[Catalyst] Catalyst + Class::Workflow

[Matt Pitts]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Christopher H. Laco [mailto:claco at chrislaco.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, February 26, 2008 2:05 PM
> To: The elegant MVC web framework
> Subject: [Catalyst] Catalyst + Class::Workflow
> 
> Anyone done any integration with Class::Workflow and mapping object
> states to actions? I need to get back on the Mango wagon this week and
> I'm toying with making checkout nothing more than configurable states
> of an order.
> 
> My first question is me wondering if checkout states are the same as
> order states, or if they should/could be two separate workflows.

I see them as separate workflows. When working on a site rebuild last year my boss and I addressed this question and we both agreed that a "cart" and an "order" are separate things. We drew the line at the point where a user enters billing information, but hasn't yet said "submit my order". This is the point at which we "copy" the cart into an order and tie them together.
 
> For example, once the customer places an order, we could have the
> following rather common order states:
> 
>      new
>      processed
>      authorized
>      declined
>      packed
>      shipped
>      refunded
>      returned
>      delivered
> 
> During the checkout process, we have things like:
> 
>      initialized   (create an order from cart)
>      addressed     (enter billto/shipto)
>      shipmethod    (selected ship method)
>      preview
>      submitted
> 
> These can technically be states of the order preceding 'new', but I
> could also envision them as states of the checkout process itself and
> not necessarily states of the order itself.
> 
> My other goal is to simply have /checkout/<state> be the uri structure
> for checkout, using transitions to kick off various plugins acting
> against the order.
> 
> Thoughts? Anyone been down this road with Workflow in Catalyst?

Unfortunately no, but I think carts and workflows are a perfect fit. My controllers have built up too much control-flow logic because I can't do something as neat as...

sub auto : Private {
  my ( $self, $c ) = @_;

  if ( $c->cart_exists ) {
    my $valid_action = '/checkout/' . $c->cart->state->stringify;

    if ( $c->req->action ne $valid_action ) {
      $c->res->redirect($c->uri_for($valid_action));
      $c->detach;
    }
  }
  else {
    $c->flash->{alert} = "Your cart contains zero items, please buy something";
    $c->res->redirect($c->uri_for('/store'));
    $c->detach;
  }
}

I have much less state-ful cart methods like...

$c->cart->is_empty
$c->cart->all_items_in_shipments

etc...

v/r

-matt pitts