Can this be done?

My Manager came up with an idea, he wants some sort of serial templating, in a workflow. Is this scenario possible.

For example
I have a template which can generate "NewsArticle.html". say we have an auto generation set up of these html in some folder called "News".
Then there needs to be a OD and DD stage where the content is deployed to target machine and to the Database.
Then there needs to be a form interface in the workflow where user can enter some data like "Title" "Location of html" "expirationdate" and then click finish, this will create a html file in a different location in the workarea.

Then this html file has to be deployed to target machine and into the database.

Finally an xml file has to be updates between the "Item" tags specifying the expiration date and the name of the html which were deployed in this workflow.

Is this possible?
Never done anything like this before.
Thanks

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Comments

Jeremy

Is this possible?
Thanks

Everything is possible given time and money.

Its just a workflow you need to build with all those steps built in.
Doesn't sound too complex...couple of external tasks, CGI task etc.

Just take it slow and start at the begining and build it one task at a time.

nipper

Yes that is not unreasonable. What part(s) are you having trouble with ? Anything can be written provided enough time/money.

Bhargav Coca

Thank you guys, you know how mangers are, they want the things done in little time with little money, they can pay more but time is always a big criteria for them. I guess i will start on it and go step by step. I am assuming a whole week for me to do this.

ooh and i forgot to ask,

I have a DCT right now, with one field (textarea) which will take a long data, say like a cut and paste of a news article. This field is a part of a replicant, i know how to retrieve this fields information in my tpl.

I want to code something in my workflow which will take the information form this particular field and creates an html file out of it and attaches to workflow along with the dcr which actually creats html file of it own. I hope i am somewhat clear. Sorry if it is too confusing.

Please give me an idea.
Thanks

Migrateduser

Are you working on this alone? One week of fully-concentrated effort sounds about right, I guess, but I would think that to be a rather aggressive estimate. The larger task, as I see it, is not actually implementing this but it's to capture all of the requirements. If you have a sign-off on the requirements then I'd think it might take one person 3 - 5 days of concentrated time to do this, depending on their comfort and skill level.

Dave

nipper

I agree with Dave, 1 week is possible, though maybe a bit agressive. What requirements do you have for QA, specifications, testing etc ? Normally I would never even consider that, but in my current project those requirements are very detailed and a 1 week coding effort is 3 weeks total (plus external QA).

Bhargav Coca

Yes i agree with the time limit and amount of effort that would go here. But its always a situation of give and take, If i offere them a workflow which creates "N" number of html pages out of a single Template they are happy. I guess something like this is possible. if not i have to route for 3 weeks of work.

Earlier in my projects we had some workflows which could create multiple files out of a single template ( html, xml, .properties). I mean this can be done using simple perl. I guess i have to keep this code in a loop and create N number of html files. Am i very optimistic?

Please advice.
Thanks

nipper

I think you are on the right track. Reuse your code. Cut & paste is a beautiful thing when writing code.

Adam Stoller

I agree with Dave, 1 week is possible, though maybe a bit agressive. What requirements do you have for QA, specifications, testing etc ? Normally I would never even consider that, but in my current project those requirements are very detailed and a 1 week coding effort is 3 weeks total (plus external QA).

In general - I would never estimate less than a full week for a workflow - unless it is a very simple workflow (like the default submit which has no reviews, no CGIs, etc.).

I'd say you probably need a solid week of requirements gathering first - then, based on that information anywhere from 3 days to 3 weeks of serious design - the better your design, the easier your implementation.

If you have to create CGI tasks - figure they'll take at least 1-3 days (it's too easy to run into problems getting CGI scripts to work correctly).

The more you know up-front (i.e. the less you have to figure out in the midst of implementation) - the better chance you have for success in a reasonable time frame.

Bhargav Coca

Thank you all. I rather stick with my plan 2 which is to create multiple html files from a single template. I was thinking about having a Textarea in a replicant which takes the cut and paste format of a news article and inserts in the body tag of a html and creates the file. I am assuming here that the textarea return what ever is pasted in it into the body tag as it is. I mean with bold, italic, colored fonts and images. Am i right here?

I have run into some problems with Visual format in a texarea in my past projects. Every time i had to cut and crop the text according to my needs. I hope i don't have to do that again.

Please advice.
Thank you

Migrateduser

I am assuming here that the textarea return what ever is pasted in it into the body tag as it is. I mean with bold, italic, colored fonts and images. Am i right here?

Assuming your textarea is a VFE then yes. Although, I find that VFE often returns *more* HTML than what is needed, which is what "clean" and/or regexes in FormAPI and/or TPL is for.

Adam Stoller

Thank you all. I rather stick with my plan 2 which is to create multiple html files from a single template. I was thinking about having a Textarea in a replicant which takes the cut and paste format of a news article and inserts in the body tag of a html and creates the file. I am assuming here that the textarea return what ever is pasted in it into the body tag as it is. I mean with bold, italic, colored fonts and images. Am i right here?

I have run into some problems with Visual format in a texarea in my past projects. Every time i had to cut and crop the text according to my needs. I hope i don't have to do that again.

Please advice.
Thank you

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