I've noticed the System.Activities.Core.Presentation assembly contains several designers, and I've found them to be quite useful for re-usability.
I've now found myself creating activities that need to say "Drop activity here" (they accept a child activity). This is seen all over the place with the built-in WF activities, so I assume there must be some designer, e.g., DropHereDesigner, somewhere. I can reproduce it with XAML, but I don't want to unless I must.
Anyone know if this designer can be found anywhere in the WF built-in libraries?
The WorkflowItemPresenter is used for this functionality.
<WorkflowItemPresenter
xmlns="clrnamespace:System.Activities.Presentation;assembly=System.Activities.Presentation"
HintText="Drop activity here"
Item="{Binding Path=ModelItem.Child.Handler}" />
However, if you are asking "Can I get away with not touching XAML in order to create a designer" the answer is amost assuredly no.
Related
Within a DWT Template Building Block, we can use a few "free" variables such as ##Component.Title## or ##Component.ID## as well as built-in DWT functions.
I didn't realize we can also get a component's schema description with ##Component.Description## or ##Description##.
The out-of-the-box Default Dreamweaver Component Design has a good set of examples, along with the Tridion Cook book's iteration example, and SDL Live Content.
How else could I find other allowed built-in DWT functions and variables, programmatic or otherwise?
In other words, I wouldn't have thought ##Description## was even available in DWT without seeing an example first (not that I have a use for it yet).
Edit (June 8, 2013): I did find additional information on SDL Live Content (requires login). We can of course use available Package variables as described in the documentation.
Researching a bit, I found that if we go to the tridion.contenmanager.config file, we will discover the node, which references to the Dreamweaver mediator type:
<mediator matchMIMEType="text/x-tcm-dreamweaver" type="Tridion.ContentManager.Templating.Dreamweaver.DreamweaverMediator" />
This namespace can be found inside Tridion.ContentManager.Templating.dll
Decompiling is the best way to find out what is inside and learn something. Since it is .Net code, that will not be a problem, there is many free good tools available. I'm using lately JustDecompile
I did not go too deep into the code, but I can see that there is a TridionObjectSource class, with a number of Constants for reserved words, like:
ReservedNameTitle
ReservedNameDescription
Searching where this constants are used on the code, can help to better understand what they do, and the way the Dreamweaver Mediator works inside.
Seems like an interesting learning exercise
I take it that you've searched the documentation for the answer and come up empty. I suggest that you go to the relevant part of the LiveContent documentation and add a comment. This will reach the documentation team directly, and I'm sure they'll be very interested to hear of a feature that isn't properly covered. With a bit of luck they'll update it, and you'll have done us all a favour.
I have some sympathy for the "help yourself" approach too, but if you find a feature by your own analysis of the software, and it gets removed in a later release, you won't have a leg to stand on to complain about this. So help Tridion to get the feature documented, and then it's there to use with confidence.
I'm looking at requiring my team to document their code more thoroughly for some major upcoming projects and to make life a little less painful, I am steering towards XML documentation generators such as Sandcastle, Doxygen or Box Live Documenter.
What are the key considerations I should keep in mind when evaluating the best option and what experiences have led you to a particular decision?
For me the key considerations would be:
Fully automated: Can it be set up in such a way so that pretty much
no outside work is required to
create or edit the documentation.
Fully styled: Can the documentation be fully styled so
that it looks great in a wiki or pdf
after it’s generated. I should be
able to change colors, font sizes,
layouts, etc.
Good Filtering: Can I select only the items I want to be
generated. I should be able to
filter the namespaces, file types,
classes, etc.
Customization: Can I include headers, footers, custom elements,
etc.
I found Doxygen could do all of this. Our workflow is as follows:
Developer makes a change to the code
They update the documentation tags right above the code they just changed
We click a generate button
Doxygen will then extract all the XML documentation from the code, filter it to only include the classes and methods we want, and apply the CSS styling we’ve pre-made for it. Our end result is an internal wiki that looks the way we want, and doesn’t require editing.
Extra: We have all our projects in various git repositories. We pull all these down to one root folder and generate the docs form this root folder..
Would be interested to know how others are automating even further..?
Who is paying for the documentation and why? (is the system stable enough, does it add enough value)
Who is going to read it, and why is she not using a more effective communication channel?
(if correct mostly distance in time/place)
Who is going to keep it up to date.
When are you going to destroy it? (Automatically if it hasn't been read or updated in the past three months?)
I mostly prefer better code to make my life less painful, over more documentation, but I like scenario & unit tests and a high level architecture description.
[edit] Documentation costs time and money to write and keep up to date. JavaDoc style documentation has a serious detrimental effect on the amount of code simultaneously visible and might be a good idea for the developers using the code, but not for those writing it.
I have been trying to find a way to connect Flex to sharepoint in an elegant way that allows me to update lists, build charts, and create widgets with FLEX on the client-side. I have researched this extensively but I am running into circles.
I understand the basics of Flex data connection/webservices/etc... , I just can't seem to get my head around how to use the sharepoint list services.
Does anybody out there have a nice detailed example of what I'm trying to achieve? Simple examples work too! :)
Thanks so much Everyone!
-E.
Look at the "SOAP query example" or the WSDL from the SharePoint web-service (e.g. .../_vti_bin/lists.asmx?op=GetListItems or ../_vti_bin/lists.asmx?op=GetListItems&WSDL) and then look at the corresponding MSDN documentation (such as GetListItems) on how to "use" the web-service.
It takes a little bit of familiarity to "know" to map viewFields with <viewFields>...</viewFields> (most work like this), but... the MSDN documentation (if prodded carefully) says "what" to put in the XML where the WSDL just gives the near-useless outline. There are a number of examples in the tubes (and related SO questions) of hand-rolled SOAP access for SP for various tasks.
Microsoft also has some Open Specifications -- the link is always hard for me to find. Lots of stuff under the SharePoint branch. YMMV and it's mostly white-paper, but a good resource.
Not sure what tools Flex has but because of the limited WSDL support, most of the mapping has to be hand-coded or come from a better definition source -- hopefully "an existing library" which can be used directly or modified-to-suit.
I would highly recommend using a tool for testing the service access -- e.g. soapUI, which actually has a horrid UI -- because even the littlest error will come back with a cryptic error messages. Also, make sure to use SOAP 1.2.
Happy (less than maximal pain) coding.
P.S. A more specific question about a specific web-service would likely yield better responses.
I've inherited a asp.net project and I'm finding that the code behind pages contain a lot of business logic.
I've decided that in most cases it's better to leave the working code in place than try and do a massive refactoring. However there are pages that perform functionality that could be re-used in command line utilities for batch processing. I'd like to focus my energies on these pages, refactoring out the business logic and referencing that in other utilities.
I am currently looking to refactor this particular page which has 6200 lines of code in the code behind. What I'm finding is it's very tedious work trying to locate the dependencies between the code behind and the page specific objects.
I'm wondering if anybody knows of a tool, a VS feature, or a method that would allow me to systematically locate and attack these dependencies? Something that will allow me to identify any area of the code that references ViewState, a textbox, panel, drop downlist, etc..., so I can move these references to method parameters and ultimately move this functionality out of the page class.
I would begin by examining any method that doesn't follow the Single Responsibility Principle and break them down so that they do. Once that's done you should have a handle on what the code does and you should be able to group the code more easily and move it into dedicated classes for those groups creating the necessary objects to use as you go. I find ReSharper is a very useful tool to help do all this. Ultimately you will always need to have a solid grasp of the fundamentals within the code before you can successfully refactor.
We've all been there at some point and you have my deepest sympathy but your willingness to attempt it at all means you're already heading in the right direction. Good Luck!
Wow first of all sorry to here that. Anyone who would put 6000 lines of code in code behind deserve to be smacked :)
Now I have done this kind of refactoring before. I would approach this in few steps:
(1) Create Logical Regions #Region and #EndRegion
Like - Save Methods , Load Methods or
(2) See if you can create physical business objects based on these regions in your business
layer
(3) Once you are done just refer all your code to appropriate class.
I understand you want some tool to make this all go away but I am afraid by doing this you will dig the hole dipper. Understanding the code and moving it method by method will give you better understanding.
One way I can immediately think is Compile then into Assemblies and Analyze the assembly using NDepend
http://www.ndepend.com/Features.aspx#DependencyCycle
(source: ndepend.com)
I am working on a design spec for a new application that will be heavily workflow driven.
Before I re-invent the wheel, is there a decent lightweight workflow engine that plugs into ASP.NET already around?
Basically, I'm looking for something that handles moving through a defined set of workflow pages while handling state management automatically.
If this isn't around already, I'll definitely try to abstract the engine from my app and put it on codeplex, as it would be really handy.
Any suggestions?
Note: .NET 2.0, so no WWF, though I think WWF is overkill for my needs.
EDIT: Seems like there is a legitimate need for this, and there isn't a product out there...So I might build this.
Here is what I'm picturing:
Custom Page class called WebFlowPage
All WebFlowPage's are registered in a Workflow mapper.
Each WebFlowPage has some form of state object.
A HttpHandler handles picking the appropriate WebFlowPage based upon the workflow, and populating it from the state object.
Is the workflow dynamic, or static?
If the workflows are simple, you could roll your own workflow engine.
In certain situations, it can be fairly simple, and just a couple of data tables to handle the rules, processing and state.
Alot of workflow engines are built for large scale processing (credit card applications, for example). For small scale, you should at least consider your own, which would eliminate the overhead and dependency of/on an engine.
Not sure exactly what you wish to do here, but Ra-Ajax can easily keep state at least if you want your solution ajaxified...
For reference purposes you might want to check out the Ajax Calendar sample or even the (banalistically implemented) Ajax Wizard sample. It surely beats the hell out of doing it with JavaScript...
And every time you "do something" you're in "server-land" which means you can store temporaries all the time as you wish...
The project is LGPL
(PS!
Yes I do work with it)
Building a custom workflow engine is not trivial, although it may seem simple at first. We've tried that. It depends a lot on the complexity of the logic you need it to cover.
Given the current state of the Windows Workflow Foundation and the lack of another framework that abstracts the workflow concepts, I would choose WF if you need complex logic, asynchronous handling or branches in your workflows.
Tracking your state through the workflow can be accomplished by carrying some kind of xml payload or storing the state in a database,
If your workflow is actually a sequential set of forms that need to be filled in by the user, tracking the steps and guiding the user to the next step can be accomplished with some simple custom solution.
You could take a look at the InRule engine too.
Also, there is nxBRE.
These too are mostly used for business rules.
InRule is proprietary, whereas nxBRE supports RuleML (the defacto standard).
You might need to make your own implementation for the pages, and use the rule engine as the "structure".
At this moment, I know that Sharepoint 2007 supports page workflows (using WF), but this would imply using .NET Framework 3 and deployng sharepoint.
My suggestion would be to use whatever you find more light and easier to use.
I think the term "workflow" is very open to interpretation. I have been working lately with a type of workflow that is very different from what you seem to be describing. Mine is a state machine based workflow where the state of a particular record determines what actions a user can take to move the record to the next step in the business process. So "workflow" in this instance means how the record flows from one state to another until it is finally completed.
Your usage of workflow seems to have more to do with moving a user from one page to another in a linear multi-step process, which is a completely different use case (correct me if I'm wrong). So before coming up with a general purpose "workflow" engine that anyone could use, I would recommend defining a little bit better exactly what types of situations this system would handle.
I've been using this for a few months http://objectflow.codeplex.com. Not asp specific but it may fit your needs
While browsing the web for some workflow & BPM resources, I found the following project: NetBPM. Unfortunately, the project seems to be stopped.
I don't think there is a workflow engine that will automatically handle state for you, but if you are moving through a set of pages like a process such as checkout on an ecommerce site, perhaps the ASP.NET wizard control could help you?
There are few workflow options. "Aspose" and "Skelta" are the offers I´m evaluating.
Fábio
you can use WorkFlow Engine, just read the document and run the Demo.
all of the features you need for a dynamic workflow engine they added in there.