Summary

This chapter described how you can use Windows Workflow Foundation to develop workflows. Topics covered included workflow development modes, compilation, serialization, and the Visual Studio development environment.

As you learned in this chapter, the workflow development modes include markup only, markup with code, and code only. Workflow markup is defined by a standard called extensible application markup language, or XAML. Nodes in a XAML document correspond to classes, and attributes in nodes correspond to properties in those classes.

Compilation was also covered as it relates to workflow development. There are several ways to compile workflows, no matter what mode you use for development, including the wfc.exe command-line compiler, the WorkflowCompiler class, and Visual Studio.

Workflow serialization enables you to persist a workflow, perhaps defined in code, to a durable medium such as the filesystem. There are several classes provided in Windows Workflow Foundation that facilitate this functionality.

Finally, the Visual Studio development environment was discussed as it relates to Windows Workflow Foundation. Visual Studio provides a rich, familiar, and visual environment for developing workflow-based software. This chapter discussed Visual Studio basics, including project templates, the Toolbox, and the Properties window. The chapter also discussed workflow designers and their various views.