[kepler-dev] Export to KAR

[Norbert Podhorszki]

Hello Chad,

Thank you for bringing export/import back to Kepler. I have already 
created two actors and then workflows using them. And have some comments 
about it.

1. There is a difference between Java actors and workflow actors. When a 
workflow actor is instantiated, it is practically copied into the 
workflow. Thus, at save, the workflow code contains the actor's code.
That is, if I re-create the actor, this has no effect on the saved 
workflow. Which is of course not this way for Java class based actors.
Is this intentional, or it just works this way?

In contrast, there are several hand-made workflow actors (see the
src/org/resurgence/moml directory for workflows and then src/actors for
the actor definitions). The test workflows show that only a reference to 
the actor is saved within the test workflow (see 
workflows/test/resurgence/moml).

I gave up trying to follow the hand-made way when my actors threw lots of 
ptolemy type check errors before starting the workflow... So the export 
menu brought me relief.


2. I tried to trick the exprot by creating a workflow class from a 
workflow and then export it. Surprisingly, the exported xml is nearly 
empty. It contains only the enclosing stuff but not a single entity.


3. The final actors of mine are created with the following procedure:
- export workflow to kar
- unzip kar
- edit the xml file, defining SemanticTypes so that the actor appears in
   the actor tree where I want.
- jar into a new kar
- put the new kar into kepler/kar/actors    (instead of import)
No question here, just documented my practice. If you find this ugly, or 
know a better way, just tell me.

Norbert

-- 

      Norbert Podhorszki
    ------------------------------------
      University of California, Davis
      Department of Computer Science
      1 Shields Ave, 2236 Kemper Hall
      Davis, CA 95616
      (530) 754-8188
      pnorbert at cs.ucdavis.edu
      ----------------------------------