Zope Hosting and Development

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What is Zope?

Zope is a next-generation Web application server and content management system. Although it can be used simply as a traditional Web server, Zope is also a powerful framework for allowing many people to collaborate on the development of websites and dynamic Web applications.

While it has built-in object and relational databases, Zope easily integrates with standard databases like Oracle and MySQL and can be extended using hundreds of third-party products or by using Python, a powerful and easy-to-use open source scripting language. Zope itself is open source and is written in Python

Zope is developed by Zope Corporation and has a very active user and developer community at Zope.org. ZopeTopia is also proud to host ZopeZen, a Zope blog run by Andy McKay of Agmweb Consulting.

Why Use Zope?

All You Need is a Web Browser

If you know HTML, Zope websites can be developed using nothing but a standard Web browser. Spot a typo on your website? Correct it instantly right from within your browser! Most hosting packages require you to use an ftp client which can be difficult to configure and means an extra step in publishing your site to the Web.

If you don't know HTML, you can use WYSIWYG ("What You See Is What You Get") website development software like Microsoft FrontPage™, or the free HTML editor that comes with Netscape Communicator, and upload the saved HTML files through your browser. (For more on using FrontPage with Zope, read this FAQ.)

(Click on the image thumbnail to see a full-size screenshot of the Zope management interface.)

Built-in Security

Zope makes it easy to authorize who can do what to your website. Need to give access to your Web designer? Simply create a new manager account in your Zope management interface (again, using nothing but your Web browser), send them the new account name and password and they can instantly update your site from anywhere using nothing but a standard Web browser.

Store Files Easily (and Safely) on the Web

Do you often email files to yourself?

Zope makes it easy to create a private, password-protected file-storage area directly on the Web. Simply create a folder on your Zope website that only you can access—using Zope's built-in authentication mechanism—and upload your files directly to the Web without worrying that they'll be rejected by your email server for being "too big".

You can download your files from anywhere you have access to a Web browser, and they're protected with your password.

Undo Mistakes

If you accidentally delete a file or make a mistake in your Zope website, Zope allows you to undo any changes.

Database Integration

Zope itself is built on top of a object database, but it also integrates well with mainstream SQL databases like Oracle, SQL Server and MySQL. Lane Street Labs has installed the MySQL database adapter for Zope, so you can develop high-perfomance, dynamic database-backed Web applications.

However, you don't need to use a relational database to develop sophisticated sites in Zope. See ZopeZen (a ZopeTopia hosted site) as an example.

3rd Party Zope Products

"Products" are extensions that extend the functionality of the core Zope server. Lane Street Labs is committed to running the latest stable version of Zope (currently at version 2.6.1). We will consider requests to install 3rd party extensions (e.g., Squishdot), provided they are stable and demand warrants it.

Currently we have installed LocalFS, which allows access to the file-system from within Zope, and the Zope MySQL database adapter, which allows using a MySQL database from within Zope.

Of course, if you go with our standalone Zope instance package, you can install whatever products you choose to.