[Zope-CMF] CMF 1.2 beta1 and Workflow

[Jeffrey P Shell]

On Thursday, December 20, 2001, at 06:06  AM, seb bacon wrote:

> On Thu, 2001-12-20 at 12:46, Lucas Hofman wrote:
>> On Thursday 20 December 2001 13:34, Jens Vagelpohl wrote:
>>>
>>> only DCWorkflow workflows can be edited through the web. standard
>>> workflows are filesystem-based.
>>>
>> Can a DCWorkflow workflow be created within a CMF site?
>
> yes
>
>> Are there any advantages with DCWorkflow workflow as compared to 
>> 'normal'
>> workflows? Why do both exist?
>
> DCWorkflow is configurable TTW.  It uses a state machine visualisation,
> and provides some convenience methods and functions.  However, it uses
> the same Interface (as in API, not user) as the older WorkflowTool.
> They both do the same thing.  It's just that with the older one, you
> have to do it all on the filsystem in python.
>

It's not a replacement for the WorkflowTool.  The Workflow Tool 
contains workflow agents (the workflow definitions), and their 
assignments to various content types.  A workflow agent is a plug 
in component that fulfulls the WorkflowDefinition interface 
(defined in CMFCore/interfaces/portal_workflow.py).

DCWorkflow is just another component that fulfills this interface, 
and gives one the ability to define a workflow process through the 
web.  But it doesn't (and should never)  stop one from writing 
Python based workflow agents.  I've written three Python based ones 
for the application that I'm developing, with various degrees of 
through-the-web configuration that is more focused to a particular 
business process than the more abstract DCWorkflow.

There's nothing stopping someone from writing other workflows that 
are editable through the web that can be plugged into the workflow 
tool.

Jeffrey P Shell, jeffrey@cuemedia.com