Can I use the new folder implementation (plone.app.folder) in Plone 3?

Question

Plone 4 contains a new folder implementation (in the plone.app.folder package) which is much more efficient for folders with many items. Is it possible to upgrade a Plone 3 site to use this folder implementation without doing a full upgrade of the site to Plone 4?

If so, what steps are required to do so? Any caveats I should be aware of?

Answer 1

I just tested a Plone 3.3.5 site with plone.app.folder==1.0.3 (newer version depends on Products.CMFPlone, i.e. Plone 4).

Extend a Plone 3 buildout with this one:

[buildout]
extends =
    your-plone3-buildout.cfg

eggs +=
    plone.app.folder==1.0.3

[instance]
zcml +=
    plone.app.folder

zcml slug is important because plone.app.folder doesn't use z3c.autoinclude.

After running buildout and launching your instance, install the products as a regular Plone product and migrate existing folder by opening this URL:

http://localhost:8080/plone/@@migrate-btrees

You'll get an output like this one:

2011/03/03-17:24:31 migrating btree-based folders from <PloneSite at /plone>:
2011/03/03-17:24:32 intermediate commit (0 objects processed, last batch in 0.289s)...
2011/03/03-17:24:32 processed 0 object(s) in 0.289s (0.290s cpu time).

Hope this helps