ArchGenXML en plone 3 - Kim Chee leong (plone gebruikersdag 2008)¶

Goldmund, wyldebeast & wunderliebe uses archgenxml to create plone content types.

Plone's standard content types are made with archetypes. Archetypes takes care of a whole lot of standard things like display menu, workflow, standard fields like title or description. "Batteries included".

UML is a (graphical) modelling language to describe applications. Archgenxml converts UML into usable archetypes/plone code. A UML diagram is quite readable, so you get a quick overview of your product's structure. Really handy are UML status diagrams to create workflows.

To draw UML, you need a tool. For instance argouml (open source); poseidon; object domain. They themselves use argouml, even though it is not the most user friendly program (half-functioning copy/paste, non-existent undo). Tip from the audience: bouml, which apparently works great. You can also apparently easily switch from argouml.

Advantages: quick; speedy development; relations between content types are easy; workflow generation is super easy. A disadvantage is that it is one-way: changes in python code don't propagate back to the model. Changes in the python code are however preserved.

(Afterwards he gave a demonstration).