The Definitive Guide to Plone

Plone is one of the most successful open-source content management systems so far; its features are broad and powerful, as you'll see in this book. I wrote The Definitive Guide to Plone so that you can use the power of Plone to develop great-looking Web applications quickly and easily.

In this book I cover everything you'll need to know about Plone, with lots of examples from my own experience. I show you how you can fully customize Plone's features and create your own powerful Web applications. After getting you started with Plone's installation and basic functionality, I then dive under the hood of Plone and show you all these great features:

• Customizing workflow to alter the way your Plone site works
• Making your Plone site look different, with in-depth examples and details
• Adding and manipulating documents and images on your site
• Integrating Plone with Microsoft Office, Apache, LDAP, and other systems
• Building scalable Plone sites

This book assumes you know HTML, CSS, and the Web. For some of the more advanced Plone features, you'll also find knowledge of Python helpful.

Plone is one of the fastest-growing open-source content management systems available, and it's also one of the best looking. I've found that even the most mundane application is more successful if it looks good. Therefore, this book shows you how to produce applications quickly and simply, and it also ensures that they look good.

• Foreword
• About the Author
• About the Technical Reviewer
• Chapter 1 Introducing Plone
• What Is a Content Management System?
• Do You Want a Content Management System?
• Introducing Plone's Features
• Getting Involved in Plone's Development
• What Is Zope and the CMF?
• What Is Python?
• About This Book
• Chapter 2 Installing Plone
• Installing Plone on Windows
• Installing Plone on Mac OS X, Unix, and Linux
• Installing from Source
• Configuring the Web Server
• Chapter 3 Adding and Editing Content
• Joining a Site
• Setting Up Your Folder and Preferences
• Adding and Editing Documents
• Adding and Editing Other Types of Content
• Organizing Content
• Discussing and Finding Content
• Example: Creating the Plone Book Web Site
• Chapter 4 Making Simple Customizations
• Administrating Sites
• Customizing Plone's Look and Feel
• Chapter 5 Introducing Basic Plone Templating
• Understanding the Underlying Template Machinery
• Using the Zope Page Template System
• Understanding the Page Template Basic Syntax
• Chapter 6 Introducing Advanced Plone Templating and Scripting
• Understanding Advanced Plone Templating
• Scripting Plone with Python
• Useful Tips
• Using Forms
• Chapter 7 Customizing the Look and Feel of Plone
• Introducing Plone Skins
• Customizing Skins
• Making New Skins and Layers
• Case Study: Examining the NASA Skin
• Chapter 8 Managing Workflow
• What Is Workflow?
• Understanding Workflow in Plone
• Adding and Editing Workflow
• Common Tasks and Examples
• Chapter 9 Setting Up Security and Users
• Administering Users
• User Registration Tools
• Setting Permissions
• Scripting Users
• Integrating Plone with Other Services
• Chapter 10 Integrating with Other Systems
• Installing Plone Products
• Using a Different Web Server
• Integrating Plone with the File System
• Chapter 11 Manipulating and Categorization Content Types
• An Overview of Content Types
• Searching and Categorizing Content
• Chapter 12 Writing a Product in Python
• Writing a Custom Content Type
• Writing a Custom Tool
• Adding Some User Interface Elements
• Chapter 13 Developing with Archetypes
• Introducing Archetypes
• Developing with Archetypes
• Chapter 14 Administering and Scaling Plone
• Administering a Plone Site
• Improving Plone Performance
• Using Zope Enterprise Objects
• Appendix A Key Configurations and Some APIs
• Setting Up Your Environment
• Text Formatting Rules
• Miscellaneous
• Appendix B Code Listings
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Chapter 7
• Chapter 8
• Chapter 9
• Chapter 10
• Chapter 11
• Chapter 12
• Chapter 13
• Chapter 14
• Appendix C Glossary and Tools
• Tools
• Default Objects
• Glossary

An excellent complement to Meloni's book. Of course, it will grow old, by the release of new versions of Plone, but it is excellently written and gives all necessary detail to use and begin to develop in Plone.