This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Python Buzz by Fabiano Weimar dos Santos. Original Post: DCWorkflow dot graphs Feed Title: [Xiru].org Feed URL: http://xiru.org/blog/search_rss?path=/Xiru/blog Feed Description: [Xiru].org - Fabiano Weimar dos Santos' Website. Usefull information about xiru's projects, Plone and Zope community and Python hacks. Latest Python Buzz Posts Latest Python Buzz Posts by Fabiano Weimar dos Santos Latest Posts From [Xiru].org

Some days ago I talked with my friend Sidnei that pointed me a interesting Debian package called graphviz. He used it to generate documentation for a postgresql database model (using postgresql-autodoc and graphviz). However, more than the packages, what made me curious was the way how he did it; and It give an idea: DCWorkflow graphs.

Graphviz has a program called dot. It receives a text file with a digraph description and plot it using a math model to avoid cross edges. So... I did a small spike to represent the standard Plone workflow in a dot file. The source code is that:

digraph plone {
  private [shape=box,label="Private"];
  visible [shape=box,label="Visible"];
  pending [shape=box,label="Pending"];
  published [shape=box,label="Published"];
  visible -> pending [label="Submit"];
  visible -> published [label="Publish"];
  visible -> private [label="Hide"];
  private -> visible [label="Show"];
  pending -> private [label="Hide"];
  pending -> visible [label="Retract,Reject"];
  pending -> published [label="Publish"];
  published -> visible [label="Retract,Reject"];
}

After write that simple dot file, I used dot program to generate a gif image. It's quite simple. See the example:

$ dot -Tgif plone.dot > plone.gif

If you want to download plone.dot file, click here.

Bingo! After that, I only need to write a Zope Product to read a DCWorkflow definition and export a dot file. It's christmas and I want to watch The Return of the King. I really don't want to develop it today, but why not tomorrow?