Using a custom buildout

Note: If you are using Windows, if you do not have PIL installed, or you are not using Python 2.4 as your main system Python, please see the relevant sections below.

You probably got here by running something like:

$ paster create -t plone3_buildout

Now, you need to run:

$ python bootstrap.py

This will install zc.buildout for you.

To create an instance immediately, run:

$ bin/buildout

This will download Plone's eggs and products for you, as well as other dependencies, create a new Zope 2 installation (unless you specified an existing one when you ran "paster create"), and create a new Zope instance configured with these products.

You can start your Zope instance by running:

$ bin/instance start

or, to run in foreground mode:

$ bin/instance fg

To run unit tests, you can use:

$ bin/instance test -s my.package

Installing PIL

To use Plone, you need PIL, the Python Imaging Library. If you don't already have this, download and install it from http://www.pythonware.com/products/pil.

Using a different Python installation

Buildout will use your system Python installation by default. However, Zope 2.10 (and by extension, Plone) will only work with Python 2.4. You can verify which version of Python you have, by running:

$ python -V

If that is not a 2.4 version, you need to install Python 2.4 from http://python.org. If you wish to keep another version as your main system Python, edit buildout.cfg and add an 'executable' option to the "[buildout]" section, pointing to a python interpreter binary:

[buildout] ... executable = /path/to/python

Working with buildout.cfg

You can change any option in buildout.cfg and re-run bin/buildout to reflect the changes. This may delete things inside the 'parts' directory, but should keep your Data.fs and source files intact.

To save time, you can run buildout in "offline" (-o) and non-updating (-N) mode, which will prevent it from downloading things and checking for new versions online:

$ bin/buildout -Nov

Creating new eggs

New packages you are working on (but which are not yet released as eggs and uploaded to the Python Package Index, aka PYPI) should be placed in src. You can do:

$ cd src/ $ paster create -t plone my.package

Use "paster create --list-templates" to see all available templates. Answer the questions and you will get a new egg. Then tell buildout about your egg by editing buildout.cfg and adding your source directory to 'develop':

[buildout] ... develop =

src/my.package

You can list multiple packages here, separated by whitespace or indented newlines.

You probably also want the Zope instance to know about the package. Add its package name to the list of eggs in the "[instance]" section, or under the main "[buildout]" section:

[instance] ... eggs =

${buildout:eggs} ${plone:eggs} my.package

Leave the ${buildout:eggs} part in place - it tells the instance to use the eggs that buildout will have downloaded from the Python Package Index previously.

If you also require a ZCML slug for your package, buildout can create one automatically. Just add the package to the 'zcml' option:

[instance] ... zcml =

my.package

When you are finished, re-run buildout. Offline, non-updating mode should suffice:

$ bin/buildout -Nov

Developing old-style products

If you are developing old-style Zope 2 products (not eggs) then you can do so by placing the product code in the top-level 'products' directory. This is analogous to the 'Products/' directory inside a normal Zope 2 instance and is scanned on start-up for new products.

Depending on a new egg

If you want to use a new egg that is in the Python Package Index, all you need to do is to add it to the "eggs" option under the main "[buildout]" section:

[buildout] ... eggs =

my.package

If it's listed somewhere else than the Python Package Index, you can add a link telling buildout where to find it in the 'find-links' option:

[buildout] ... find-links =

http://dist.plone.org http://download.zope.org/distribution/ http://effbot.org/downloads http://some.host.com/packages

Using existing old-style products

If you are using an old-style (non-egg) product, you can either add it as an automatically downloaded archive or put it in the top-level "products" folder. The former is probably better, because it means you can redistribute your buildout.cfg more easily:

[productdistros] recipe = plone.recipe.distros urls =

http://plone.org/products/someproduct/releases/1.3/someproduct-1.3.tar.gz

If someproduct-1.3.tar.gz extracts into several products inside a top-level directory, e.g. SomeProduct-1.3/PartOne and SomeProduct-1.3/PartTwo, then add it as a "nested package":

[productdistros] recipe = plone.recipe.distros urls =

http://plone.org/products/someproduct/releases/1.3/someproduct-1.3.tar.gz

nested-packages =

someproduct-1.3.tar.gz

Alternatively, if it extracts to a directory which contains the version number, add it as a "version suffix package":

[productdistros] recipe = plone.recipe.distros urls =

http://plone.org/products/someproduct/releases/1.3/someproduct-1.3.tar.gz

version-suffix-packages =

someproduct-1.3.tar.gz

You can also track products by adding a new bundle checkout part. It doesn't strictly have to be an svn bundle at all, any svn location will do, and cvs is also supported:

[buildout] ... parts =

plone zope2 productdistros myproduct instance zopepy

Note that "myproduct" comes before the "instance" part. You then need to add a new section to buildout.cfg:

[myproduct] recipe = plone.recipe.bundlecheckout url = http://svn.plone.org/svn/collective/myproduct/trunk

Finally, you need to tell Zope to find this new checkout and add it to its list of directories that are scanned for products:

[instance] ... products =

${buildout:directory}/products ${productdistros:location} ${plonebundle:location} ${myproduct:location}

Without this last step, the "myproduct" part is simply managing an svn checkout and could potentially be used for something else instead.

Using Windows

To use buildout on Windows, you will need to install a few dependencies which other platforms manage on their own.

Here are the steps you need to follow (thanks to Hanno Schlichting for these):

Python (http://python.org)

• Download and install Python 2.4.4 using the Windows installer from http://www.python.org/ftp/python/2.4.4/python-2.4.4.msi Select 'Install for all users' and it will put Python into the "C:Python24" folder by default.

• You also want the pywin32 extensions available from http://downloads.sourceforge.net/pywin32/pywin32-210.win32-py2.4.exe?modtime=1159009237&big_mirror=0

• And as a last step you want to download the Python imaging library available from http://effbot.org/downloads/PIL-1.1.6.win32-py2.4.exe

• If you develop Zope based applications you will usually only need Python 2.4 at the moment, so it's easiest to put the Python binary on the systems PATH, so you don't need to specify its location manually each time you call it.

  Thus, put "C:Python24" and "C:Python24Scripts" onto the PATH. You can find the PATH definition in the control panel under system preferences on the advanced tab at the bottom. The button is called environment variables. You want to add it at the end of the already existing PATH in the system section. Paths are separated by a semicolons.

• You can test if this was successful by opening a new shell (cmd) and type in 'python -V'. It should report version 2.4.4 (or whichever version you installed).

  Opening a new shell can be done quickly by using the key combination 'Windows-r' or if you are using Parallels on a Mac 'Apple-r'. Type in 'cmd' into the popup box that opens up and hit enter.

Subversion (http://subversion.tigris.org)

• Download the nice installer from http://subversion.tigris.org/files/documents/15/35379/svn-1.4.2-setup.exe
• Run the installer. It defaults to installing into "C:Program FilesSubversion".
• Now put the install locations bin subfolder (for example "C:Program FilesSubversionbin") on your system PATH in the same way you put Python on it.
• Open a new shell again and type in: 'svn --version' it should report version 1.4.2 or newer.

MinGW (http://www.mingw.org/)

This is a native port of the gcc compiler and its dependencies for Windows. There are other approaches enabling you to compile Python C extensions on Windows including Cygwin and using the official Microsoft C compiler, but this is a lightweight approach that uses only freely available tools. As it's used by a lot of people chances are high it will work for you and there's plenty of documentation out there to help you in troubleshooting problems.

• Download the MinGW installer from http://downloads.sourceforge.net/mingw/MinGW-5.1.3.exe?modtime=1168794334&big_mirror=1
• The installer will ask you which options you would like to install. Choose base and make here. It will install into "C:MinGW" by default. The install might take some time as it's getting files from sourceforge.net and you might need to hit 'retry' a couple of times.
• Now put the install location's bin subfolder (for example "C:MinGWbin") on your system PATH in the same way you put Python on it.
• Test this again by typing in: 'gcc --version' on a newly opened shell and it should report version 3.4.2 or newer.

Configure Distutils to use MinGW

Some general information are available from http://www.mingw.org/MinGWiki/index.php/Python%20extensions for example but you don't need to read them all.

• Create a file called 'distutils.cfg' in "C:Python24Libdistutils". Open it with a text editor ('notepad distutils.cfg') and fill in the following lines:

  [build] compiler=mingw32

  This will tell distutils to use MinGW as the default compiler, so you don't need to specify it manually using "--compiler=mingw32" while calling a package's setup.py with a command that involves building C extensions. This is extremely useful if the build command is written down in a buildout recipe where you cannot change the options without hacking the recipe itself. The z2c.recipe.zope2install used in ploneout is one such example.