Intresting Questions About the SharePoint Workflow Project

Serge van den Oever posted some interesting questions regarding my SharePoint Workflow project:

  • Why do you use the parameter1, parameter2, ... construct, why not have the amount of parameters as needed or is this to have a simple schema? Wouldn't it be better to have separate tags for the different actions?
    I want to have a simple schema that doesn’t break when I add a new action. A specific node for each different action would result in a more complex and less maintainable schema.
  • Is it possible to extend the functionality to add an entry to any list in any site, and to any listing in any portal area? Would be great to set any property in those lists/listings to any area.
    In this version of SharePoint you can only attach event handlers to document libraries. That’s really a pity, but I’ve read somewhere (I think on Patrick’s blog) that the reason was limited time. So let’s hope in a next version, or a Service Pack event handlers can be attached to lists as well. This would create some opportunities to add audit trails to list items as well.
  • Is it possible to make an action that calls a function in an assembly? Would be great if you could specify for example the assembly, the class implementing a defined interface, and in this class a standard function to be called, and finally two parameters: the url of the source document and a string constructed with the field replacements you already defined. This would give infinite possibilities!
    This is a great idea! I won’t make a commitment for the first version, but I definitely will implement it in a next version (if it doesn’t make into V1). I see this as a new action, so besides the default defined actions, you can create your own custom implemented actions. Thus this would be the best of both worlds: simplicity and ease of use for the default actions and extensibility with custom actions as well.
  • Could you make the sourcecode available? We could help you in implementing additional features!
    I’ve started a GotDotNet Workspace, but at this point I’m the only member. :-) Once I’ve got a quite stable code base (probably around V1), I’ll admit members so everyone can come and contribute.

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