Dynamic Pageflow with Seam

[go_rags]

I am trying to put a prototype to give our users/admistrators complete control over the navigation of the pages in our application. Our initial architecture called for a uber-controller (with a custom PDL) that will do the navigation control, but since seam supports jPDL we want to use it.

I am having little success in dynamically loading the Pageflow defenitions. I am currently using a APPLICATION scope component to retrive the jbpm context and set its pageflow.


@Name("navcontroller")
@Scope(ScopeType.APPLICATION)
public class NavigationSelector {

@In(create=true, value="org.jboss.seam.core.jbpm")
private Jbpm jbpm;

:::::::

public String applyNavigation() {

jbpm.setPageflowDefinitions(new String[]{currentChoice});
return null;

}


}

Then i redirect it to a page which would create my pageflow component and take control from there.

Is it possible to this in seam, if yes, where am I going worng?

Thanks in advance,
Raghu.

[gavin.king]

It is not currently possible to load a new pageflow at runtime. However, it would be easy enough to implement. Add a feature request to Seam JIRA.

[ranik]

Looks like a simple fix, would you be interested in taking a fix for this?
If so, please let me know the preferred option for exposing this via API and how to submit the fix.

1. replace a specific pageflow by providing a new method - 'public void installPageFlowDefinition(String pathPageFlow)' - this can be used to add new pageflows as well as update existing ones.
2. provide a new method - 'public void refreshPageFlowDefinitions()' which would do the equivalent of the current 'installPageflowDefinitions()'
3. Suggestions? - my vote is for #1.

Note: setPageFlowDefinitions didn't work it just sets the list of pageflow definitions, the code to actually load them and cache in an internal map runs during initialization only.

thanks,
Rani.

[gavin.king]

(1) is about right, but I think its more flexible to let the pageflow be passed as a String.

[gavin.king]

Note that the JIRA issue is here:

http://jira.jboss.com/jira/browse/JBSEAM-176

[ranik]

I had attached a simple change to enable addition of dynamic pageflow to the jira issue yesterday. Is there already a unit test class for JBpm which I missed?

[stealth_nsk]

As I can see, this feature is already resolved. Could you please document how we could control handlers/viewers for dynamically loaded pageflows?

Could we use some kind of manager bean to provide information to and handle tasks from dynamic pageflows?

P.S. It would be a very powerful feature as it would allow user scripting in the way similar to Alfresco 1.4 jBPM implementation.

[gavin.king]

Jbpm.instance().deployPageflowDefinition( Jbpm.instance().getPageflowDefinitionFromXxxxx("aResourceOrXmlDocument") );

[stealth_nsk]

Thank you for the information. However, one question still remain:

Is there any possibilities to set up handlers and data sources for those dynamic processes? I can describe my needs in more details:
I want users to be able to enter workflows in web application at runtime, using Rhino javascript scripts to process business processes from state to state.

[gavin.king]

What is a "handler"?

What is a "datasource"?

[stealth_nsk]

What is a "handler"?

What is a "datasource"?

Sorry for the mees in terms. I meant variables and scripts to make workflow work. In general, it's ok. I think I could deal with jPDL BeanShell scripts, however it would be better to have the ability of using external script library.