[Zope] Re: [Zope-PTK] Example activity-explicit workflow system

albert boulanger aboulang@ldeo.columbia.edu
Fri, 29 Dec 2000 10:16:34 -0500 (EST)


   I am very interested in a general, fairly full featured  workflow system
   on top of Zope as opposed to using an external workflow product for a
   fundamental reason. While one could come up with a way of getting what I
   need with an external system, it would be messy. I need workflows to be
   explicit and versioned. We make use of ZODB to version content that end
   users generate. We don't make use of Zope's versioning but use or own
   hierarchical version tree which is easy to do in Zope. End users
   generate new workflows and revisit  past workflows. The user sees this
   versioning as notebook pages using a scientific notebook metaphor.

   It is much cleaner to use ZODB and ZPublisher to do all this instead of
   having a version tree in Zope and a bunch of correspondences to outside
   objects in an external workflow system. Thus,  there is a lot of value
   in having a fairly general workflow system whose representation and
   publishing uses ZODB and ZPublisher.

By the way, if there are other folks interested in such a workflow
system let me know. We may just bite the bullet and build one. I have
who will do most of the coding in mind. What will be produced is a
Zope-based workflow system with a java thin client visual workflow/dataflow
editor. Right now I do not have the funding but folks with resources
could speak now ;-).

Regards,
Albert Boulanger
CTO
vPatch Technologies
aboulanger@vpatch.com
http://www.vpatch.com