Microsoft Windows Workflow Foundation 4.0 Cookbook

Book Image

Microsoft Windows Workflow Foundation 4.0 Cookbook

By : Andrew Zhu

Book Image

Microsoft Windows Workflow Foundation 4.0 Cookbook

By: Andrew Zhu

Overview of this book

Windows Workflow Foundation 4.0 (WF) is a significant part of .NET Framework 4.0. WF makes workflow technology available to every single programmer that uses the .NET Framework 4.0. It is easy to create long running and distributed programs using WF with the right knowledge. With this book, you will discover that working with workflows is easy. This book provides both step-by-step recipes and relevant background information. It covers all the important aspects of Windows Workflow Foundation 4.0. The best thing about this book is that all recipes are based on real-world experiences of Andrew Zhu. Andrew is a global WF and BizTalk technology support engineer for Microsoft. This book covers everything you need to know, when working with workflows. Get to grips with flow control activities, messaging, and transaction processes with easy to understand steps followed by explanations. You will quickly learn to use collection and custom WF activities and WF services.You will see recipes that illustrate integration of Windows Workflow with other applications such as WPF, ASP.NET, WCF service.Lastly, you will discover how easily you can customize W4 Designer with WF rule engine and others.

Microsoft Windows Workflow Foundation 4.0 Cookbook

Microsoft Windows Workflow Foundation 4.0 Cookbook

Credits

About the Author

About the Author

About the Reviewers

About the Reviewers

Foreword

Preface

Free Chapter

Workflow Program

Workflow Program

Creating the first WF program: HelloWorkflow

Creating a WF program using C# Code

Initializing a WF program using InArguments

Creating a WF program using OutArgument

Creating a WF program using InOutArgument

Using Variable in a WF program

Running a WF program asynchronously

Customizing a MyReadLine activity with Bookmark

Converting a WF program instance to XAML

Loading up a WF program from an XAML file

Testing a WF program with a unit test framework

Debugging a WF program

Built-in Flow Control Activities

Built-in Flow Control Activities

Using the Foreach activity

A number guessing game in Sequence

A number guessing game using a flowchart

Using the InvokeMethod activity

Using the Switch<T> activity in Sequence workflow

Using the FlowSwitch<T> activity

Using the Parallel activity

Using the ParallelForEach<T> activity

Using the Pick activity

Handling errors

Messaging and Transaction

Messaging and Transaction

Creating a pure WCF service

Receiving and replying to a WCF message

Receiving and replying to a WCF message in code workflow

Sending and receiving a reply to a WCF message

Sending and receiving a reply to a WCF message in code workflow

Using CancellationScope activity

Performing a transaction by using TransactionScope activity

Performing compensation by using Compensable activity

Performing manual compensation by using Compensate activity

Performing confirmation by using Confirm activity

Manipulating Collections

Manipulating Collections

Printing collection items

Using AddToCollection<T> activity

Using ClearCollection<T> activity

Using RemoveFromCollection<T> activity

Using ExistsInCollection<T> activity

Custom Activities

Custom Activities

Creating an activity by inheriting the root activity

Creating a FileWriter activity

Creating a SendEmail activity

Creating an Input Message activity using Bookmark

Creating an Asynchronous HTTP Get activity

Creating a Composite activity

Creating an Activity Designer for the SendEmail activity

Creating an Activity Designer for theMySquence activity

WF4 Extensions

Configuring ETW tracking

Creating FileTrackingParticipant

Configuring the SQL persistence store

Loading a persisted workflow from the database

Using a persistence participant to persist additional data

Using a customized extension

Hosting Workflow Applications

Hosting Workflow Applications

Hosting a workflow service in IIS7

Hosting workflow in ASP.NET

Hosting workflow in WPF

Hosting workflow in a Windows Form

Custom Workflow Designer

Custom Workflow Designer

Implementing designer layout

Implementing Toolbox, Workflow Designer, and Property Inspector views

Implementing New Workflow and Load Workflow events

Implementing Save and Save As events

Implementing XAML Workflow Tab and Run events

Implementing visual tracking

Index

Customer Reviews

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Introduction

Considering workflow programs as imperative programs, we need to think of three fundamental things:

How to define workflow programs
How to build (compile) workflow programs
How to execute workflow programs

In WF4, we can define a workflow in either managed .NET code or in XAML. There are two kinds of code workflow authoring styles:

Creating a Custom Activity class
Creating workflow dynamically in the runtime

There are also two ways to author workflow in XAML:

By WF designer (recommended)
Typing XML tags manually

Essentially, a workflow program is a .NET program, no matter how we create it.

After defining workflows, we can build workflow applications as we build normal .NET applications.

When it comes to workflow execution, we need to consider three basic things:

How to flow data into and out of a workflow
How to store temporary data when a workflow is executing
How to manipulate data in a workflow

This chapter is going to focus on answering these questions.

Before moving ahead, make sure we have the following installed on our computer:

Windows Vista/7 or Windows Server 2008
Visual Studio 2010 and .NET framework 4.0

We can also use Windows XP; however, its usage is not recommended.