The Generic Setup Tool

The Generic Setup tool is used to apply your profiles to your site.

You can find the Generic Setup tool here

• Site Setup > Zope Management Interface > portal_setup

You can run the tool manually, but for theme purposes, if you have created a product using the plone3_theme paster template, Generic Setup will be triggered automatically when you install your theme in your site.

You'll find more extensive information about the Generic Setup Tool in this tutorial:

• Understanding and Using Generic Setup on plone.org

However, there are two useful facts to know about it.

No Undo

Although you can uninstall your theme using portal_quickinstaller, at present, you can't undo the profiles Generic Setup applied during installation. For the most part, this isn't a problem, but it can get confusing - if, for instance, you are experimenting with the order of your viewlets and have tried several versions of viewlets.xml in successive installations. In this case, exporting a profile (explained below) can help you make sense of what you've done.

Exporting Profiles

You can export the current configuration of your site as a set of XML files. This can be helpful if you're not quite sure what you've done, if you're searching for a profile to base your own configuration on, or if you just want the Generic Setup Tool to write out a configuration for you.

• Site Setup > Zope Management Interface > portal_setup
• Click the Export tab
• Select the steps you wish to export
• Click the Export Selected Steps button
• You'll be given a zip file with the relevant XML files

It isn't always obvious which export step you need to get the exact configuration you want, you may need to experiment.