ruote log_2010-05-06

2010-05-06 01:43:26 utc jmettraux brain_in_vat: hello, I just saw your question
2010-05-06 01:43:38 utc brain_in_vat hi, I worked it out
2010-05-06 01:43:41 utc brain_in_vat the one from yesterday?
2010-05-06 01:43:45 utc jmettraux ah great
2010-05-06 01:44:11 utc jmettraux yes, http://ruote.rubyforge.org/irclogs/ruote_2010-05-04.txt
2010-05-06 01:45:09 utc brain_in_vat ha, clever
2010-05-06 01:45:32 utc brain_in_vat well, fyi, I lost time on the expression interpretation on particpants
2010-05-06 01:46:00 utc jmettraux ok
2010-05-06 01:46:01 utc brain_in_vat :if => '${f:new_pages.size} != 0'
2010-05-06 01:46:10 utc brain_in_vat hang on, coffee
2010-05-06 01:47:32 utc brain_in_vat I had to fiddle before I realised ${f:new_pages.any?} or ${f:new_pages.size} > 0 weren't going to work
2010-05-06 01:48:07 utc jmettraux ${r:xxx} could maybe help
2010-05-06 01:48:29 utc brain_in_vat that goes into ruby
2010-05-06 01:48:30 utc brain_in_vat ?
2010-05-06 01:48:34 utc jmettraux yes
2010-05-06 01:48:48 utc brain_in_vat right, couldn't find that in the docs
2010-05-06 01:48:50 utc jmettraux let me look up a link
2010-05-06 01:49:23 utc jmettraux http://ruote.rubyforge.org/dollar.html last section
2010-05-06 01:49:48 utc brain_in_vat right
2010-05-06 01:49:55 utc brain_in_vat for some reason I find the documentation hard to use
2010-05-06 01:50:20 utc brain_in_vat anyway, when I have better suggestions (clearer ones) I'll let you know
2010-05-06 01:50:25 utc jmettraux thanks
2010-05-06 01:50:27 utc brain_in_vat ACTION is working on his content framework today
2010-05-06 01:50:50 utc jmettraux there is still the wiki
2010-05-06 01:52:22 utc jmettraux documentation will be easy to use when it will be able to read the reader's mind
2010-05-06 01:53:22 utc brain_in_vat :)
2010-05-06 01:53:48 utc threetee hey jmettraux, do you have time for me to run some ruote/rails integration questions by you?
2010-05-06 01:54:03 utc jmettraux threetee: please fire
2010-05-06 01:54:09 utc threetee great
2010-05-06 01:54:37 utc threetee so I have ruote, ruote-kit and ruote-on-rails all up and running
2010-05-06 01:54:51 utc threetee I've started my ruote worker (rake ruote_kit:run_worker)
2010-05-06 01:55:28 utc threetee I've defined my participants and created my process definition
2010-05-06 01:55:32 utc jmettraux ACTION hopes he can answer {ruote|deamon}-kit questions efficiently
2010-05-06 01:56:01 utc threetee and I've wired up a controller to kick off a ruote process on an action
2010-05-06 01:57:15 utc threetee I also have created a workitem resource as per http://groups.google.com/group/openwferu-users/msg/ca95a5f87c575a57 so I can monitor the contents of the queue
2010-05-06 01:57:46 utc threetee so my action kicks off the process, and I can see the files being created in the storage location (using filesystem storage)
2010-05-06 01:58:12 utc threetee but when I try to view the workitems a la the above, no workitems are shown
2010-05-06 01:58:47 utc jmettraux is there an error file created in your filesystem storage ?
2010-05-06 01:59:20 utc threetee checking...
2010-05-06 01:59:29 utc jmettraux the other way is to ask the process about its errors : p engine.process(wfid).errors.size
2010-05-06 02:01:42 utc threetee I don't see any errors: http://pastie.org/947805
2010-05-06 02:02:27 utc jmettraux ah, there are two workitems
2010-05-06 02:02:36 utc jmettraux what does your workitem controller look like ?
2010-05-06 02:03:36 utc threetee http://pastie.org/947808
2010-05-06 02:03:59 utc jmettraux looks ideal
2010-05-06 02:04:11 utc threetee ah crap
2010-05-06 02:04:14 utc threetee I just figured it out
2010-05-06 02:04:17 utc threetee my fault
2010-05-06 02:05:03 utc threetee my view was screwed up :(
2010-05-06 02:05:19 utc threetee sorry about that
2010-05-06 02:05:27 utc jmettraux no worries !
2010-05-06 02:07:55 utc threetee one other question: is it possible to stuff an activerecord item into a workitem?
2010-05-06 02:08:17 utc jmettraux the workitem must be serializable as JSON
2010-05-06 02:08:24 utc threetee got it
2010-05-06 02:08:39 utc threetee so as long as I can serialize the object, I can assign it to a workitem field and pass it around all I want
2010-05-06 02:09:03 utc jmettraux somehow yes
2010-05-06 02:09:11 utc jmettraux I tend to "reference" stuff
2010-05-06 02:09:21 utc jmettraux workitem.fields['audit_id'] = 12
2010-05-06 02:09:38 utc jmettraux Audit = Audit.find(workitem.fields['audit_id'])
2010-05-06 02:09:42 utc threetee that makes sense
2010-05-06 02:09:55 utc jmettraux I even re-open the workitem class sometimes
2010-05-06 02:10:19 utc jmettraux def audit; Audit.find(self.fields['audit_id']); end
2010-05-06 02:10:26 utc jmettraux then
2010-05-06 02:10:31 utc jmettraux audit = workitem.audit
2010-05-06 02:10:36 utc jmettraux and so on
2010-05-06 02:10:45 utc threetee slick
2010-05-06 02:13:12 utc threetee I think I'm well on my way to integrating ruote with my rails app now :)
2010-05-06 02:13:15 utc threetee one more question though
2010-05-06 02:14:02 utc threetee my first stab at a pattern to kick off a process looks like this:
2010-05-06 02:14:13 utc threetee controller action: http://pastie.org/947820
2010-05-06 02:14:17 utc threetee model: http://pastie.org/947821
2010-05-06 02:15:33 utc threetee the process diagram looks somewhat like this: http://imgur.com/iDlIG (it's changed somewhat since I drew that one, but this gets the point across)
2010-05-06 02:16:38 utc threetee because the process involves several human participants, it could last for some time
2010-05-06 02:16:52 utc threetee what I'm wondering about is how people usually handle saving the object to the database
2010-05-06 02:17:32 utc threetee do they save only after the ruote process finishes successfully, do they save before like I'm doing in this example?
2010-05-06 02:17:54 utc jmettraux I tend to save before
2010-05-06 02:18:12 utc threetee seems like if one saves before, one would need to implement a state machine to reflect that the object was still being processed
2010-05-06 02:18:16 utc jmettraux the process instances "brush" the business objects state
2010-05-06 02:18:39 utc jmettraux you could have a simple "work_in_process" field
2010-05-06 02:18:46 utc jmettraux or something like that
2010-05-06 02:19:14 utc threetee right, just a flag to indicate that it was still in the ruote process
2010-05-06 02:19:17 utc threetee makes sense
2010-05-06 02:19:23 utc jmettraux or the process, at its end, pushes/copies the objects/records/resources to a new place ....
2010-05-06 02:19:23 utc threetee cool, so I'm not too far off then?
2010-05-06 02:19:36 utc jmettraux looks good !
2010-05-06 02:19:56 utc threetee excellent, thanks for the advice
2010-05-06 02:20:00 utc jmettraux you'll come up with your own best practices ;)
2010-05-06 02:20:10 utc threetee haha I prefer to avoid reinventing the wheel though
2010-05-06 02:20:41 utc threetee but yes, best practices are often very subjective
2010-05-06 02:21:23 utc jmettraux :)
2010-05-06 02:22:37 utc jmettraux with rails and workitems, I have three techniques
2010-05-06 02:23:01 utc jmettraux 1) raw workitem view (the workitem and nothing else)
2010-05-06 02:23:39 utc jmettraux 2) the workitem in relation with a resource /resource/xxx/edit?workitem=20090405-wada!!0_0
2010-05-06 02:24:16 utc jmettraux 3) a special "form" resources determined based on the "task" field (a convention)
2010-05-06 02:24:59 utc jmettraux in 1) there is no correlation at all
2010-05-06 02:25:15 utc jmettraux in 2) there is a 1 to 1 correlation, 1 resource, 1 workitem
2010-05-06 02:25:32 utc jmettraux in 3) you can have 1 workitem and 1+ resources
2010-05-06 02:26:24 utc jmettraux sorry for the vagueness
2010-05-06 02:29:58 utc threetee np, I'll work on grokking this
2010-05-06 02:30:26 utc threetee I understand 1 and 2
2010-05-06 02:30:29 utc threetee still working out 3
2010-05-06 12:36:56 utc kennethkalmer /join #rdrc
2010-05-06 12:37:00 utc kennethkalmer fail
2010-05-06 12:37:11 utc kennethkalmer how goes over here?
2010-05-06 12:37:51 utc jmettraux trying
2010-05-06 12:38:16 utc jmettraux not very populated
2010-05-06 12:38:20 utc kennethkalmer anything i can help with ?
2010-05-06 12:38:23 utc kennethkalmer not yet
2010-05-06 12:38:28 utc jmettraux ?
2010-05-06 12:39:11 utc kennethkalmer trying...
2010-05-06 12:39:29 utc jmettraux ah, joined #rdrc as well
2010-05-06 12:45:17 utc jmettraux I'm having good fun with beanstalkd
2010-05-06 12:46:44 utc jmettraux lovely piece of software
2010-05-06 12:49:35 utc jmettraux tosch_le: hello !
2010-05-06 12:49:44 utc tosch_le hi!
2010-05-06 12:49:50 utc tosch_le doing fine?
2010-05-06 12:50:21 utc jmettraux doing fine, how about you ?
2010-05-06 12:50:42 utc tosch_le i'm doing fine, thanks
2010-05-06 12:51:39 utc jmettraux what are "sixes" ? Sixpacks ?
2010-05-06 13:23:34 utc kennethkalmer no idea
2010-05-06 23:11:06 utc threetee hey kennethkalmer, mind if I pick your brain some more about ruote-kit/rails?
2010-05-06 23:18:07 utc threetee so I have my current rails app up at http://github.com/threetee/ruote-rails-test
2010-05-06 23:18:19 utc threetee the process I'm looking to implement is at http://imgur.com/F7268
2010-05-06 23:18:23 utc jmettraux hello
2010-05-06 23:18:29 utc threetee hi jmettraux
2010-05-06 23:18:53 utc threetee I was just bugging kennethkalmer about a ruote-kit and rails integration question
2010-05-06 23:19:22 utc jmettraux ahh
2010-05-06 23:19:30 utc jmettraux he's still awake ?
2010-05-06 23:19:35 utc threetee I don't know
2010-05-06 23:19:36 utc threetee :)
2010-05-06 23:19:54 utc jmettraux 0125 for him :)
2010-05-06 23:20:07 utc threetee he's still in the room, so I figured I'd throw this out there and send it to the list if he wasn't around :)
2010-05-06 23:21:35 utc threetee so my EmailsController#create action kicks off a ruote process like it should
2010-05-06 23:21:43 utc threetee john, this is what I was asking you about the other day
2010-05-06 23:21:48 utc jmettraux ok
2010-05-06 23:22:31 utc threetee but I'm a little fuzzy on how I interact with the ruote engine throughout the life of the process
2010-05-06 23:22:47 utc threetee for example, the next step in the process is for the requestor to upload some forms
2010-05-06 23:23:34 utc threetee I want to tie that to another controller action somewhere, but I'm having difficulty figuring out what the right method is to progress the workflow
2010-05-06 23:24:06 utc threetee I'm also realizing that I need some way for the user's form uploads to be associated with the right wfid
2010-05-06 23:24:51 utc jmettraux ok
2010-05-06 23:24:59 utc jmettraux should we discuss the upload thing ?
2010-05-06 23:25:08 utc threetee sure
2010-05-06 23:25:29 utc jmettraux may the user upload at any time or does the process grant them the right at some point ?
2010-05-06 23:26:30 utc threetee the user should only be able to upload after the email request...otherwise, it would be difficult to associate the uploaded forms with the email in question
2010-05-06 23:26:55 utc jmettraux then he has a workitem with a task like "please upload docs related to x"
2010-05-06 23:27:08 utc threetee right
2010-05-06 23:27:28 utc jmettraux the form/edit view for this workitem should allow for upload and keep track (in the workitem) of the uploaded documents
2010-05-06 23:27:53 utc jmettraux it could also keep track of the upload docs [URIs] in the underlying record (if you went that way)
2010-05-06 23:28:07 utc threetee okay, makes sense...I assumed that I would provide the user with a specific URL to use for the form upload, that included the wfid
2010-05-06 23:28:33 utc jmettraux it does /workitems/{workitem-fei}/edit
2010-05-06 23:28:37 utc jmettraux somehow
2010-05-06 23:29:06 utc threetee I see
2010-05-06 23:29:41 utc threetee it could also be /forms/new?fei={workitem-fei}, yes?
2010-05-06 23:29:57 utc jmettraux if you have a forms controller yes
2010-05-06 23:30:28 utc threetee okay, I'm with you so far
2010-05-06 23:31:02 utc threetee so in whatever controller action gets run to accept the user's form, it stores the form, then updates the workitem with the form ID
2010-05-06 23:31:55 utc jmettraux in my stuff, the forms are completely virtual, they are not stored, the incoming params are used to complete the workitem (and sometimes upload files)
2010-05-06 23:33:55 utc threetee I would love to do it that way, but unfortunately I work for a company with lawyers that like to have signed forms. I'm lucky to be using scanned/uploaded forms. :|
2010-05-06 23:34:07 utc jmettraux ouch
2010-05-06 23:34:31 utc jmettraux so when you say form, it's a "scanned form"
2010-05-06 23:35:07 utc threetee correct, so I'm planning to set up the forms resource and use paperclip to store the scanned attachments
2010-05-06 23:35:24 utc jmettraux then your description makes complete sense
2010-05-06 23:36:43 utc threetee cool
2010-05-06 23:37:01 utc threetee so how do I retrieve the workitem by fei?
2010-05-06 23:38:08 utc jmettraux RuoteKit.storage_participant.find(fei)
2010-05-06 23:38:11 utc jmettraux let me double-check
2010-05-06 23:39:26 utc threetee I just checked the barley source, and I see Ruote::FlowExpressionId.from_id(fei, ENGINE.context.engine_id)
2010-05-06 23:39:44 utc jmettraux this creates a FlowExpressionId instance
2010-05-06 23:40:08 utc jmettraux RuoteKit.storage_participant[fei]
2010-05-06 23:40:11 utc jmettraux is the right thing
2010-05-06 23:49:49 utc jmettraux threetee: may I link people to your http://github.com/threetee/ruote-rails-test ?
2010-05-06 23:50:34 utc threetee sure, but maybe you should wait until it does more cool stuff :)
2010-05-06 23:50:42 utc jmettraux right
2010-05-06 23:50:48 utc threetee name could probably be better too
2010-05-06 23:51:25 utc threetee but yes, once I get everything working, it would be a good resource for n00bs like me
2010-05-06 23:51:46 utc jmettraux you won't be a n00b at that point ;)
2010-05-06 23:51:54 utc threetee I certainly hope not!
2010-05-06 23:58:54 utc threetee so if I wanted to send an email to the requestor that contained a link they could use to upload their forms
2010-05-06 23:59:01 utc threetee that link would of course need to refer to the fei
2010-05-06 23:59:24 utc jmettraux do you need a String version of the fei ?
2010-05-07 00:00:44 utc threetee yes
2010-05-07 00:00:50 utc threetee and to_s isn't giving me what I would expect
2010-05-07 00:01:06 utc jmettraux fei.to_storage_id
2010-05-07 00:01:30 utc jmettraux then there is Ruote::FlowExpressionId.from_s(s_fei) IIRC
2010-05-07 00:02:09 utc jmettraux wrong
2010-05-07 00:02:18 utc jmettraux it's Ruote::FlowExpressionId.from_id(s)
2010-05-07 00:02:43 utc jmettraux http://github.com/jmettraux/ruote/blob/ruote2.1/lib/ruote/fei.rb
2010-05-07 00:03:08 utc jmettraux if a need for some shortcut appears, please tell me