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Silverlight + Workflow Foundation

I am starting work on a new project that will use WF4 for business processes and Silverlight 4 for the user interface.

I know that Silverlight will not host WF; I do not care.

I wonder if I should

  • Create workflow services and add service links directly in Silverlight

    OR

  • Open workflows through DomainService

My workflows will be lengthy and need to be maintained.

Suggestions?

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3 answers

It depends on how much other logic you want to place on the server. In most cases, I use the workflow service directly from the Silverlight user interface. In any case, I would prefer to use workflow services if the workflow lasts a long time.

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Personally, I would use WCF RIA services and simply associate WF with these endpoints (Invokes and CUD). If you need to deal with WFs that are not necessarily short, then queuing up messages will be one way to deal with it.

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I made both of the above. I started with services, but problems with AppFabric, debugging, simultaneous support for http and https, etc. They made me switch to hosting workflow in IIS (or the application server will work) and use web services for the interface.

Going along this route was also very difficult, because none of the included components of the workflow hosting had sufficient corporate functions, and I had to code them all. This is NOT easy to do, and I don't think I recommend it.

And finally, Maurice is the only true expert I found for WF4 outside of Microsoft (where I work now, but didn’t when I did this project).

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