[Zope-CMF] workflows what are they and how to use them

[albert boulanger]

   > Many workflow systems indicate the states in a state engine explicitly
   > and the content objects are only related to the state object through
   > say a list.  The content object also points to the state
   > object(s). Thus a content object can be in mutiple states in mutiple
   > workflows and a workflow can be pushing mutiple content objects.

   Interesting.  Would the state object be a child of the content object, a
   peer, or completely disjoint?

I would favor disjoint, and this was the point of the push example
below. I was trying to make a case of workflow were the associated
content (ie the push) was far from being the normally-thought-of-stuff
that the CMF workflow is working with now to stimulate thinking.

   Note that DCWorkflow does allow an object to be in multiple states in
   multiple workflows (but one state per workflow).  A workflow can also
   govern multiple content objects if the content objects are children of the
   object to which the workflow applies.

That's good.

   > Personally I would like to see a workflow system for Zope where the
   > objects being pushed are any kind of thing including "push" activities
   > like "ET phone home" on say a pager.

   I mean this in the best way, but what prevents you from doing that today?
   How would you do it differently from writing a Script (Python) that sends
   mail?

Yeah. I would then use that script as an attached action to the
explicit workflow state. I was not really bringing this up about how
to execute the action but to use it as an example of associated
actions a workflow state may have attached to it.

Regards,
Albert Boulanger