BIP KB:
How To Install The Diazo Themes for Plone on CentOS Linux

Intro to Diazo Themes I wanted to try this great new way to theme my Plone web site. I added Diazo Themes plone.app.theming to my build-out according to the instructions. Everything seemed to go well, however the theme never showed when I viewed my web site. It turns out this is actually a common problem and easy to fix. It took me some time to find the solution so I though I would share it with all of you.

lxml Issues

After looking into this for a few days, I finally found the problem was with a version of lxml that was too old for the newest version of plone.app.theming. CentOS, Scientific Linux, and other Red Hat-derived distros are known for using old versions of packages.

Installing the Correct Version

I found the following instructions that helped me add a "part" to my build out. This installs the correct versions of libxml2, libxslt, and lxml.

The trick is that lxml "part" must be listed first in the "parts" section.

So, here is the new version:

[buildout]

parts =
    lxml
    zeoserver
    client1 client2
    zopepy
    zopeskel
    unifiedinstaller
    backup
    chown-zeo

Here's the definition of the lxml "part":

############################################
# lxml part - this is because RedHat distros have
# ancient packages that are not working with Plone-4
#
[lxml]
recipe = z3c.recipe.staticlxml
egg = lxml
libxml2-url = ftp://xmlsoft.org/libxml2/libxml2-2.8.0.tar.gz
libxslt-url = ftp://xmlsoft.org/libxml2/libxslt-1.1.27.tar.gz
static-build = true

I also pinned some versions in the [versions] section:

[versions]
######################################
# These versions are for the lxml part
#
lxml = 2.3.6
zc.recipe.cmmi = 1.3.5
z3c.recipe.staticlxml = 0.8

After I saved and re-ran my build-out, the Diazo theme works just fine. I hope this will help the rest of you who were having trouble installing the Diazo theme on Plone.

Tags: centos, Server, version, Plone, diazo, Diazo Themes, lxml, share, theme

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