Adding It All Up - Zope

The final item on today's menu is perhaps the simplest - a form which allows administrators to easily add new questions to the system.

This DTML method, aptly named "addPoll", is divided into two sections, as seen in the listing below:

<dtml-var standard_html_header>
<h3>Add New Poll</h3>
<dtml-if submit>
<dtml-call 
insertPoll>
<h4>Poll added successfully!</h4>
<p>
Click here to <a 
href="viewCurrentPoll">view</a> it.
<p>
<dtml-else>
<table border="0" 
cellspacing="5" cellpadding="5">
<form action="addPoll" method="post">
<tr>
<td>Poll 
question<br><input type="Text" name="question" size="25"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Response 
1<br><input type="Text" name="response1" size="25"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Response 
2<br><input type="Text" name="response2" size="25"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Response 
3<br><input type="Text" name="response3" size="25"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td 
align=center><input type=submit name=submit value="Add Poll"></td>
</tr>
</form>
</table>
</dtml-if>
<dtml-var 
standard_html_footer>

The first task is to check if the form has been submitted. If it has not yet been submitted, then the method generates an empty form, with fields for the question and possible responses. Once the form is submitted, the data entered into the form by the administrator is inserted into the database via the "insertPoll" Z SQL Method below.

INSERT INTO poll (question, response1, response2, response3, date) 
VALUES (<dtml-sqlvar question type="string">, <dtml-sqlvar response1 type="string">, <dtml-sqlvar response2 type="string">, <dtml-sqlvar response3 type="string">, <dtml-sqlvar ZopeTime type="string">)

Note that the built-in ZopeTime DTML variable (which returns the current system time) has been used to insert the current date as part of the table record. This is similar to the now() function that is built into the MySQL database.

Here's what the form and its result look like:





And that's about it. Hopefully, this exercise gave you some insight into how Zope can be used to build a simple Web application, and illustrated its power and flexibility as a rapid development tool for the Web medium. See ya! Note: All examples in this article have been tested on Linux/i586 with Zope 2.5. Examples are illustrative only, and are not meant for a production environment. Melonfire provides no warranties or support for the source code described in this article. YMMV!

>>> More Zope Articles          >>> More By Harish Kamath, (c) Melonfire

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