Item8268: WorkflowPlugin incompatible to old version

I've set up a document workflow under TWiki 4.1.2 using WorkflowPlugin $Rev: 16724 (12 Dec 2008) $ originally. In this setup, I had the some of the WORKFLOW macros included into the topic under workflow control. It did this mainly to simplify later adjustments to the look & feel of the workflow controls. To visualise:

ControlledDocument:

---+ Document under Workflow Control
   * Set WORKFLOW = DocumentApprovalWorkflow

Some text..

%INCLUDE{"WorkflowControls"}%

WorkflowControls:

---+ Document containing Workflow Controls
%STARTINCLUDE%
%WORKFLOWNOTICE%

Status of this topic: %WORKFLOWSTATE%

%WORKFLOWBUTTON%

*Workflow History*
| *Revision* | *Status* | *User* | *Date* |
%WORKFLOWHISTORY%
%STOPINCLUDE%

This worked without a problem until I tried to migrate our wiki to Foswiki and WorkflowPlugin $Rev: 4752 $. Now, the plugin does recognise that the document ControlledDocument is under workflow control but if I use the WORKFLOWBUTTON to change the state, it tries to change the state of the included topic WorkflowControls (which fails because it is not under workflow control).

Was this change in functionality intentional? Is there anything I can do apart from editing all topics under workflow control to included the controls?

-- MartinKaufmann - 09 Sep 2009

There have been many changes to this plugin since Dec 2008. I'm not sure why these includes aren't working for you, but you can accomplish what you are trying to do with VIEW templates instead. See SkinTemplates for details (have a close read, it's not as bad as it first seems).

-- DeanSpicer - 17 Sep 2009

The includes are actually working fine; the macros are relative to the topic they are used in i.e. the included topic, rather than the including (or base) topic. Frankly I'm surprised that the behaviour was ever different; none of the changes I have made recently should have affected this.

Anyway, from reading the code I see that if you want the macros to apply to the including topic you can use:

• %WORKFLOWSTATEMESSAGE{"%BASETOPIC%" web="%BASEWEB%"}%
• %WORKFLOWHISTORY{"%BASETOPIC%" web="%BASEWEB%"}%
• %WORKFLOWSTATE{"%BASETOPIC%" web="%BASEWEB%"}%

I can't see any way to control %WORKFLOWTRANSITION, which is used in %WORKFLOWBUTTON%, though

-- CrawfordCurrie - 18 Sep 2009

Thanks for your help, Crawford and Dean.

Crawford, I don't know what changed sice the version I'm using under TWiki. The only thing I know is that there it works the way I set it up. If I understand your comment correctly, I can't get my setup to work under Foswiki. I will have to look into using a View template as suggested by Dean.

As a quick fix, I ported my old version of this topic to Foswiki. That's not a proper solution but it works for me for the moment.

-- MartinKaufmann - 18 Sep 2009

I cleaned up the interface to WORKFLOWTRANSITION to make it possible to refer to another topic. Martin doesn't have anything else to say, I guess, so closing.

-- CrawfordCurrie - 19 Oct 2009

I guess this would solve my problems. Thanks a lot! So far, the plugin page still shows the version from 02 Sep 2009.

-- MartinKaufmann - 03 Nov 2009

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