Developing Applications with Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) (Video Training)

Brian Noyes is a software architect, trainer, writer, and speaker with IDesign (www.idesign.net), a premier .NET consulting and training company. He has been developing software systems for more than fifteen years, speaks at many major software conferences around the world, and writes for a variety of software journals and magazines. He is the author of Data Binding with Windows Forms 2.0 and Smart Client Deployment with ClickOnce (both from Addison-Wesley).

Preface ixLesson 1: Windows Workflow Foundation Overview 1WF Packaging 1

Workflow Types 2

The Base Activity Library 3

WF Design Process 4

Lesson 2: WF Architecture and Services 5WF Capabilities 5

WF Layered Architecture 6

WF Services 6

WF Execution Model 6

Dependency Properties 7

Lesson 3: Visual Studio 2005 Project and Item Templates 9WF Project Templates 9

WF Project Item Templates 10

Code versus Code Separation 11

Lesson 4: Sequential Workflow Basics 13Sequential Workflow Designer 13

Sequential Workflow Execution 14

Lesson 5: State Machine Workflow Basics 17State Machine Workflow Designer 17

Hierarchical Navigation in a State Machine 17

State Machine Workflow Execution 19

Lesson 6: Base Activities 1 21Code Activity 21

IfElse Activity 21

Conditions 22

While Activity 24

Lesson 7: Base Activities 2 25Delay Activity 25

Sequence Activity 25

Parallel Activity 26

InvokeWorkflow Activity 26

Concurrency in Workflows 27

Lesson 8: Base Activities 3 29Listen Activity 29

ConditionedActivityGroup Activity 29

Replicator Activity 30

Policy Activity 31

Lesson 9: Integrating WF into Applications 33Hosting the WorkflowRuntime 33

Creating a Workflow Instance 33

Getting a WorkflowInstance for a Running Workflow 34

Host Application Requirements for WF 34

Handling Workflow Lifecycle Events 34

Lesson 10: Enabling Persistence and Tracking 35Creating the Persistence and Tracking Databases 35

Adding Persistence through Code 35

Adding Tracking through Code 36

Adding Persistence or Tracking in the config File 36

Runtime Effects of Persistence 37

Lesson 11: Passing Parameters into and out of a Workflow 39Defining Workflow Properties for Parameters 39

Passing Input Parameters 40

Getting Output Parameters 40

Lesson 12: Calling into a Running Workflow from the Host Application 41Host Communications Model 41

Lesson 13: Calling from a Workflow into the Host Application 45Outgoing Calls Summary 45

Lesson 14: Web Service Calls out from a Workflow 47InvokeWebService Activity Overview 47

Lesson 15: Web Service Calls into a Workflow 49Exposing Web Services from a Workflow 49

Host Site ASMX File 50

Web.config Entries 50

Lesson 16: Exception Handling 51Fault Handling Scopes in Workflows 51

Throw Activity 52

Lesson 17: Using Transactions in Workflows 53Transactions in Workflows 53

Atomic Transactions 53

Long-Running Transactions 54

Lesson 18: Handling Events in Workflows 55Event Handling in Workflows 55

Lesson 19: Developing Custom Composite Activities 57Creating Custom Composite Activities 57

Defining Dependency Properties for Data Binding 58

Creating Custom Control Flow 58

Lesson 20: Developing Custom Simple Activities 61Creating Custom Simple Activities 61

Creating Custom Design-Time Support for Your Custom Activity 61