plone.autoinclude 1.0.0a1

Auto include code and zcml

plone.autoinclude

Automatically include zcml of a package when it is loaded in a Plone site.

Features

• It is an alternative to z3c.autoinclude.

• When a package registers an autoinclude entry point, we load its Python code at Zope/Plone startup.

• And we load its zcml.

• Works with Buildout-installed packages.

• Works with pip-installed packages.

Compatibility

This is made for Python 3.6+. It works on Plone 5.2 and 6.0.

It is intended (at least by some) to be used in core Plone 6. See “pre-PLIP” 3053.

For add-on authors

When you have an existing package that has some zcml, you probably already have something like this in your setup.py:

entry_points="""
[z3c.autoinclude.plugin]
target = plone
"""

or in a dictionary:

entry_points={
    "z3c.autoinclude.plugin": [
        "target = plone",
    ],
}

or in setup.cfg:

[options.entry_points]
z3c.autoinclude.plugin =
    target=plone

This still works! You do not need to change anything.

But if you do not care about compatibility with z3c.autoinclude, you could use this new entry point:

entry_points="""
[plone.autoinclude.plugin]
target = plone
"""

It does the same thing, but it only works with plone.autoinclude.

Entry point details

This is an entry point with all options specified:

entry_points="""
[plone.autoinclude.plugin]
target = plone
module = example.alternative
"""

You must specify at least one option, otherwise the entry point does not exist.

target

In which framework should your zcml be loaded? For a Plone add-on you would use plone. If Zope ever wants to use something similar, it could add configuration to look for packages with target="zope". You can come up with targets yourself, and load them in a policy package, maybe: cms, frontend, companyname, customername, nl/de (language). If target is empty, or the option is not there, the zcml will get loaded by all frameworks.

module

Use this when your package name is different from what you import in Python.

Comparison with z3c.autoinclude

• z3c.autoinclude supports includeDependencies in a zcml file in your package. This would look in the setup_requires of the package to find dependencies. For each, it would load the zcml. This can take quite long. It might not work for packages installed by pip, but this is not confirmed. In the Plone community this is discouraged, and Plone already disables this in the tests. plone.autoinclude does not support this. You should load the zcml of the dependencies explicitly in the configure.zcml of your package.

• z3c.autoinclude tries hard to find packages in non-standard places, installed in weird or old ways, or with a module name that differs from the package name, with code especially suited for eggs that buildout installs. plone.autoinclude simply uses importlib.import_module on the module name. If there is a mismatch between package name and module name, you can set module = modulename in your entry point.

• z3c.autoinclude does not support empty targets. The target of the entry point must match the target that is being loaded. plone.autoinclude does support empty targets: they will always get loaded. This is not good or bad, it is just a different choice.

• z3c.autoinclude supports disabling loading the plugins, via either an environment variable or an api call. plone.autoinclude does not. But Products.CMFPlone currently loads the z3c.autoinclude plugins unless a zcml condition is true: not-have disable-autoinclude. When Products.CMFPlone switches to plone.autoinclude, it can use this same condition.

In general, plone.autoinclude is a bit more modern, as it only started in 2020, and only supports Python 3.

Installation

Note: this will change when/if Plone 6 uses plone.autoinclude by default. You do not have to worry about this then. But this package should be usable with targets other than Plone.

To install plone.autoinclude, first add it to your buildout:

[buildout]
...
eggs =
    plone.autoinclude
zcml =
    plone.autoinclude-meta

and then run bin/buildout.

You may need to disable z3c.autoinclude, as it does not seem useful to let them both run. In a meta.zcml file, add:

<meta:provides feature="disable-autoinclude" />

If the z3c.autoinclude package is present, it will see this and do nothing.

For core Plone my intention would be to do this:

• Remove code that loads the z3c.autoinclude package, mostly in Products.CMFPlone. Replace it with the plone.autoinclude variant.

• In Products.CMFPlone/meta.zcml set:

  <include package="plone.autoinclude" file="meta.zcml" />
  <autoIncludePlugins target="plone" file="meta.zcml" />

• In Products.CMFPlone/configure.zcml set:

  <autoIncludePlugins target="plone" file="configure.zcml" />

• In Products.CMFPlone/overrides.zcml set:

  <autoIncludePluginsOverrides target="plone" file="overrides.zcml" />

See also the package-includes directory in this repository and test-packages/example.ploneintegration. And see CMFPlone branch plone-autoinclude, based on 5.2.x.

Installation with pip

Let’s leave buildout completely out of the picture and only use pip, in this case with plone 5.2.3:

# Create virtual environment in the current directory:
python3.8 -mvenv .
# Install Plone:
bin/pip install -c https://dist.plone.org/release/5.2.3/constraints3.txt Products.CMFPlone
# Install plone.autoinclude from the current git checkout:
bin/pip install -e .
# When I try bin/mkwsgiinstance it complains that Paste is missing.
# We could use waitress instead, but let's try Paste for now:
bin/pip install -c https://dist.plone.org/release/5.2.3/constraints3.txt Paste
# Create the Zope WSGI instance:
bin/mkwsgiinstance -d . -u admin:admin
# Copy our zcml that disables z3c.autoinclude and enables our own:
cp -a package-includes etc/
# Start Zope:
bin/runwsgi -v etc/zope.ini

Contribute or get support

• If you are having issues, please let us know in the issue tracker: https://github.com/plone/plone.autoinclude/issues

• The source code is on GitHub: https://github.com/plone/plone.autoinclude

License

The project is licensed under the GPLv2.

Changelog

1.0.0a1 (2021-10-15)

New features:

• Initial release. [maurits, tschorr]