The OpenSymphony team is proud to announce the release of OSWorkflow 2.7.

This release includes numerous bugfixes and enhancements, both to the core framework and the workflow GUI designer. Some of these enhancements include the purging of the evil singleton pattern that was used internally. Thanks to that, running multiple configurations is now possible in the same VM, Spring support was also added, as well as improved support for global and common actions, and a new tutorial.

Downloads, documentation and more info as well as a webstart version of the GUI designer can be found at http://www.opensymphony.com/osworkflow/

Is this where the developers on all the OSS projects that Hani has slated get their revenge :-)

slated

Slighted? If so - me thinks you are very generous.

tr.v. slat·ed

1. Term used widely in the UK to express one's dissatisfaction with a subject, i.e. "Mr. Suleiman slated JBoss for the gratuitous use of fake personae on TSS"

:-)

tr.v. slat·ed1. Term used widely in the UK to express one's dissatisfaction with a subject, i.e. "Mr. Suleiman slated JBoss for the gratuitous use of fake personae on TSS":-)

Thanks! My word for the day. Still think it was generous. :)

"What makes OSWorkflow different is that it is extremely flexible."

http://www.jroller.com/page/fate/?anchor=the_flexbility_fetish

Yes, I've cut down the flexbility fetish on the frontpage blurb from 8 mentions to a mere 2. The next version might reduce this further to just one! How's that for progress?

Maybe they've written a Flexibility Manager, to add Flexibility to legacy software.

I must have missed the seminar, but could someone mutter out a few word explaining "Workflow" and why I need a GUI and XML and infrastructure in order to sequence method calls?

When we start writing interpreters in Java for XML to do "high level" sequencing, something Java, or pretty much any other language, does with aplomb daily, I get a little concerned.

From the "About":

OSWorkflow can be considered a "low level" workflow implementation. Situations like "loops" and "conditions" that might be represented by a graphical icon in other workflow systems must be "coded" in OSWorkflow. That's not to say that actual code is needed to implement situations like this, but a scripting language must be employed to specify these conditions.

IMHO, a scripting language IS code. Dropping boxes in a GUI is code. Writing an XML file is code.

So, I'm missing something here.

Dropping boxes in a GUI is code.

dropping box? what is that? sounds more like something Hani would write. :-)

I must have missed the seminar, but could someone mutter out a few word explaining "Workflow" and why I need a GUI and XML and infrastructure in order to sequence method calls?

I just read the tutorial and it appears useful and fairly simple. It allows you to predefine the steps your application should take and centrailize all that logic in one place. Also, allows the definition of functions that should be called during transitions.

A workflow engine is needed when you have complex processes guiding the flow of your systems, and this flow needs to be updated more than what is usual for other softwares. I have an example here where I work, a big telco company, where they must control the provisioning of new circuits, this a heavy process full of control points, actions taken by multiple users, dates and exceptions, states (surveying, planning, installing, testing, active), plus this process may be different depending on the kind of circuit provided or region where the client is, and so on. Having all this control hard-coded in a system would be unmaintainable. We must use a workflow engine in order to make the process maintainable and "adaptable" (just managed to avoid the "F" word :) ) inside the circuit deployment control system.

One of the ways to do this is to have the process declared somewhere out of the code (in a flatfile, in the database), and have the workflow engine use it to "drive" your system. And since you will have to describe the flows, what better way than using a GUI editor for that? :) It will allow for non-programmers to define the flow of you system too.

Hope I made thinks clearer...

Regards,
Henrique Steckelberg

Hello Henrique, im getting problems with OSWorkflow. I want to use hibernate to persist datas and i didnt find any documents about how to configure osworkflow.xml, propertyset.xml and osuser.xml. Do u have experience with OSWorkflow with Hibernate?

Regards,
Adriana

I want to use iBatis to persist datas with Osworkflow, But i need
 help.

Thanks Hani!!!!!

I will use osworkflow in our project based spring.

i hope they havent created more in this release.

I'm just, you know, wondering... :)

I love the fact that one of the dependencies is Jakarta commons-logging.