ArchGenXML / UMLand Plone

Plone Regional SymposiumNew Orleans, LA

July 22, 2005

Nate AuneJazkarta Consultingwww.jazkarta.com

Who am I?

• Developer and owner, Jazkarta Consulting (www.jazkarta.com)

• Musician - saxophonist and composer (www.nateaune.com/music/)

• Founder of Plone4Artists project (www.plone4artists.org)

Overview

• What is Archetypes?

• What is UML?

• What is ArchGenXML?

• Build a model using UML

• Transform the model into a Plone

• Questions?

What is Archetypes?

• Framework for developing Plone products

• Automatically creates view and edit pages

• Maintains unique object IDs

• Creates references between objects

Archetypes framework

• Field validation

• Standard security setup

• Alternate storage options

• Data transformation capabilities

Archetypes architecture

• Schema

• Field

• Widget

• Field

• Widget

• ...

Example Archetype: Artist

schema= Schema((StringField('title'),ImageField('photo'),LinesField('instrument'),

))

class Artist(BaseContent)schema = BaseSchema + schema

registerType(Artist,PROJECTNAME)

Widgetsschema= Schema((

StringField('title', widget=StringWidget( label=’Artist name’,

size=20), ),

ImageField('photo', widget=ImageWidget( label=’Headshot’), ),

LinesField('instrument', widget=MultiSelectionWidget( label=’Instruments’), multiValue=1, ),))

What is UML?

• UML = Uniform Modeling Language

• Standard widely-adopted graphical language

• Describes the artifacts of software systems

• Focus on conceptual representations

Artist: Described in UML

Poseidon UML tool

What is ArchGenXML?

• Command line utility

• Auto-generates code from a UML model

• No round-trip support yet

• Custom code is preserved upon regeneration

Why use ArchGenXML? (part 1)

• You want to save time

• You are a lazy programmer

• You don’t like to reinvent the wheel

• You don’t like copying and pasting code

• You make heavy use of references and interfaces

Why use ArchGenXML? (part 2)

• You have big projects with many different content types

• You want or need a well-documented interface to your product

• You like structured model- and pattern-driven software development

• You want to maintain your project in the future without getting a headache

UML to Archetypes using ArchGenXML

schema= Schema((StringField('title', widget=StringWidget( label=’Artist name’,

size=20), ),

ImageField('photo', widget=ImageWidget( label=’Headshot’), ),

LinesField('instrument', widget=MultiSelectionWidget( label=’Instruments’), multiValue=1, ),))

UML speak to AT speak

• product

• content type

• method

• field

• property

• package

• class

• operation

• attribute

• tagged value

In practice

• 1) Save your model to the Products dir

• 2) Run the ArchGenXML script

• 3) Restart Zope

• 4) Install the newly generated product

svn co svn://svn.plone4artists.org/trunk/ArtistSite

Running the script$ cd /var/local/zope/instance1/Products$ ArchGenXML/ArchGenXML.py -o ArtistSite ArtistSite.zumlArchGenXML 1.4 devel 4(c) 2003 BlueDynamics GmbH, under GNU General Public License 2.0 or later

set outfilename [string] to ArtistSiteParsing...===============opening zargoXMI version: 1.2using xmi 1.2+ parseroutfile: ArtistSiteGenerating...==============method bodies will be preserved>>> Starting new Product: ArtistSite Generating class: Artist$

ArtistSite product dir

$ ls ArtistSiteArtist.py __init__.py i18n skinsExtensions config.py refresh.txt version.txt$

Restart ZopeInstall product using QuickInstaller

Artist.py

• Inserts documentation

• Placeholders for custom code

• i18n message ids

• Using ArtistSite/model/generate_source.sh

• Inserts author information

• Creates i18n msg catalog .pot file

• strips HTML from doc strings

Add new artist

Edit artist form

View artist

Static vocabulary

• Define a static vocabulary of instruments

Dynamic vocabulary

Use ATVocabularyManager to manage list of instruments

Dynamic vocab cont...

Containment

Use the solid rhomb to make a strict containment‘Artist’ instances can only be added to an ‘Artists’ instance

Artist container

Override base class

The artists folder will get large, so make it a BTreeFolder

References

Create a direct association

results in:

Reference fieldgroup to artist(s)

Group edit form

Group is associated with artists

Reference Browser Widget as default

Configure browser widget

Select the end point

Make multivaluedSpecify relationship

Define query

Adding references

Back references

Backreferences

Groups that artist belongs to

Stereotypes

Add the ‘member’ stereotype to tell ArchGenXML to subclass CMFMember

Registration form

• SiteMember is installed

• Replaces default member

• Easy way to create new member types

PloneMall

• Example of a sophisticated e-commerce framework built using UML

• See the UML model here:

• http://www.plonemall.com/uml/UML-beta2.png/image_view_fullscreen

What I didn’t cover

• Methods

• Stereotypes

• actions, portal_tool, abstract, stub, ordered

• Generalization (Interfaces)

• Workflow

• Unit testing

Acknowledgements

• Philipp Auersperg (Blue Dynamics)

• Jens Klein (jensens)

• Martin Aspeli (optilude)

• Fabiano Weimar dos Santos (xiru)

• Bernie Snizek (DrZoltron)

• Alan Runyan and Enfold Systems

• Plone community

Links• ArchGenXML presentation - http://www.jazkarta.com/presentations/archgenxml-presentation

• ArchGenXML product page - http://plone.org/products/archgenxml

• ArchGenXML getting started tutorial by Jens Klein

• http://plone.org/documentation/tutorial/archgenxml-getting-started

• ArchGenXML manual (with screenshots)

• http://plone.org/documentation/archetypes/archgenxml-manual

• Intro to Archetypes by Sidnei da Silva, published on ZopeMag.com

• http://www.zopemag.com/Issue006/Section_Articles/article_IntroToArchteypes.html

• Archetypes: Customizing Plone in 60 seconds (PDF) by Andy McKay

• http://www.enfoldsystems.com/About/Talks/archetypes.pdf

• Archetypes Fields Quick Reference by Maik Röder

• http://plone.org/documentation/archetypes/arch_field_quickref_1_3_1

• Archetypes Widgets Quick Reference by Maik Röder

• http://plone.org/documentation/archetypes/arch_widget_quickref_1_3_1