Have you ever spent hours coding workflow for your applications? If so, the new Microsoft Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) technology will make your life easier. Foundations of WF: An Introduction to Windows Workflow Foundation introduces you to using Visual Studio 2005 and the Windows Workflow Foundation (part of Windows Vista) to create workflow packages. The book begins by giving you an overview of Windows Workflow Foundation. Then it introduces and shows examples of the various types of workflow that can be created.
You'll discover the power of WF. You'll learn about all the prebuild activities you can include in your workflow, along with how to create your own activities. WF is fully extensible and allows you an unlimited number of options for your workflow. You'll also learn how to use workflow activities to retrieve data, and finally, how to tie an ASP.NET application with a workflow built in WF.
This book, unlike most of the Microsoft WF samples, has code in both Visual Basic .NET and C#. All the examples—and there are many—have VB .NET code, and many have the accompanying C# code. This book will allow you to begin creating new workflow applications easily in either VB .NET or C#. Each chapter includes an introduction to one or more activities that make up WF, along with examples of how to use each activity. Many chapters include a final section providing a real world example (a purchase order system). This book will have you using WF to create workflow applications with VB .NET or C# in a short amount of time.