Properties and Scope

Properties and Scope

• tosz

  The "promote bindable properties" command takes all of the bindable properties on the child activity, creates matching (but horribly named) properties on the composite activity, and then binds the child activity properties to the composite properties. This lets the child get values from the composite, and the composite properties are set from the workflow using it. This allows you to expose some of the functionality of the child.

  Matt

  
  
  

• Rollin561

  I'm not sure I am following exactly what you are trying to do, but here are two things you might think about:

  1. If you are creating a composite that derives from sequence and contains a while, you can promote the condition property of the while (basically bind it to a new property on the composite itself).

  2. If you want to add a property to a child activity that doesn't already have it, you can look at using Attached properties (a type of dependency property).

  I think #1 is more what you are looking for, but again, I'm not exactly sure what you are trying to do.

  Matt

  
  
  

• Xancholy

  Hi Steven,

  If you create a Sequence-derived custom activitiy with a While in it, when you compile this activity and use it in a workflow, the While is not accessible from outside - i.e. this activity is a "black-box" activity and it's inner workings are abstracted. Now, lets say that you want to expose an external hook into the workings of the While, in this case the ability to set the loop condition externally. You can do so by promoting the While's condition property as Matt described. This makes it so that even though your custom activity has abstracted contents, it exposes some hooks so that you can tweak its behavior/state, as opposed to having it be constant.

  Hope this sheds some light.

  Thanks,
  Angel

  
  
  

• StevenR2

  Thanks, Matt. Your contributions to this forum (and my own growing WWF education these past weeks) are a huge benefit. Having mentors available when learning a new technology is invaluable, especially when many of the fundamental programming paradigms seem so different.

  My question is a general one, although it grew out of the work I am doing on the document review process I am trying to build. I am not trying to do anything specific. I am just trying to understand some of the fundamentals of properties and/or variables in WWF and the mechanisms available for using them. So your response is definitely on the mark of what I was looking for.

  Regarding “promotion” of properties: You’re talking about the Promote Bindable Properties link on the designer’s Properties tab I am not clear on what happens as a result of this. Does this redefine the scope of the property

  
  
• Properties and Scope