mr.scripty - my new best friend

If you’re working with Buildout, then check out mr.scripty, a fantastic Buildout recipe that allows you to use Python code in functions within its options.  This means that - in the few instances I’ve used it so far - have conditional statements regarding effectively anything.

In the two examples I added to the source documentation, I go and configure download links based upon architecture and separately, configure some (Java) environment variables based upon which directories exist (eg to handle different Linux distributions that might be running). This is only the start, but it’s a fantastic one.

Amazing I …

in Python · Fri 24 February 2012

Extracting a Buildout versions.cfg from a Zope instance script

Today, I needed to migrate some legacy Plone installs set up using Buildout. If I were to simply move the buildout files and re-run buildout, I’d end up with the latest versions of add-on products - and since I’m using legacy versions of Plone 3, that’d almost certainly break the system.  I do know about the Buildout extension buildout.dumppickedversions (which does what its name suggests and exports picked versions of eggs) but I can’t re-run buildout to get this extension for risk of updating existing products (what I’m trying to avoid!).

The good news is …

in Python · Thu 02 June 2011

Can’t run Plone/Zope buildout on Ubuntu 11.04 after upgrade from 10.10

After upgrading from Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat) to Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal), you’ll probably find that if you’re running a Plone 4 buildout where you need to upgrade the Plone version, that compilation of Zope will fail. The output will look something like this:

Getting distribution for 'Zope2==2.12.17'.
In file included from src/AccessControl/cAccessControl.c:51:0:
include/ExtensionClass/ExtensionClass.h:83:20: fatal error: Python.h: No such file or directory
compilation terminated.
error: Setup script exited with error: command 'gcc' failed with exit status 1
An error occured when trying …

in IT, Linux, Software · Wed 11 May 2011

Increasing Plone’s session timeout

What you may notice if you’re developing with Plone/Zope, is that if you’re storing small pieces of data within Plone’s session variable (the session_data_manager tool), data expires after a few minutes.  By default, this timeout is 20 minutes, but is far too short if you’re expecting the information stored to last for say the whole time a user is logged in.  In this situation, you’ll need to increase the timeout.

Documentation on changing the session timeout is potentially a little sketchy (Google “session-timeout-minutes zope”), but it’s clear that you need to change the …

in Plone · Tue 08 March 2011

Buildout: order of ‘extends’ configuration files

Yet another word to the wise: take care of your ordering of the ‘extends’ configuration files within your buildout.  It makes complete sense, and especially so with respect to version pinning: the later configuration’s versions will be the last one applied.

So, it makes a lot of sense (in hindsight!) that this configuration, and the fact I have version pins in my base.cfg, isn’t going to end well:

[buildout]
extends =
    base.cfg
    http://good-py.appspot.com/release/dexterity/1.0b2

The Dexterity version pins are going to override the ones I have in my base.cfg.  This …

in Python · Thu 06 January 2011

Plone/Zope: Utilising zope.testrecorder for unit testing

Writing unit tests (especial doctests) for your Plone product is reasonably time consuming. For us developers, having tested code is absolutely essential. This is especially true when clients are beating down your door looking for a fully functional product and you need to know what you’ve written works and isn’t going to fall over (just yet, anyway). Web apps are able to be tested using a multitude of frameworks, and whilst not the most fully featured (eg lacking Javascript support), Zope’s doctest machinery is right there within your Plone product. In order to write these, enter zope …

in Plone · Thu 25 March 2010

David tries Plone 4.0a2 (Part 1)

Plone 4 is approaching!  Excellent!  Lots of new features to play around with and plenty more things to have to fix with the upgrade.  I’ve been keeping tabs on the change log of updates and it’s looking really good. Lots of little, but significant, changes are afoot.  Now, how about actually installing the Alpha 2 version of Plone 4 to see it for real? Let’s do it!

My steps are not going to work on your computer.  I don’t think you’ll be able to follow my words/commands exactly, but here goes anyway about my …

in Plone · Tue 08 December 2009

Buildout: the biggest problems have the simplest answers…

..and how true that is.  Today’s time consumer is directly related to just 1 misplaced line of a buildout configuration (and presumably something that’s changed somewhere else).

in Buildout · Thu 03 September 2009

Buildout: Best Thing Ever?

Taking a little bit of a time-out, I just have to ask the question: is Buildout not the best thing ever? (and the people who are so very kind to make the recipes?)

It’s made my work of managing our Plone infrastructure about 1000 times simpler since moving from Instancemanager (ughhh) and having to manually manage everything. I remember being a bit sceptical and very confused the first time I saw a buildout configuration file and thought that I’d never understand the thing.

Far, far from it of course! Whilst a little daunting at first, buildout has (in …

in Python · Fri 20 February 2009

Buildout: Trying to create a Plone/Zope instance

Eeek…what’s this mean?

install() got an unexpected keyword argument 'allow_hosts'

after trying to build zope2zeoserver from my buildout configuration.

After some searching, I found that it was due to my bootstrap.py script (the one the gets buildout in the first place and creates the relevant scripts) was actually pulling down an outdated version of zc.buildout. So, the problem results because this old version of buildout doesn’t have a clue how to handle the given argument.

Solution: update the buildout. For me, that meant correcting the bootstrap script, but for you, it could be a matter …

in Python · Wed 11 February 2009