[kepler-dev] [Bug 4361] - Workflow Run Manager column "Workflow Name" can be confusing

[bugzilla-daemon at ecoinformatics.org]

http://bugzilla.ecoinformatics.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4361





------- Comment #3 from barseghian at nceas.ucsb.edu  2009-09-01 11:50 -------
I've run across this in the past; I agree it's confusing. When a user runs a
workflow they expect the workflow name to be the name they see in the Kepler
title bar, which is the filename. Right now it causes difficulty and confusion
in WRM/provenance, but I imagine it's going to and already has come up in other
places. Even if the title bar showed the workflow name, a user searching for
this workflow at the OS level will struggle if the filename is different. And
vice versa, if a user renames a workflow with the OS and begins to think of it
by this name, they will struggle to find it via workflow name searches within
Kepler systems. And yes, there will be added complexity once we're using kars
more frequently and e.g. a user renames a kar filename from the OS.

If there were no such thing as a workflow name stored inside the moml (and
refactoring was done) this confusion could go away, a new user's assumption
could be correct: workflow name == filename. My impression of similar features
in other programs is that they're rarely used (e.g. Word's Document Properties
=> Title).

All that said, I think when this discussion has taken place in the past, there
were strong reasons brought up for keeping workflow name and filename two
distinct things, not the least of which is that a significant amount of work
would have to take place--e.g. a clean soln would probably mean changing the
ptolemy moml format. 

The provenance module used to allow configuration of the workflow name, but the
group decided to remove that to simplify things. Right now afaict there is no
way to do so. If we add a way, imo it should be extremely obvious.

Another soln to this particular problem is simply for WRM to display a filename
column to search against instead of workflowname, but I believe the group
disliked that idea since it subverts the desire for the prominence of workflow
name.