8.5
Table Of Contents
- Table of Contents
- Welcome to PlanetPress Workflow 8.5
- System Requirements
- Basics
- Features
- The Nature of PlanetPress Workflow
- About Branches and Conditions
- Configuration Components
- Connect Resources
- About Data
- About Documents
- Debugging and Error Handling
- The Plug-in Bar
- About Printing
- About Processes and Subprocesses
- Using Scripts
- Special Workflow Types
- About Tasks
- Task Properties
- Variable Properties
- Working With Variables
- About Configurations
- About Related Programs and Services
- The Interface
- Copyright Information
- Legal Notices and Acknowledgements
Comments Tab
The Comments tab is common to all tasks. It contains a single text area (Task comments)that lets you
write comments about the task. These comments are saved when the dialog is closed with the OKbutton,
and are displayed in the Task Comments Pane.
External Program
External Program action tasks are used to launch and execute other programs, which can be useful when
you wish to process your job file in a way that is not possible with the standard PlanetPress Workflow tasks.
Note
As with any task that can refer to network resources, it is important to understand the considerations
involved with paths and permissions of these resources. Please refer to the Network Considerations
page in the Advanced Configuration and Options chapter (Reference Guide, in English only).
There are some important things to consider when using the External Program task:
l The executable file must accept so-called "command-line options" and be able to run without any sort
of user interaction. Only certain programs are able to do this and may refer to it as "command-line"or
"automation"features.
l The process will always wait for the executable file to finish before it continues to the next task, and
does not have any timeout setting. This mean that if your program fails to exit for any reason, your
process will hang.
Input
Any active data file, in any format.
Processing
The external program is executed using the parameters provided. Note that the current data file is not
"sent"to the executable file, however you can refer to the full path of the data file using %F.