WARNING

As of version 3.0, ZopeSkel is no longer a package of its own. All the templates that make it work have been moved into packages in the templer namespace. Some of the templates you may be expecting are no longer available. If you require older templates, please be sure to install ZopeSkel<3.0

Introduction

ZopeSkel provides a collection of scaffolds (software project templates) for Plone and Zope development projects.

ZopeSkel is an application built using the Templer code generation framework. Internally, Templer is an extension of the Paster Python library.

More information about Templer, and ZopeSkel as an example of a Templer application, can be found in the Templer Manual

Installing ZopeSkel

ZopeSkel can be installed in one of two ways: with buildout or in a virtualenv. When installing ZopeSkel, it is very important that you start with a clean Python environment, one that does not already include ZopeSkel or any other templer packages. Package version conflicts can be the cause of many errors. For this reason, it is recommended that you work either with a clean virtualenv or a buildout that has been bootstrapped by a Python installation that does not have ZopeSkel installed.

Buildout installation

It is possible to add ZopeSkel to a buildout, providing you with the ability to develop new packages directly in your project buildout environment. Once you have added ZopeSkel, you can use it to add new packages in the src/ folder within your buildout.

First, add the following to your buildout.cfg:

# Add zopeskel to the last line of the parts = section in the [buildout] part of buildout.cfg
parts =
    ...
    zopeskel

# Add zopeskel section generating zopeskel command and
# related scaffold packages
[zopeskel]
recipe = zc.recipe.egg
unzip = true
eggs =
    PasteScript
    ZopeSkel

After re-running buildout, you will have zopeskel and paster commands in the bin directory of your buildout. You can use these commands as described below to begin creating new packages.

Virtualenv installation

First, install virtualenv into your system:

easy_install virtualenv

Next, create a virtual environment with the new virtualenv command:

virtualenv --no-site-packages --distribute zopeskelenv

Once virtualenv is finished, you can install zopeskel to your new virtual environment:

zopeskelenv/bin/easy_install zopeskel

Once this is complete, you will be left with zopeskel and paster commands in the bin directory inside your virtualenv. If your virtualenv is 'activated', then the commands will be available directly.

Available Templates

ZopeSkel internally consists of several templer.* packages which provide individual templates. When you install ZopeSkel you automatically get all the packages that are required to run ZopeSkel.

To see details of the available templates:

zopeskel --list

More info about how zopeskel works:

zopeskel --help

Using Templates

Creating a package using virtualenv ZopeSkel installation:

source zopeskelenv/bin/activate
zopeskel <template_name> <package_name>

The folder created (<package_name>) can be checked in to the versioning system of your choice.

Local Commands

Local commands are available for the plone_basic and archetype package templates. If you create a package using one of these templates you will be provided with information about the presence of local commands.

To run a local command and add further features to your package, you will run the paster command add from within your package. Your current working directory must be at or inside the directory where you find your package's egg-info, so you can do the following:

$ bin/templer plone_basic my.package
....
$ cd my.package/src
$ ../../bin/paster --help
...
Templer local commands:
  add  Allows the addition of further templates to an existing package
$ ../../bin/paster add --list
browserlayer:  A Plone browserlayer
browserview:   A browser view skeleton
$ ../../bin/paster add browserlayer
...

Developing ZopeSkel

If you wish to contribute to the zopeskel project we welcome your contribution. Zopeskel is now distributed with its own built-in buildout, so to begin, all you need to do is check out the source, bootstrap with your desired version of python, and run bin/buildout.

Since all of the template that are provided by ZopeSkel are now in templer namespace packages, the ZopeSkel package uses mr.developer to provide access to all the templer packages required in the src directory of the buildout. Development should take place in those packages. There should be no templates in the ZopeSkel package at all.

To get started, simply clone the zopeskel repository to your local machine, bootstrap with your preferred python, and run the buildout:

git clone git@github.com:collective/ZopeSkel.git zopeskel
cd zopeskel
python2.6 bootstrap.py
...
bin/buildout

Testing

Since version 1.5, ZopeSkel has tests. It's required to run these before you check in any changes you make. You should run the full test suite in both Python 2.4 and Python 2.6, as both versions are in common use among Zope and Plone developers. They can be run like so:

bin/test

Please ensure that all tests pass in Python 2.4 and Python 2.6 before making any checkins to any templer package used by zopeskel.

Fixing Bugs

There are a number of open issues in the queue at http://plone.org/products/zopeskel/issues and your help is always welcome in closing any you feel competent to take on. Please note that there is a zopeskel mailing list, so if you have any questions about your approach to fixing a bug, you should post to the list first.

More info

Issue tracker

• http://plone.org/products/zopeskel/issues

Source code

• https://github.com/collective/zopeskel

Mailing List

• https://lists.plone.org/mailman/listinfo/plone-zopeskel

Please contribute by submitting patches for what you consider 'best of breed' file layouts for starting Zope and Plone projects.