Workflow Installation and Getting Started Guide

OpenACS Documentation : Workflow : Installation and Getting Started Guide

1. Install the ACS-Workflow APM Package

Workflow is installed by default on OpenACS 4.

2. Install GraphViz

• GraphViz download page

We use GraphViz to create a graphic representation of the process. This is used in a number of places, including the Advanced Process Builder and the Process Monitor. Although the package will operate without GraphViz installed, it is highly recommended that you do install GraphViz.

On RedHat 7.2, say:

rpm -ivh http://www.research.att.com/sw/tools/graphviz/dist/graphviz-1.8.1-0.i386.rpm

On Debian, say:

apt-get install graphviz

On other systems, visit the GraphViz download page and see what you can find out.

3. Install Fonts for GraphViz

• webfonts RPM or Microsoft free TrueType font download page

This will work a little differently depending on your platform.

On Linux, you can install the RPM fonts:

$ su -
$ rpm -ivh ftp://rpmfind.net/linux/contrib/noarch/noarch/webfonts-1-3.noarch.rpm

Unfortunately, Graphviz doesn't look in the place where the webfonts RPM puts them. Webfonts puts the fonts in /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/webfonts. Graphviz looks in /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/webfonts/truetype (among other places, and it may vary from version to version.)

Here's what you can do to copy the font files from where webfonts puts them to where GraphiViz looks:

$ cd /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts
$ mkdir truetype
$ cd truetype
$ cp ../webfonts/* .

You don't have to copy over all the fonts. For the standard installation, you only need arial.ttf, arialb.ttf, and times.ttf. You may also symlink them if you prefer. But the above will work.

If you have a recent version of Solaris, you can probably find the fonts in /usr/openwin/lib/X11/font/TrueType/. The names are not what GraphViz expects, though, so you should create links with the appropriate names in /usr/local/lib/fonts/:

$ su -
$ ln -s /usr/openwin/lib/X11/font/TrueType/Arial.ttf /usr/local/lib/fonts/arial.ttf
$ ln -s /usr/openwin/lib/X11/font/TrueType/Arial-Bold.ttf /usr/local/lib/fonts/arialb.ttf
$ ln -s /usr/openwin/lib/X11/font/TrueType/TimesNewRoman.ttf /usr/local/lib/fonts/times.ttf

If neither of these options works for you and you have a Windows machine handy, you can download the Microsoft fonts:

1. Download and execute arial32.exe on a Windows machine.
2. Locate your font files in c:\windows\fonts or c:\winnt\fonts.
3. Copy arial.ttf and arialb.ttf onto your server Unix machine, into /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/truetype. If you want, you can download, install and copy over additional font files.

4. Configure the Workflow Package

1. Visit the Site Map at /admin/site-map on your webserver.
2. Click "set parameters" next to the acs-workflow package.
3. Make sure the graphviz_dot_path parameter points to the dot binary that you just installed e.g., /usr/local/bin/dot, and the tmp_path parameter should point to some directory where temporary files can be stored e.g., /var/tmp.

Congratulations

Your workflow package is installed. You probably want to visit the package at /acs-workflow/ (this is where Workflow is mounted by default—may vary on your server), click on admin, and study the sample processes included.