Workflow WAS Re: [Typo3-dev] DBAL - how to do it?

Daniel Hinderink [TYPO3] daniel at typo3.com
Thu Feb 19 13:44:19 CET 2004


Hi Marc and Dan,

> Hi Dan,
> 
> I would also be interested to hear more about your stuff:
> 
> 1- workflow
> 2- Java integration

This is exactly what the workflow project (see typo3.org -> projects ->
workflow) is about.

We have more or less settled for Jahwe as a workflow editor (based on
colored petri-nets) and the shark workflow engine as the external systems.
Both belong to the enhydra application server project, which is Java, as I
am sure you already know.

We are going for these, because they offer a 100% standard compliant
approach using XPDL for the workflow description and the tools API I have
already mentioned before.

René and I had a session in munich after the snowboard tour on what we would
need to create on the TYPO3 side of things to:

A. export the information about available functions and parameters as
libraries for the editor.
B. make TYPO3 a client for a workflow engine.

Peter Niederlag is working on this subject for his diploma and more people
have come forward as sponsors, real-world testers and so on.

I would be glad to welcome you both into the team.
 
> If it kicks me, I would also like to contribute to the development of the
> workflow app. Have you been looking at jBPM, phpCollab, or more of these at
> SourceForge? Should we rewrite the whole stuff? Or should we try to integrate
> some existing tools as extensions?

I think it is more complicated that than extensions, it is really about
creating an interface.

However phpCollab is far from what we are looking for.

> More generally I'd be very interested in providing a way to bind external
> tools (in whichever language, java, php, python, etc.) in Typo3. I've already
> been thinking about it, but it would require some more time to get a first
> draft of a solution. Or maybe I'm just not aware of it, but it might already
> exist in some way in Typo3??? Any hints for an "open-language/tool-extension"
> girls/guys?

Gegenfrage: Would you like to join the Architecture Team? ;-)


> I know that you can integrate pretty much everything using an iframe, but
> the knowledge of each other systems (Typo3 -- external) is too loose to make
> the things work together intelligently. It's possible to hack a solution, but
> it would be a significant step towards integration if an API is provided. I've
> also heard about the services from René, and I imagine that this could part
> of the solution. For instance, this is what could/should be organized between
> Typo3 and an external dingyboumtralala tool (like Workflow):
> - user management
> - synchronized search
> - content linking on a page basis
> - backend administration of some settings
> - frontend view with possibly edit functionality
> - ...

Now we are talking...
 
> and it could be realized in some kind of (Web)Service technology (with XML
> and all the friends).

Extactly what we have in mind.

> In the background of this discussion concerning DBAL, I did not join the
> palabre, but I'd also be for using it, at least for new code fragments, new
> extensions, etc. It is certainly possible to achieve good results in two
> steps:
> first for some new coding, and then, if successfull, progressively for the
> rest (core), but only where it MAKES SENSE (which is not absolutely
> everywhere).
> 
> Hope to hear from you,

Please take a look at:
www.wfmc.org
And
Www.enhydra.org

Cheers,

Daniel


> 
> cheers,
> Marc

-- 

Daniel Hinderink
TYPO3 - get.content.right
Innovation, Marketing, PR
http://www.typo3.com

-- 
Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every
six months.
Oscar Wilde






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