Struts and Workflow
I think that Struts and the MVC architecture could be used to create a basic workflow system. A "WorkflowState" object would represent the state of items in the workflow (current assignment, current status, and other attributes). A "WorkflowRights" object would represent a user's right to view or change workflow items. A "WorkflowEngine" object would process the "WorkflowState" object and generate a "WorkflowRights" object. The "WorkflowRights" object would be a bean that could be used by a JSP to determine if the text of an item is displayed (if the item "is viewable"), or a form field is displayed for an item (if the item "is changeable"), or perhaps the item is neither viewable nor changeable (the state of the item is simply held by the "WorkflowState" item). The Struts Action object could determine the ActionForward based on the processed "WorkflowState". Things could get messy very quickly if you attempted to create a framework that would account for every interaction and combination, and/or provide a generic rules generation system. However, if you accept that your workflow rules are going to be generated by coding your "WorkflowEngine", you should be able to create a very effective, modular system. Any thoughts? Mike __ Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month! http://sbc.yahoo.com - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Struts and Workflow
The reason I posted a message on workflow to this group is because there were a few brief postings on the subject earlier in the week. Also, as a point of clarification, the "WorkflowRights" object is needed to keep business logic out of the view. A display decision is made based on rights and not a combination of logic decided in the JSP (if a user is in "X" role AND the status is "Y", etc.). Mike --- Mike Duffy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I think that Struts and the MVC architecture could be used to > create > a basic workflow system. > > A "WorkflowState" object would represent the state of items in the > workflow (current assignment, current status, and other > attributes). > > A "WorkflowRights" object would represent a user's right to view or > change workflow items. > > A "WorkflowEngine" object would process the "WorkflowState" object > and generate a "WorkflowRights" object. > > The "WorkflowRights" object would be a bean that could be used by a > JSP to determine if the text of an item is displayed (if the item > "is > viewable"), or a form field is displayed for an item (if the item > "is > changeable"), or perhaps the item is neither viewable nor > changeable > (the state of the item is simply held by the "WorkflowState" item). > > The Struts Action object could determine the ActionForward based on > the processed "WorkflowState". > > Things could get messy very quickly if you attempted to create a > framework that would account for every interaction and combination, > and/or provide a generic rules generation system. However, if you > accept that your workflow rules are going to be generated by coding > your "WorkflowEngine", you should be able to create a very > effective, > modular system. > > Any thoughts? > > Mike > > __ > Do you Yahoo!? > SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month! > http://sbc.yahoo.com > > - > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > For additional commands, e-mail: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > __ Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month! http://sbc.yahoo.com - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: role based security in struts and workflow
Hi Matt, all, At the moment I haven't got anything like a demo webapp for it but all you need to do to try it is to install it all as per the instructions, add your roles to the struts-config and make sure that you login to your app server such that isUserInRole etc. return the right thing. In BEA WLS (well in 6.x at least) this requires using either the J2EE defined login methods (method as in way if doing it!) (i.e. form based, basic etc.) or using the weblogic security's weak method (method as in function call!) - other methods don't work. In other app servers I guess this will be specific to them but all should support the J2EE defined ways. At the moment it is necessary to build them in I think, but there is probably a way to add them as a jar or something similar. It will take me a couple of days though (see below). I have been busy in meetings last week and this and am away for the rest of the week on an oh-so-interesting course, so I won't be able to put something together to sort these two probs in the next few days. (This, as well as the fact that I have had trouble with my work PC where I do all my mailing - moved over to linux now ;) - is also the reason why I haven't responded to Craig's workflow and security comments on the dev list, which I will hope to do when I get back, although at first glance it all looks pretty good.) I will try and put something together and post when I can. Regards, Nic On Monday 13 August 2001 2:35 pm, Matt Raible wrote: > Nic, > > I was looking at your struts-security.zip file (download from husted.com) > today. Do you have an example app (war) file that shows how to use this > more thoroughly? For example, I would like to know how to register any new > classes and such. > > Also, it it possible to add these additional classes as a jar, rather than > downloading the struts source and adding these classes. > > Thanks, > > Matt > > P.S. If anyone else has ways that they've instituted role-based security > with struts, and have example, please provide! Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1"; name="Attachment: 1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Description: _ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com
