collective.editskinswitcher 0.8

Switch to the edit skin for certain domains.

Collective edit skin switcher

For a customer of Zest Software I [Maurits van Rees] created a package called collective.editskinswitcher. I gladly took some code from colleague Mark van Lent who did something similar for a different web site. The package is on the Cheese Shop so it can be easy installed. And the code is in the Plone collective.

What does it do?

Let’s say you have a Plone Site. I tested this with Plone 3. I see no reason why it should fail on Plone 2.5. Maybe it even works on a CMF site. Anyway, whatever site you have is available on two urls: www.yourdomain.com and edit.yourdomain.com. Some day you should ask your local Apache guru how he did that.

With collective.editskinswitcher installed (with the portal quick installer), visitors that go to the website with the url edit.yourdomain.com will see the Editor Skin. (This can be set in a property, as we shall see later.) Visitors to www.yourdomain.com will see whatever skin you have set as the default skin in portal_skins. Can be pretty handy.

To avoid confusion: we will call what you have set as “default skin” the Visitor Skin. And the skin meant for editors we call the Editor Skin.

Developer types probably like the fact that you also get the Visitor Skin when visiting localhost and the Editor Skin when you go to 127.0.0.1.

Other options

There are some options you can set. Go to portal_properties, and then go to the editskin_switcher property sheet. These options are available:

• edit_skin: set the skin that editors get. The default is “Plone Default”.

• switch_skin_action: choose the url condition that is used for switching to the edit skin. Options are:

  • based on edit URL: With this you get the behaviour described above. This is the default.

  • based on specific domain: If this is specified the edit skin is used when the first part of the url matches one of the entries in the specific_domains property. This url is the url for the root of thePlone Site; so usually this will be a domain, like http://special.domain.com.

  • based on admin header: If this is chosen you will need to set up your proxy server, eg. Apache, to add a ‘HTTP_PLONEADMIN’ header to the request. It can do this based on the url for instance. An example is given in /tests/ploneadmin_header.txt

  • based on SSL: If this is chosen, then any urls that are SSL will get the edit skin and others will get the default skin.

  • No URL based switching: do not base the skin switching on the url.

• need_authentication: when True you need to be logged in before your skin is switched. By default this is set to False. This looks for the __ac cookie that Plone gives you when logged in. Note: logging in via the Zope Management Interface is handled without cookies, so the editskin switcher regards you as anonymous then.

• force_login_header: when the request has this header, only authenticated use is allowed. This does not actually switch the skin; you just get redirected to the login_form. By default this is set to the string X_FORCE_LOGIN.

If you combine the switch skin action and the authentication, then you need to have the right url and you need to be logged in.

When both are not used, nothing happens: then you might as well simply uninstall this product as it is not useful.

Why not CMFUrlSkinSwitcher?

I looked at CMFUrlSkinSwitcher first but it had not been touched in two years. One import error (CMFCorePermissions) could easily be fixed as that import was not even used. But after that tests were failing all over the place. Theoretically always fixable of course, but rolling an own package seemed easier, cleaner and faster.

Also, CMFUrlSkinSwitcher does some more things. At least it messes around with some methods like absolute_url. It could be that I find out later that this is necessary in collective.editskinswitcher too, but currently it does not look like that will be the case.

How do I know this is working?

The easiest way to test this package in a default plone site (apart from running the tests of course), is:

• Install collective.editskinswitcher.

• Go to portal_skins in the ZMI.

• Create a new skin selection based on Plone Default. Call this “Visitor Skin”.

• Make Visitor Skin the default skin.

• Remove the custom skin layer from Plone Default.

• Customize the main template or the logo or something else that is easy to spot.

• Visit 127.0.0.1:8080/plonesite and you will see default Plone.

• Visit localhost:8080/plonesite and you will see Plone with your customization.

On Linux you can edit /etc/hosts and add a line like:

127.0.0.1 edit.yourdomain.com www.yourdomain.com

Now visiting edit.yourdomain.com should give you the Editor Skin and www.yourdomain.com should give you the Visitor Skin with the customizations.

You can also let the edit urls begin with cms or manage. As long as the url is something like:

...//(edit|cms|manage).something.something....

you end up in the edit skin.

Preview

The preview option allows you to see the default skin via the edit skin.

It does so by using an iframe which accesses the edit skin content but flips it to the default skin. This allows you to easily view previous versions, private content etc. as it will appear in the default skin if published.

This is particularly useful in cases where your default skin differs radically from the edit skin. It allows the edit interface to maintain some wysiwyg functionality.

Preview can either be used as a separate preview tab, or as a replacement for the view tab content in the edit skin.

Both are implemented within the tests folder and tested, but neither is used by default.

For the preview of editskinswitcher to be of use it requires an accompanying theme.egg holding the configuration for the default (and edit) skins. In order to use preview, it must be turned on within this accompanying theme egg. Example code to do this are within the tests folder.

Instructions for replacing view with preview are given in tests/skins/README.txt

To add it as a separate preview tab:

1. Add the browser view by putting what is in tests/configure.zcml in your theme egg configure.zcml

2. Within tests/add_preview.py there is ACTIONSCONFIG Add this as a profiles/default/actions.xml file. Change the default visible=False property to True.

Installation using zc.buildout

For using collective.editskinswitcher with zc.buildout you have to add collective.editskinswitcher to the eggs and zcml sections:

eggs = collective.editskinswitcher
...
zcml = collective.editskinswitcher
...

Configuration without using zc.buildout

If you are using collective.editskinswicher without zc.buildout, you need to add a ZCML slug collective.editksinswitcher-configure.zcml within your etc/package-includes directory containing:

<include package="collective.editskinswitcher" />

Have fun!

Maurits van Rees

Changelog for collective.editskinswitcher

0.8 (2010-04-16)

• Slightly better check for anonymous users, user getSecurityManager instead of checking for an __ac cookie. [maurits]

• When a X_FORCE_LOGIN header is passed (exact spelling is configurable) only allow access to logged in users (you get redirected usually). [maurits]

• Allow specifying the admin_header; defaults to HTTP_PLONEADMIN. [maurits]

• Added z3c.autoinclude.plugin entry point for plone, to avoid having collective.editskinswitcher in the zcml option of your zope instance; only effective in Plone 3.3 or higher. In earlier versions you still need to do this manually. [maurits]

0.7 (2008-10-04)

• Added switching option based on a request header flag set by the proxy server (eg. Apache) [Ed Crewe, ILRT - University of Bristol]

0.6 (2008-08-27)

• New preview feature so that the default skin can be seen via the edit skin interface to preserve some level of WYSIWYG for editing. (Based on part of an unreleased plone 2 product by Dominic Hiles.) Preview feature is available as a viewlet for use via a view or a viewletManager, but it is turned off by default. Examples of how to enable it are included in the tests, where it is enabled and tested. [Ed Crewe, ILRT - University of Bristol]

• Extra URL skin switching options of SSL or specific URLs [Ed Crewe, ILRT - University of Bristol]

• Setting eol style in subversion correctly. [reinout]

0.5 (2008-03-07)

• Bug fix: when called on the zope root (can happen in some cases) portal_properties was not found, which was not caught correctly. [maurits]

0.4 (2008-02-12)

• Bug fix: if object has no changeSkin, try its context. Happens at least on the sharing tab when searching for users, as object is a KSS view then. [maurits]

0.3 (2008-01-30)

• Instead of an Access Rule, use a pre-traversal hook. Idea: David Convent. Thanks! Is a lot cleaner. [maurits]

• Avoid confusion in README.txt: talk about Editor Skin and Visitor Skin instead of Plone Default and the default skin. [maurits]

• Update README.txt to tell about the new options introduced in version 0.2. [maurits]

0.2 (2008-01-28)

• When testing if the user is logged in, check for the __ac cookie in the request instead of portal_membership.isAnonymousUser as this does not work in real life; probably because we use an AccessRule. [maurits]

• Add based_on_url property (default: True). When True, the skin switching is done when you visit the site via an edit url. When combined with need_authentication=True, only logged-in users on the edit url get the edit skin. [maurits]

• Add need_authentication property (default: False). When True, the skin switching is only done when you are authenticated (logged in). [maurits]

• In the base test cases, create the new default skin. [maurits]

• Split tests/setup.txt in two files for separating some unrelated tests. [maurits]

• Add a more readable README.txt and move the old one into the tests directory as it contains most of our tests. [maurits]

0.1 (2008-01-25)

• Add a property sheet editskin_switcher with property edit_skin. Default value: Plone Default. Use that for determining which skin to give to editors. [maurits]

• Initial package structure. [zopeskel]