I would like to include the text below in every new flow step. Is there a way to do this? Or can I edit a service in WmPublic to include this comment and use it as my first step in every new service.

** Service Name :
** Created Date :
** Input Parameters :
** Output Parameters :
** Description :

Hello,

Yemi Bedu

Yemi is correct. What you can do, is create two services, one flow and one Java and then make a copy of these templates in your new package folder whenever you need it.

At the same time, you can create the error handling shell, with the sequences in the flow service, and try/catch blocks in java.

Hope this helps.

Hello,

Yemi Bedu

Hi, thanks for your help:

I wanted to add the text above for all steps in a flow service in the Comments tab by the Input/Output section.

Ray, why make one flow and one java service. I do not know Java. When you say copy these templates just copy the comment text out of the service to the new steps comment?

Annalise

Ray is suggesting that you have a template Flow service (an possibly a template Java service) that contains the standard comments you mentioned in your first post. Ray went beyond your initial requirements of having consistent comments, to also include the main try-catch structure with standardized exception handling.

Developers would start each new Flow (or Java) service by making a copy of the template and renaming it. The developer would then customize the comments and start building out the logic of the service.

HTH,

Mark

Thanks Mark. I’m good to go. One last question - how do I stop all the posting messages from this forum coming to my email address. On my first post I included my email address but it has no where for me to stop it.

Annalise

You can edit your profile by logging in and going to Additional Email Notification Settings and uncheck the option for Replies to my posts.

HTH,
-L

Annalise:

I applaud the effort and desire to comment your services. Definitely worth the effort. The approach you’ve outlined strikes me as “programming language” style commenting, where comment blocks are used at the top of a class, at each method, etc. I would suggest that you might consider another approach.

As Yemi pointed out, there are several places in which to place comments.

• Every service has a “Comments” tab. Place service level descriptions here, such as what the service functionally does, when it was created, who was the author. Inputs/outputs would not go here. There probably is no real reason to cite the service name here since doing so would be more or less redundant.

• With the Inputs/Outputs tab selected, select one of the parameters. The Properties pane has a Comments field where you can place a description of that parameter. Create comments for every parameter. You can do this for document types too.

• There are several documentation utilities available. There are two in the Shareware section of wMUsers (DocumentGenrator and PackageDoc) which dynamically build HTML views of the services in a package. They display the service and parameter comments. There is also a commercial package available from CustomWare (www.customware.net) called WmDocGen that generates HTML into files much like javadoc does for Java source. An evaluation version can be downloaded at [url=“http://www.customware.net/wmdocgen/index.jsp”]http://www.customware.net/wmdocgen/index.jsp[/url]. Lastly, wM Professional Services has released (through the Learning Passport and rumored to be available on Advantage at some point in the near future) WmDoc which provides a dynamic HTML interface to view services and their comments. One of these may fulfill your needs. In the case of all but WmDocGen, the source is available so you could add anything that you need that might be missing.

HTH.

Rob,

I have a test service in which I specified some input and output variables and then commented them as you described above. I then clicked on “View as HTML” to see if the comments showed up in the HTML page, and although the comments from each step and from the Comments text area did show up, the comments for each input/output variable did not.

Do you know whether this is a bug or expected behavior? I’m running IS/Developer 6.1

Thanks,
Percio

What you’re seeing is “normal” behavior but not “expected.”

It really should show the comments for the inputs and outputs but it does not. Perhaps that’s a feature request we should submit to wM.

The other tools I mentioned do show the parameter comments. You might give them a try.