Zope automatically provides useful objects for web site builders. These include Documents, Images, Folders, UserFolders, and MailHost objects. A content manager can use these objects to create a highly interactive, yet maintainable web site. Content managers can take advantage of Zope's powerful object model and data sharing abilities to reduce redundant work and delegate responsibility for content.

Most web sites try to maintain a consistent style, such as common HTML menus or feedback links. Using Zope, a content manager can define a Document that renders the HTML menu in one Folder - and simply refer to that from other Documents in the system. When the menu needs to be changed, it can be changed once and the changes will instantly be visible throughout the site.

Documents also give content managers access to HTTP request variables, cookies, programmatic control of the object system and more. A content manager could create a Document that renders itself completely differently based on the browser, identity or even the remote network address of the viewer. Using the built-in Zope MailHost object, one could even arrange for a Document to send out an email anytime it is viewed!

Sessions are a form of a long running transaction in Zope. Sessions allow the site to be worked on live without affecting its normal use. Only users who have joined a session to work on the site can see the changes being made. Everyone else won't see the changes until the session is saved. Sessions can span minutes or weeks, depending on the job.

There are numerous advantages to Sessions over some other means of site editing. The main advantage is the fact that you are modifying a live site, instead of working on a mirror copy of the site only to discover minor conflicts when you move it onto the live site. Sessions let you catch and fix errors that often happen when doing both major and minor overhauls such as broken links before your users do.