Create/Populate Activity Outcomes at Runtime

[tomy2105]

Similar to question asked in #831.
Is there a way to create outputs list of the activity in the runtime, during initialization (or completely in runtime)?

[sfmskywalker]

What do you mean by "outputs list"? Do you mean some form of metadata about what output(s) an activity might provide?

[tomy2105]

Yes, that is exactly what I mean.
A dynamic way of creating Outcomes = new[] { True, False, OutcomeNames.Done }......
Something like OutcomesProvider similar as now there is OptionsProvider for activity properties options.

[sfmskywalker]

Ah I see. You are referring to outcomes, not outputs (I do understand the ambiguity).

Right now there's no way, except in the form of a workflow designer plugin. This is used for example for the Fork activity, where the user can define branches from the activity editor, and then these branches are displayed as outcomes on the designer.

What you are asking for is a way to provide a list of outcomes at runtime from the server. I think we can make that happen. But out of curiosity, what's your use case for this?

[tomy2105]

A very simplified example.
I try to develop workflow for non-programmers.
They use a web service (and I hide all the complex detail of calling it into nice activity with two parameters) which returns an int which actually has few values depending on the configuration of this 3rd party service (and configuration changes from time to time).
Web service has metadata api which allows you to fetch all current possible values of this integer with user friendly description.
So instead of forcing user to do Switch with comparison to int I want to have simple "dynamic" block which will have that many outputs as there are unique values of that int, with output names being user friendly description from metadata.

[tomy2105]

Ah I see. You are referring to outcomes, not outputs (I do understand the ambiguity).

Ah, yes......
outputs in code == ActivityName,Output in designer.
outcomes in code == activity outputs (lines with names coming out of activity :)) in designer :).
Don't know what proper "nomenclature" for designer items is :(......

[sfmskywalker]

I see. So if you were able to dynamically control the activity's outcomes when initializing the activity registry, you can read this API metadata and provide the appropriate outcomes, right?

[tomy2105]

Yes, that is right.