Florian is correct. The definitions are persistent -- in the sense
that every time you invoke the 'save wiki page' workflow, for example,
it works the same way every time. The STATE of an individual workflow
doesn't persist between WikiEngine reboots, though, which is what I
was thinking about fixing.
Really, the goal with workflow was to make it easy to write code that
did different things based on user input. It's a pain to write
separate UIs for every single "do you want to do X or Y?" choice, right?
I don't have any specific plans for using it more in the short term
(other than light refactoring of the existing workflow tasks),
although it could clearly be used more extensively to support page
moderation or admin tasks. Anything that has a human component
("please review and approve...") could make use of it.
Andrew
On Jun 23, 2008, at 2:47 PM, Florian Holeczek wrote:
Hi Terry,
(Like Florian, however, I presumed that the workflows were
persistent - not sure what value they'd have if they had to be
created from scratch all the time.)
that's a misunderstanding... the workflow definitions are persistent
of course, because they're java code implementing the workflow API.
Only the workflow instances' states aren't persistent at the moment,
and that's what I was presuming.
PS: It would be helpful if any list members who actually use the
workflow functionality (particularly in a production environment)
could
comment about their use of it. Also, maybe Andrew could comment on
any
larger plans he has for moving it into a more central role in
JSPWiki?
Well, I've been playing around with the two implemented workflows
which ship with JSPWiki already. They definitely are useful.
Just think of workflow technology as an approach towards higher code
reusability. I can imagine many use cases of extending JSPWiki in
which this API is able to reduce time and effort considerably.
Florian
