Flow processor example: process management in a GUI

The base toolkit provides a navigation controller, which maps data across the process and controls navigation from panel to panel. The toolkit also provides a set of visual beans, which can generate events the navigation controller or the panels handle. You can use the toolkit Automaton to separate pure view navigation (which the navigation controller can handle) from data. To do this, each state's definition has defined actions for specific events fired by the visual components. Usually these components are panels that fire the events on behalf of the components they contain such as buttons and entry fields. The actions of the state start other processors as subflows, open views, or perform other actions. As a result, the views do not have specific actions hard coded. Instead, the actions for the views are in an external definition file.

To illustrate the Automaton and flow processor in this environment, this example includes an entire use case for a mortgage application, the statechart diagram for the business process obtained from the use case, extensions to the Automaton, and the external definitions of the flow processor and its parts.