These last two weeks represent a shift in Endpoint WF/WCF Developer Screencast series. The first four screencasts in the series concentrated on Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) development; we will now focus on Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) for four screencasts. We will then alternate back and forth every four screencasts.
This week, CSD Matt Milner from PluralSight guides you through how to run a WF workflow in your .NET application and how to manage it. The screencast picks up with an existing state machine workflow (created in last week’s screencast), hosting it within a .NET program. Matt of course starts off using a simple command-line program (every first WF demo loves using command line programs) and into then a basic ASP.net webpage (hats off to Matt for diving into an ASPX page).
To host for the workflow, Matt sets up a workflow runtime and creates an instance of the workflow. We then move on from simple ‘create and run one workflow instance model’, and use a class to abstract the details of the runtime and mediate access to the runtime object (to start/create a new workflow instance, access a currently existing instance, and to stop/shutdown an existing instance). Along the way, Matt explains the basic concepts around workflow runtime events and introduces workflow instances.
As mentioned above, the WF screencasts are a weekly series of Channel9 videos done in conjunction with the folks at PluralSight to help developers new to WF/WCF see how the technology is used. It’s worth noting that Aaron and the PluralSight folks are now offering online training courses (in a format similar to these screencasts) as a compliment to their catalog of instructor-led training courses covering Microsoft connected systems technologies. Their training topics range from .NET v3.5 (including an excellent WF/WCF Double Feature course) to WSS to BizTalk server.