[Web-SIG] Python Web Modules - Version 0.4.1

[James Gardner]

Hello,

I'd like to announce the release of the Python Web Modules 0.4.1. This is the
first time the modules have been publicly announced.

http://www.pythonweb.org/     Feel free to download and have a play

Back in March before the WSGI discussions there was some talk about releasing
better standard modules in Python for developing web applications. This is my
attempt to achieve that. These modules are designed to be easily accessible to
beginners or developers currently using PHP or Perl whilst also offering lower
level APIs for experts to create powerful dynamic websites.

Key features include:

* web.auth     - Identity and identification handling. Users may have multiple
                  access levels to multiple applications. Sign in and password
                  reminder handling is built in.

* web.session  - Persistence using cookie or URL based session IDs allowing any
                  object which can be pickled to be stored using a dictionary-
                  like interface. Can be used with file or database drivers.

* web.form     - HTML Form generation and user input handling. Field objects
                  available for HTML fields and the main Python types including
                  date and time objects. Values returned as Python objects.

* web.database - Database abstraction layer supporting MySQL, SQLite, ODBC and
                  Gadfly for cross-database programming. Types are converted.
                - Multiple return formats including dict, tuple and object.
                - Object-relational mapper similar to SQLObject allowing
                  transparent database manipulation using dictionary-like objects
                  in Python code. One and many to many mappings and automatic
                  HTML form generation for editing records are supported.

* web.error    - Enhanced error handling based on the principles of the cgitb
                  module. Plain text or HTML output to a file or browser. Custom
                  extension mechanism for email notifications and more.

* web.template - Support for Cheetah, XYAPUT and Dreamweaver MX templates.

* web.mail     - Quickly send plain text or HTML emails.

* web.image    - Generate 2D pie, bar and scatter graphs in a variety of
                  image formats. Requires PIL.

* datetime     - Python 2.3 date handling compatibility module for Python 2.2

There is probably nothing too ground-breaking here (apart from perhaps the HTML
form interface being combined with a database ORM) but I have tried to make it
all as complete and intuitive as possible which is why I feel it stands out
from other modules. A sample webserver is included to test the examples.

The full module reference and examples are available at:

http://www.pythonweb.org/doc/0.4.1/

One feature which should make this package more attractive to certain developers
over Zope or Webware is that no superuser rights are needed to use the modules
since there is no application server to be run. They can be uploaded to a
shared Apache-based web server and run without compilation or installation
(although certain features are only available if you have external software).

The project plan for the next stage includes continued work on useful
applications such as user management and contact forms (which most websites
use), write code to support the WSGI PEP and further improve the documentation.

http://www.pythonweb.org/project/plan.html

Any thoughts or comments would be really appreciated.

Best wishes,

James

-- 
James Gardner
james 'at' pythonweb.org
http://www.pythonweb.org