[Zope-CMF] Re: A better CMFworkflow - Time Domain

[Jeff Kowalczyk]

It would be useful for the workflow to support the time and event domain
for state transitions.

Some use cases:
1) Content type has a workflow where one or more transitions are a
function of time.
(User) approved ->  published -> (2 weeks) -> archived

Not every workflow would need timer events, so it should be a component
that is explicitly enabled to pulse to a Zone-wide heartbeat at a
selectable resolution.

2) Content type has one or more state transitions that are triggered by
an CMFEvent content type's 'arrival'. That interface might be expressed
by custom content types. In general, this brings up the idea of linking
one items state to another's with weak references becoming raiseable
events(). Objects might want to watch specific transitions of other
objects, or other content types as a class.

P.S. Have the DC guys working on their next workflow revision had any
hands-on exposure to the Exchange 2000 Workflow designer? Visual Editor
aside, It's a good standard to answer the questions of what we need from
general workflow framework, one than can support applications other than
portals. Definitely worth a demo installation.

Exchange's folder events (now Web Storage System events) are very
useful. Items kick off general events defined by the folder on add,
change, delete, etc., to which the workflow can hook into. This is also
where they get their time-domain workflow events. Very acquisition-like.