8.6

the Resource action name box to static , and the Resource folder to
c:\PlanetPress\http . Then, click OK.
7. Send the configuration to your local PlanetPress Workflow server.
8. Start PlanetPress Workflow services (see "Start and Stop PlanetPress Workflow Service"
on page608).
9. Open your browser and point it to http://127.0.0.1:8080/documentlist , assuming you have
not changed the default HTTP port in the HTTP Server Input 2 section.
Explanation
You can follow along the process by looking at the comments available in each process of the
workflow file. Each comment explains both what the following plugins do, but also how it
integrates into the workflow in general and what to keep in mind when doing an actual
implementation of such a process.
Considerations
l The workflow itself is a standalone system that does not interact with any third-party
systems, which of course does not correspond to real customer implementation. A client
will most likely need to communicate with both an ERP system that generates documents
as well as an archive software to store completed documents.
l The HTML, CSS and data file are generated whenever the process starts, in a specified
location, in order to avoid having to distribute multiple static files which would need to be
extracted and moved to a specific folder. In an actual implementation, these files would
probably be edited externally and loaded from a location on the hard drive. However, the
method of using a template to generate output is not so alien to PlanetPress Workflow so
it is not condemned to do so.
l The example doesn't use any advanced coding such as JavaScript, Ajax and caching. It's
easier to follow, but is less optimized in its use than a complex workflow that would use
such features.
HTTP Server Workflow
An HTTPServer workflow is one that has one or more processes that always start with the
HTTPServer Input task and returns something to a client using a web browser. Each process
would have a specific task referred to as an "action", called from the browser itself.
HTTP Server Input tasks are typically used in one of the two following situations:
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