Workflow Sample Application
========================================

As a sample of the workflow system here is a simple trouble ticket
system. A *very* simple system. It comes with three interfaces: a
command-line application, a CGI script, and a simple standalone web
server. Both are interfaces to the same workflows and tickets.

Initializing the System
--------------------

The sample application is configured to use a SQLite database, and
while with a little configuration (in 'workflow_persister.xml') you
can use a different DBMS, you can get the demo running in less than a
minute with SQLite. Draw your own conclusions.

To initialize the database just run the command-line application with
the '--db' switch:

 perl ticket.pl --db

This will create a new database for you. If a database (in the file
'db/ticket.db') already exists it will be wiped out. Since it's so
easy to wipe out and reinitialize the system you should have no qualms
about playing around, putting bad data in to see what happens, etc.


Command-line Application
--------------------

Running the command-line application without the switch will bring you
to a 'TicketServer: ' prompt:

 perl ticket.pl

Issuing a 'cmd' command will give you a list of valid commands along
with a description of each. Hopefully you can weave your way to
something interesting.


Web Application: Standalone
--------------------

Next (and probably more fun), you can manipulate the workflow system
through the standalone web application:

 perl ticket_web.pl

This will fire up a standalone web server using HTTP::Daemon. Once
it's started it will report to you the hostname and port it's running
on:

  $ perl ticket_web.pl
  Please contact me at [URL: http://shazam.local:57988/]

Paste that URL into your browser and fire away. It's a very simple
application but looking through the 'ticket_web.pl' script (and
'App/Web.pm' package) should give you an idea of how to integrate the
workflow system into your display technology.

Web Application: CGI
--------------------

For using the CGI script you can configure Apache to run CGI scripts
in the normal manner. I have a vhost definition that does this:

    Listen 127.0.0.1:80
    <VirtualHost 127.0.0.1:80>
        Port 80
        ServerName my.coolserver.com
        DocumentRoot /path/to/workflow/eg/ticket

        <Files *.cgi>
            SetHandler cgi-script
        </Files>

        <Location />
            DirectoryIndex index.html index.shtml
            Options Indexes ExecCGI
        </Location>
    </VirtualHost>

Accessing the ticket application is then:

   http://my.coolserver.com/ticket.cgi

Configuring your web server to run CGI scripts in a similar manner
should be pretty easy.


Following Application Progress
--------------------

No matter which interface you're using you can see what the
application is doing watch the file 'workflow.log'. This is the
logfile for all phases of the application, and it's controlled by the
Log::Log4perl configuration file 'log4perl.conf'. It's very useful to
watch what's going on with a 'tail -f' or whatever your platform
supports.

Note that if you run both interfaces at the same time they'll log to
the same file. This can make for confusing log messages as they may be
interleaved.


Design Overview
--------------------

The single workflow 'Ticket' is defined in 'workflow.xml'. In that
file you see a number of references to other objects:

 - persister (e.g., 'TestPersister')
   - defined and configured in 'workflow_persister.xml'
 - actions (e.g., 'TIX_NEW', 'TIX_EDIT')
   - defined in 'workflow_action.xml'
 - conditions (e.g., 'IsWorker')
   - defined in 'workflow_condition.xml'

Additionally, in 'workflow_action.xml' you'll see:

 - validators (e.g., 'DateValidator')
   - defined in 'workflow_validator.xml'

Requests to both the command-line tool ('ticket.pl') and the web
server ('ticket_web.pl') make data available to the workflow context
for the actions to use. Because one application is stateful and the
other stateless they do so in different ways. But one of the features
of the workflow system is that it doesn't care. Here's an example:

#  Action                     Context 
-- -----------                ----------------
0) (none)                     (empty)
1) context current_user Bob   current_user=Bob
2) wf Ticket                  current_user=Bob;
                              workflow={Workflow object}
3) execute create issue
   - get data from user       current_user=Bob;
                              workflow={Workflow object};
                              ticket={Ticket object}
4) execute add coment
   - get data from user       current_user=Bob;
                              workflow={Workflow object};
                              ticket={Ticket object}
 ...

Every request from the user operates with the data in the context
available to the workflow actions.

To do the same with the web application we need to use cookies and do
some extra work. As long as you're using a workflow (as set in the
'workflow_id' cookie) the web dispatching module (App::Web) will fetch
the workflow and set the 'current_user' cookie in its context.

And because we've configured the persister to fetch extra data
('ticket_id') associated with the workflow, the dispatcher also
fetches the associated ticket and assigns it to the context in the
'ticket' key.

========================================
$Id: README 211 2004-10-17 03:15:17Z cwinters $