================================ Plone 4 buildout for developers

.. contents ::

Introduction

Buildout <http://www.buildout.org>_ is a tool which automatically downloads, installs and configures Python software. Plone developers prefer uses buildout based installation method - it makes it easy to work with source code and developing your own Plone add-ons.

For production site installations please use standard Plone installer <http://plone.org/download>_.

Prerequisitements

What you need in order to use developer buildout with Plone 4

• Experience using command line tools

• Experience using a text editor to work with configuration files (buildout.cfg)

• GCC compiler suite to build native Python extensions (Zope contains C code for optimized parts)

• Python 2.6 (other versions are not ok for Plone 4)

• Python Imaging Library installed for your Python interpreter (more below)

• Python Distribute <http://pypi.python.org/pypi/distribute>_ installation tool, provided by your operating system or installed by hand

Read below from operating system specific instructions how to install these dependencies.

Features

This buildout provides

• Zope start up scripts (one instance)

• paster command for creating Plone add-ons (different from system-wide installation)

• test <http://plone.org/documentation/manual/plone-community-developer-documentation/testing-and-debugging/unit-testing>_ command for running automatic test suites

• i18ndude <http://pypi.python.org/pypi/i18ndude>_ for managing text string translations in Python source code

• omelette <http://pypi.python.org/pypi/collective.recipe.omelette>_ buildout recipe which makes Python egg source code more browseable by using symlinks

• mr.developer <http://pypi.python.org/pypi/mr.developer>_ command for managing source code checkouts and updates with buildout repeatable manner

• collective.developermanual <http://plone.org/documentation/manual/plone-community-developer-documentation>_ - community managed developer manual for Plone in source code form, ready for contributions

Creating Plone 4 buildout installation

Install ZopeSkel template package for your system-wide Python using Distribute::

easy_install ZopeSkel

... or upgrade existing installation::

easy_install -U ZopeSkel

You probably got here by running something like (replace myplonefoldername with the target folder where you want to Plone to be installed)::

zopeskel plone4_buildout myplonefoldername

Now, you need to run (please see remarks regarding your operating system below)::

python bootstrap.py

This will create bin folder and bin/buildout script. If you any time want to change Python interpreter associated with buildout, or you need to update buildout script itself to newer version please rerun bootsrap.py.

Now you can run buildout script which will download all Python packages (.egg files) and create parts/ and var/ folder structure ::

bin/buildout

If this succesfully completes you can start buildout in foreground mode (Press CTRL+C to terminate)::

bin/instance fg

Now you can login to your site

http://localhost:8080

The default user is admin with password admin. After initial start-up admin password is stored in Data.fs databse file and value in buildout.cfg is ignored. Please follow these instructions to change admin password <http://manage.plone.org/documentation/kb/changing-the-admin-password>_.

Next steps

Creating your first add-on

Plone 4 buildout comes with bin/paster command for creating Plone add-ons.

.. note ::

When working with Plone add-ons, use paster command from buildout bin folder, not the system wide paster command.

Create theme (applies for Plone 4 also)::

bin/zopeskel plone3_theme plonetheme.mythemeid

Create Archetypes based content types package::

bin/zopeskel archetype mycompanyid.content

Create other Plone customizations::

bin/zopeskel plone mycompanyid.mypackageid

More info

• Instructions how to use Paster command to create your own add-ons <http://collective-docs.plone.org/tutorials/paste.html>_

Managing source code checkouts with buildout

mr.developer buildout extension <http://pypi.python.org/pypi/mr.developer>_ command which can be used with buildout to manage your source code repositories mr.developer makes source code checkout from multiple repositores a repeatable task.

Operating system specific instructions

Ubuntu/Debian

Tested for Ubuntu 10.10.

Install prerequisitements::

sudo apt-get install python2.6 python-imaging wget build-essential python2.6-dev python-setuptools
easy_install ZopeSkel

OSX

Install OSX development tools (XCode) <http://developer.apple.com/>_ from Apple.

Install Macports <http://www.macports.org/>_.

Then the following installs dependencies::

sudo port install python26 py26-pil py26-distribute wget 
easy_install ZopeSkel

When you run bootstrap.pyuse the following command to make sure you are using Python interpreter from Macports::

python2.6 bootstrap.py

Windows

Microsoft Windows systems is problematic because it does not provide to Microsoft Visual C compiler (commercial) which is required to build native Python extensions.

Please read

• http://plone.org/documentation/kb/using-buildout-on-windows

Other

The orignal copy of these instructions is available at

• https://svn.plone.org/svn/collective/ZopeSkel/trunk/zopeskel/templates/plone4_buildout/README.txt