Migrating from OpenWFE Java

[OpenWFEFan]

Hi All

I am investigating whether to migrate from OpenWFE Java to the ruby
version for my rails app.

The questions that I have are:

1. Where should I put the workflow-definition, participant-map, passwd
file etc for the ruby version?
2. How do I load them (all the examples prefer to do it inline)
3. Do the authentication etc. work the same way or do they need to be
defined differently?

Thanks

Kumar

[John Mettraux]

Hi Kumar,

There is an example of a Rails web application being built around
OpenWFEru. It's brand new.

You can view it at :

http://viewvc.rubyforge.mmmultiworks.com/cgi/viewvc.cgi/trunk/densha/?root=openwferu
or
http://fisheye3.cenqua.com/browse/openwferu/trunk/densha

You can also check out this source code by doing :

svn checkout http://openwferu.rubyforge.org/svn/trunk/densha

Enjoy, questions are welcome. Best regards,

[OpenWFEFan]

Great! Just what I wanted to view. I am looking into it right now.

Will definitely let you know my experience

and also any questions that I have :-)

Thanks

Kumar

On Aug 24, 6:56 pm, "John Mettraux" <jmettr...@openwfe.org> wrote:
> Hi Kumar,
>

> On 8/25/07, OpenWFEFan <g_sku...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > Hi All
>
> > I am investigating whether to migrate from OpenWFE Java to the ruby
> > version for my rails app.
>
> > The questions that I have are:
>
> > 1. Where should I put the workflow-definition, participant-map, passwd
> > file etc for the ruby version?
> > 2. How do I load them (all the examples prefer to do it inline)
> > 3. Do the authentication etc. work the same way or do they need to be
> > defined differently?
>
> There is an example of a Rails web application being built around
> OpenWFEru. It's brand new.
>
> You can view it at :
>

> http://viewvc.rubyforge.mmmultiworks.com/cgi/viewvc.cgi/trunk/densha/...
> orhttp://fisheye3.cenqua.com/browse/openwferu/trunk/densha

>
> You can also check out this source code by doing :
>

> svn checkouthttp://openwferu.rubyforge.org/svn/trunk/densha

[John Mettraux]

Hi Kumar,

for the sake of documentation, now that I have more time, some more
detailed answers :

On 8/25/07, OpenWFEFan <g_sk...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>

> The questions that I have are:
>
> 1. Where should I put the workflow-definition, participant-map, passwd
> file etc for the ruby version?

Workflow definitions are stored as files under public/process_definitions

The participant map is now a participant registration activity, it's
done in config/openwferu_engine.rb, it will certainly be moved to its
own config/openwferu_participants.rb.

There will be no XML participant map for this OpenWFEru on Rails application.

The former passwd file is now a "users" table. There is also a
"launch_permissions" table. Something like "store_permissions" and
"roles" should appear soon. This roles table will map users to roles,
while each user, will automatically belong to an 'implicit'
user_username group, but this can change.

> 2. How do I load them (all the examples prefer to do it inline)

In the launch controller, you'll see something like :

@openwferu_engine.launch(url)

> 3. Do the authentication etc. work the same way or do they need to be
> defined differently?

As said, it's authentication "à la Rails", ldap and openid shouldn't
be that hard to plug in.

Best regards,

--
John Mettraux -///- http://jmettraux.openwfe.org

[Pat Cappelaere]

John,

Just looked at Densha. Interesting...!
You are aware that as part of OWS-5 we are working on something similar. We
need workflows for geospatial applications. In OGC speak, we call that a
Workflow Chaining Service (WfCS). This is basically a rails application on
top of OpenWFE. The twist is to use a RESTful approach and provide a unifed
interface that others can use to interact with the engine. We are working
with the Workflow Management Coalition. They have developed a generic SOAP
interface (WF-XML).
This is also important as it is an interface to be used by the GUI (Matelot)
to upload workflows.
It might be good to merge at some point but I am not sure where Densha is
going yet!
Pat.

[John Mettraux]

On 8/25/07, Pat Cappelaere <cappe...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Just looked at Densha. Interesting...!
> You are aware that as part of OWS-5 we are working on something similar. We
> need workflows for geospatial applications. In OGC speak, we call that a
> Workflow Chaining Service (WfCS). This is basically a rails application on
> top of OpenWFE. The twist is to use a RESTful approach and provide a unifed
> interface that others can use to interact with the engine. We are working
> with the Workflow Management Coalition. They have developed a generic SOAP
> interface (WF-XML).

(BTW, what an ugly, meaningless name :-( )

> This is also important as it is an interface to be used by the GUI (Matelot)
> to upload workflows.
> It might be good to merge at some point but I am not sure where Densha is
> going yet!

Hi Pat,

for now, Densha is just to be an "OpenWFEru on Rails" example / showcase.

I have to think about the "REST interface" thing, maybe it's better to
let it be a separate thing (an option to Densha or other OpenWFEru
instances).

There are more and more people googling for "rails workflow engine" or
"openwferu on rails", so I made my move forward and I'm having fun.

There is also Matt's work : http://code.google.com/p/fluxr/ but it
seems a bit stalled (at revision 3) these days. Matt seems to be
willing to provide something RESTful, whereas Densha is a web
application (for human direct consumption).

We'll see, looking forward what happens with you and Matt.

[OpenWFEFan]

Hi John

On Aug 25, 4:23 am, "John Mettraux" <jmettr...@openwfe.org> wrote:
> Hi Kumar,
>
> for the sake of documentation, now that I have more time, some more
> detailed answers :

<Other useful information snipped>

Thanks for the info.

>
> > 3. Do the authentication etc. work the same way or do they need to be
> > defined differently?
>
> As said, it's authentication "à la Rails", ldap and openid shouldn't
> be that hard to plug in.

Will work with acts_as_authenticated type framework then?

Kumar

[John Mettraux]

Hi Kumar,

On 8/27/07, OpenWFEFan <g_sk...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > > 3. Do the authentication etc. work the same way or do they need to be
> > > defined differently?
> >
> > As said, it's authentication "à la Rails", ldap and openid shouldn't
> > be that hard to plug in.
>
> Will work with acts_as_authenticated type framework then?

Why don't you try by yourself and then propose a patch ? It's
open-source after all, you too can help. I guess it's a 2 hour hack
;)

[OpenWFEFan]

Hi John

On Aug 26, 3:16 pm, "John Mettraux" <jmettr...@openwfe.org> wrote:
> Hi Kumar,
>

> On 8/27/07, OpenWFEFan <g_sku...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > > > 3. Do the authentication etc. work the same way or do they need to be
> > > > defined differently?
>
> > > As said, it's authentication "à la Rails", ldap and openid shouldn't
> > > be that hard to plug in.
>
> > Will work with acts_as_authenticated type framework then?
>
> Why don't you try by yourself and then propose a patch ? It's
> open-source after all, you too can help. I guess it's a 2 hour hack
> ;)

Sure will definitely give it a shot, sometime within this week and let
you know.

Just wanted to know what is the status and your view in OpenWFEru
regarding authentication as the Java one had a good one too (although
a little bit complicated :-))

Thanks

Kumar

[John Mettraux]

On 8/27/07, OpenWFEFan <g_sk...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>

> Just wanted to know what is the status and your view in OpenWFEru
> regarding authentication as the Java one had a good one too (although
> a little bit complicated :-))

Hi Kumar,

for now I just did as shown in the Rails pragmatic book (hashed
password). Nothing particular.

I hope to be able to release OpenWFEru 0.9.14 and OpenWFEru on Rails
0.9.14 by the end of the week.

[Paul McConnon]

Hi John,

I've been skulking around this mailing list for a while now.

Just wanted to say keep up the good work.

I'm watching this project carefully and plan to use it soon, I've
dipped in but have had to shelve the project for a while.

Regards,

Paul

[John Mettraux]

On 8/27/07, Paul McConnon <paulie...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi John,
>
> I've been skulking around this mailing list for a while now.
>
> Just wanted to say keep up the good work.
>
> I'm watching this project carefully and plan to use it soon, I've
> dipped in but have had to shelve the project for a while.

Hi Paul,

thanks for the support, it's great to read that !

Looking forward your future feedback and contributions.

[compe...@gmail.com]

Hello,

I am somewhat new to ruby and rails and have been stopped with my
progress on installing densha. Seems like I was getting somewhere,
and got all the way to migrating the database and get something along
the lines of

> rake aborted!
> uninitialized constant OpenWFE::CachedFilePersistedEngine::ThreadedYamlFileExpressionStorage
> /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activesupport-1.4.1/lib/active_support/dependencies.rb:477:in `const_missing'

Any advice?

Thanks

/jon

On Aug 24, 9:56 pm, "John Mettraux" <jmettr...@openwfe.org> wrote:
> Hi Kumar,
>

> On 8/25/07, OpenWFEFan <g_sku...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > Hi All
>
> > I am investigating whether to migrate from OpenWFE Java to the ruby
> > version for my rails app.
>
> > The questions that I have are:
>
> > 1. Where should I put the workflow-definition, participant-map, passwd
> > file etc for the ruby version?
> > 2. How do I load them (all the examples prefer to do it inline)
> > 3. Do the authentication etc. work the same way or do they need to be
> > defined differently?
>
> There is an example of a Rails web application being built around
> OpenWFEru. It's brand new.
>
> You can view it at :
>

> http://viewvc.rubyforge.mmmultiworks.com/cgi/viewvc.cgi/trunk/densha/...
> orhttp://fisheye3.cenqua.com/browse/openwferu/trunk/densha

>
> You can also check out this source code by doing :
>

> svn checkouthttp://openwferu.rubyforge.org/svn/trunk/densha

[John Mettraux]

On 8/31/07, compe...@gmail.com <compe...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> I am somewhat new to ruby and rails and have been stopped with my
> progress on installing densha. Seems like I was getting somewhere,
> and got all the way to migrating the database and get something along
> the lines of
>
> > rake aborted!
> > uninitialized constant OpenWFE::CachedFilePersistedEngine::ThreadedYamlFileExpressionStorage
> > /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activesupport-1.4.1/lib/active_support/dependencies.rb:477:in `const_missing'
>
> Any advice?

Hi Jon,

you're kind of eager to test "densha", I haven't written any install
doc for it now, early feedback is good.

For your next question, could you please start a new thread instead of
"hijacking" that one, thanks in advance.

Could you please describe the steps you take for the install ? Which
revision of Densha are you using ? The current one is 957 (simply run
the command "svn update" in your densha/ directory to get up to date).

With the information that you've given me I really cannot help you.

[John Mettraux]

On 8/31/07, John Mettraux <jmet...@openwfe.org> wrote:
> On 8/31/07, compe...@gmail.com <compe...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Hello,
> >
> > I am somewhat new to ruby and rails and have been stopped with my
> > progress on installing densha. Seems like I was getting somewhere,
> > and got all the way to migrating the database and get something along
> > the lines of
> >
> > > rake aborted!
> > > uninitialized constant OpenWFE::CachedFilePersistedEngine::ThreadedYamlFileExpressionStorage
> > > /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activesupport-1.4.1/lib/active_support/dependencies.rb:477:in `const_missing'
> >
> > Any advice?

Hi Jon,

as discussed with Kumar (thanks !), it seems that it'd be better if
you used the trunk version of OpenWFEru as you're using the trunk
version of Densha.

svn checkout http://openwferu.rubyforge.org/svn/trunk/openwfe-ruby
svn checkout http://openwferu.rubyforge.org/svn/trunk/densha

In the same directory, then head to densha/ to try it.

Questions are welcome (in a new thread please), best regards,