How to add development eggs

For those who are familiar with Plone 2.5 one may remember being able to add a product to Plone by placing it in the Products folder.  If the product was being activly developed one would place their Plone server in "development mode" and any changes made to the product would become instantly live.  Plone 3 introduces eggs - which encapsulates products.  Eggs require a slightly different process if one wishes to actively develop an egg.  Instead of placing the product in the Products folder - one needs to add the egg into the src directory and then add a few things in the buildout.cfg file.

Examples

Creating a new portlet egg using paster

example command:

   cd /opt/Plone-3.1/zinstance/src/
   /opt/Plone-3.1/Python-2.4/bin/paster create -t plone3_portlet uwosh.cusportlet

*Note: additional useful paster commands: plone3_theme, plone3_app, archtype

This example will create a blank portlet egg called cusportlet.  Before creation it will ask you the following questions:

   Selected and implied templates:
   ZopeSkel#nested_namespace  A project with two nested namespaces.
   ZopeSkel#plone3_portlet    A Plone 3 portlet
   Variables:
   egg:      uwosh.cusportlet
   package:  uwoshcusportlet
   project:  uwosh.cusportlet
   Enter namespace_package (Namespace package (like plone)) ['collective']: uwosh
   Enter namespace_package2 (Nested namespace package (like app)) ['portlet']:
   Enter package (The package contained namespace package (like example)) ['example']: cusportlet
   Enter zope2product (Are you creating a Zope 2 Product?) [True]:
   Enter version (Version) ['0.1']:
   Enter description (One-line description of the package) ['']: This is an example portlet
   Enter long_description (Multi-line description (in reST)) ['']: This is a blank portlet ready for development
   Enter author (Author name) ['Plone Foundation']: Me
   Enter author_email (Author email) ['plone-developers@lists.sourceforge.net']:
   Enter keywords (Space-separated keywords/tags) ['']: blank template development portlet custom
   Enter url (URL of homepage) ['http://plone.org']:
   Enter license_name (License name) ['GPL']:
   Enter zip_safe (True/False: if the package can be distributed as a .zip file) [False]:
   Enter portlet_name (Portlet name (human readable)) ['Example portlet']: Custom Portlet
   Enter portlet_type_name (Portlet type name (should not contain spaces)) ['ExamplePortlet']: CusPortlet

After you have created the portlet egg you must register the portlet through the buildout file.  To complete this add the following lines to your buildout.cfg file (/opt/Plone-3.1/zinstance/buildout.cfg).

   #Under "eggs = "add the following line
   uwosh.cusportlet
   #Under "develop = " add the following line
   src/uwosh.cusportlet
   #Under "zcml = " add the following line
   uwosh.portlet.cusportlet

After modifying the buildout.cfg rebuild the buildout (cd /opt/Plone-3.1/zinstance/; sudo ./bin/buildout) and restart the Plone server.  You should now be able to add the product through the Plone Add/Remove Products page.

Adding the uwosh theme as a development egg

First checkout the desired product from the repository

   svn co https://svn.it.uwosh.edu/svn/plone/Projects/uwosh.core/trunk /opt/Plone-3.1/zinstance/src/uwosh.core

Add the following lines to your buildout.cfg file (/opt/Plone-3.1/zinstance/buildout.cfg).

   #Under "eggs = "add the following line
   uwosh.core
   #Under "develop = " add the following line
   src/uwosh.core
   #Under "zcml = " add the following line
   uwosh.core

Rebuild the buildout (cd /opt/Plone-3.1/zinstance/; sudo ./bin/buildout) and restart the Plone server.  You should now be able to add the product through the Plone Add/Remove Products page.  Repeat as needed for the other oshkosh products.