super Content" />

Make sure that this permission becomes available on your site by adding the following to rolemap.xml

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<rolemap>
   <permissions>
         <permission
         name="yourcompany.app: Add Super Content"
         acquire="True">
         <role name="Manager" />
         </permission>
  </permissions>
</rolemap>

Add in your content type GenericSetup XML

<!-- add permission -->
<property name="add_permission">yourcompany.app.AddSuperContent</property>

Reinstall your add-on.

Confirm that the new permission appears on the Security tab in the ZMI root.

Exclusion from navigation

This must be enabled separately for Dexterity content types with a behavior.

<property name="behaviors">
    <element value="plone.app.content.interfaces.INameFromTitle" />
    <element value="plone.app.dexterity.behaviors.metadata.IBasic"/>
    <element value="plone.app.dexterity.behaviors.exclfromnav.IExcludeFromNavigation"/>
</property>

Then you can manually also check this property:

for t in self.tabs:
    nav = None
    try:
        nav = IExcludeFromNavigation(t)
    except:
        pass
    if nav:
        if nav.exclude_from_nav == True:
            # FAQ page - do not show in tabs
            continue

Custom add form/view

Dexterity relies on ++add++yourcontent.type.name traverser hook defined in Products/CMFCore/namespace.py.

It will look up a multi-adapter using this expression:

if ti is not None:
    add_view = queryMultiAdapter((self.context, self.request, ti),
                                 name=ti.factory)
    if add_view is None:
        add_view = queryMultiAdapter((self.context, self.request, ti))

The name parameter is the portal_types id of your content type.

You can register such an adapter in configure.zcml

<configure
    xmlns="http://namespaces.zope.org/zope"
    xmlns:browser="http://namespaces.zope.org/browser"
    >

    <adapter
        for="Products.CMFCore.interfaces.IFolderish
             Products.CMFDefault.interfaces.ICMFDefaultSkin
            plone.dexterity.interfaces.IDexterityFTI"
        provides="zope.publisher.interfaces.browser.IBrowserPage"
        factory=".flexicontent.AddView"
        name="your.app.flexiblecontent"
        />

</configure>

Warning

Overriding add_view_expr or add_view_expr_object in Dexterity factory type information, so that they directly link to a view provided, is not possible. You can manually type Add view link in portal_types, but setting it through GenericSetup installer code is not possible.

Then you can inherit from the proper plone.dexterity base classes:

from plone.dexterity.browser.add import DefaultAddForm, DefaultAddView

class AddForm(DefaultAddForm):

    def update(self):
        DefaultAddForm.update(self)

    def updateWidgets(self):
        """ """
        # Some custom code here

    def getBlockPlanJSON():
        return getBlockPlanJSON()

class AddView(DefaultAddView):
    form = AddForm

See also:

• FTI
• z3c.form

Custom edit form

Example:

from five import grok
from plone.directives import dexterity

class EditForm(dexterity.EditForm):

    grok.context(IFlexibleContent)

    def updateWidgets(self):
        """ """
        dexterity.EditForm.updateWidgets(self)

        # XXX: customize widgets here