Hello again,
Well, I finally had some time to think about this some
more and I have to admit that what I am looking for wouldn't be that
straightforward to code.
I still don't have a drawing or a sketch, but let me see
if I can explain it reasonably clearly. I'm a visual person, so, in the
end, I am looking for a graphical representation of all of the rules and
policies for a given connector. In my mind, I was thinking of having a
traditional flowchart but anything that helps show the overall flow would
suffice. This would be convenient not just for programmers, but often, we
are required to produce documents for directors, CIOs, and the like.
Having 400 pages of “If X, then Y” does little for them. But a nice
picture says the thousand words J
So, let's take as an example an AD connector.
Let's presume that this AD connector was extremely simple and had two
policies in the subscription channel:
Policy 1: If
objectclass equal to User and Surname is changing, then set destination
attribute sn equal to "hello world".
Policy 2: If
objectclass equal to Group, then veto.
This might generate some images as
follows:
The problem becomes that even within a single policy,
the number of rules could make this flowchart pretty messy very quickly.
If we were generating an interactive chart, then one could drill down by
clicking on the components and having the chart expanded. Even nicer, you
guys have the simulator within Designer. One could imagine linking the
simulator to such a flowchart and whatever path a provided XML event would
follow might become highlighted. So, for instance, if I submitted a Group
modify event, the “Group decision diamond” through to the “B” above would be
highlighted. If we had a very complex decision tree, then we would
visually see right away the path that the XML would
follow.
Anyways, back to documentation. As a first stab,
having each rule become its own mini flowchart like above might be interesting
and then possibly having all of the rules within a given policy show up
together.
Does this make any sense to you? It’s amazing how
email can sometimes be really limiting…
Marc
-----Original Message-----
From: Stephen Harmon
[mailto:stharmon@novell.com]
Sent: Tuesday, January 03, 2006 10:32 AM
To:
Subject: RE:
Requesting Information for Designer DocumentGenerationEnhancement
Request
Thanks Marc. I look forward to your
results...
-Stephen
>>> "
>>>
Hey,
I'll try and come up with something even if I have to
draw it by hand
and
scan it.
I'll dig around as well. We have a Novell
consultant helping us with
our
deployment and for our AD connector he drafted a
flowchart which I
really
liked. So, when I find it, I'll send it to
you.
Thanks for following up on
this,
Marc
-----Original Message-----
From: Stephen Harmon [mailto:stharmon@novell.com]
Sent: Monday, December 19, 2005 1:06
PM
To:
Subject: Requesting Information for Designer
Document
GenerationEnhancement
Request
Hi Marc,
I received the following request you had
suggested.
"This isn't so much a question as a Designer enhancement
request, it
would be nice to see a component of the documentation
tool that
generates flowchart like images using the driver logic,
so converting
"if-then" to diamonds,
etc."
It would be nice to get a complete example of what you
envision on
this
enhancement request. Could you please provide this
to me? Even a
drawing would help.
Thanks,
Stephen