Workflow - Plugin - Developer Guide - Simple Plugin

In this Article I'm going to explain how to create a simple Plugin with the basic properties and show some infomation about the current Project.

Table of Contents​

• List
• Setup
• Simple Plugin (this)
• Deploy
• Advanced Plugin
• Inspecting
• WindowsForm

If you haven't already, setup the basic project using the previous article.

As we have the bare bones configured we now need to start writing some code.

IMAGE

Everybody loves an image!

To add an Image to the project (Protirus.Workflow.Protirus.png), copy this to your Project. This can be the Menu image.

Change the Build Action to Embedded Resource

Create some variables for your Image name etc. (We will move these to Resources later.)

Variables

Assembly _assembly;
Stream _imageStream;

private string imageIcon = @"Protirus.Workflow.Protirus.png";
private string name = @"Protirus";

As we are using the Assembly we will need to add another using statement.

using System.Reflection;

To add it implement the Image method.

public Image Image
{
    get
    {
        _assembly = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly();        
        var currentNamespace = _assembly.GetName().Name; //@"Protirus.Workflow.Plugins"
        //Debug.Print(currentNamespace);
                
        string resource = string.Format(@"{0}.{1}", currentNamespace, imageIcon);
        _imageStream = _assembly.GetManifestResourceStream(resource); //imageIcon
        return new Bitmap(_imageStream); //Bitmap.FromStream(stream);
    }
}

If you don't want an image

public Image Image
{
    get
    {
        return null;
    }
}

You could use one of the Cached Images:

public Image Image
{
    get
    {
        return CachedImages.GetImage("LogicBase.Tool.Images.Action.BusinessModelPlugin.png");;
    }
}

Now implement the rest of the IPluginUI methods.

GetMenuPosition

public int GetMenuPosition(string[] names)
{
    return -1;
}

The index where this plugin should be inserted. Can be -1 to add the plugin at the end of the menu.

GetToolBarPosition

public int GetToolBarPosition(string[] names)
{
    return -1;
}

The index where this plugin should be inserted.Can be -1 to add the plugin at the end of the toolbar.

ShowInMenu

public bool ShowInMenu
{
    get { return true; }
}

Gets a value indicating if the plugin should be displayed in the menu.

ShowInToolBar

 public bool ShowInToolBar
{
    get { return false; }
}

Gets a value indicating if the plugin should be displayed in the toolbar.

As we are making a Project Plugin we can use data from the Project in the PerformAction method using the project variable.

public void PerformAction(AbstractOrchestrationProject project)
{
    MessageBox.Show("project action on project " + project.MainFile.FullName + "\n Directory: " + project.MainFile.DirectoryName);
}

Fullname

E:\Program Files\Symantec\Workflow\WorkflowProjects\POC_Login_WEB\POC_Login_WEB.SymWorkflow

Directory

E:\Program Files\Symantec\Workflow\WorkflowProjects\POC_Login_WEB

There are a lot of properties you can get from the class 'AbstractOrchestrationProject', look into that for things that could be useful.

Finally the original IPlugin/IProjectPlugin methods

Name

public string Name
{
    get { return name; }
}

ToolTip

public string ToolTip
{
    get { return "test tooltip"; }
}

MenuLocation

For the Menu Location set it to "Plugins" to show with the other Plugins.

public string MenuLocation
{
    get { return "Plugins"; }
}

If you give it another name ("Powershell") it will show up as its own Menu item.

MenuShortcut

public Shortcut MenuShortcut
{
    get { return Shortcut.None; }
}

SeparatorAfter

public bool SeparatorAfter
{
    get { return false; }
}

Build the project to make sure there are no errors.