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Integrating jQuery UI 1.8 with Plone 4

Posted on February 23, 2011

We had some problems integrating jQuery UI to Plone 4.

Looks like jQuery UI wants to define jQuery.tabs() and Plone 4 wants to do this also (form_tabbing.js).  After loading jQuery UI, Edit page tabs stopped working.

The solution is to build a custom jQuery UI download bundle without Tabs feature includes. Then you should be able to simple drop jQuery UI to any page:

 <metal:head define-macro="javascript_head">    
 <link rel="stylesheet" tal:attributes="href string:${context/portal_url}/jquery-ui-1.8.9.custom/css/ui-lightness/jquery-ui-1.8.9.custom.css" type="text/css" />
 <script type="text/javascript" tal:attributes="src string:${context/portal_url}/jquery-ui-1.8.9.custom/js/jquery-ui-1.8.9.custom.min.js"></script>
 <script type="text/javascript" src="yourjqueryuiscript.js"></script>
 </metal:head>

Maybe jQuery object is the next battlefield of namespace conflicts…

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Userland templates for Plone – template engine abstraction layer for Python

Posted on November 9, 2008

I have been working with collective.easytemplate product which allows users to use template tags on various places on Plone site. Currently supporting

  • Kupu
  • Outgoing email actions (Content rules ones)

The users can place ${title}, ${object_url} and other template in the edit mode. These variables which are directly mapped from Archetypes fields when the content is viewed/sent. Also, one can register custom snippet generators like $list_folder_content.

I hope Easy Template to cover some more actions in the future. I have noted PloneFormGen and Singing & Dancing product authors that we could add some mixed in functionality together.

Currently Easy Template uses Cheetah template backend. Cheetah is not Zope security friendly and exposing templated actions should be allowed only to trusted members. I am not huge fan of Plone’s TAL template language which is based on XML attributes and thus suitable only be used in XML context – this language is aimed only for hardcore hackers and software designers and ordinary folk really cannot wrap their minds around it.

Because I am not sure which will be the chosen template backend in the future I chose to abstract the template engine layer away. I created collective.templateengines product. It is a bunch of Zope interfaces and utility functions to abstract away common template actions like

  • Applying a template
  • Adding a template context variables
  • Registering custom template tags

Currently collective.templateengines supports Cheetah and Django templates.

So, dear audience, what do you think of all this? What template engine would you suggest which would be Kupu friendly – you can edit the template language in WYSIWYG editor? Do you see any other usages for collective.templateengines? Which other projects could adopt template engine abstraction layer?