Oftentimes, I may have a need to do something that most of your clientbase wouldn't care about. It's a restricted market so it won't get implemented.

Why not open up tasks as a plugin-based architecture that would allow me to build tasks? Even better, create a venue to share these plugins.

Currently we have a couple of ways to do this:

- Use the .NET code Task and write any code in .NET
- use the Assembly execute Task and execute an existing function in a dll
- use the Unmanaged Execute Task and do the same as above but in unmanaged dll
- use the Powershell Task to write own scripts

I see what you are asking for but own customized Tasks could be created like this

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Can I suggest a task (plugin) app store (see FogBugz for an example: http://www.fogcreek.com/fogbugz/plugins/  ), where 3rd party developers can develop and give away (or even sell) plugins for VisualCron.

Can I suggest a task (plugin) app store (see FogBugz for an example: http://www.fogcreek.com/fogbugz/plugins/  ), where 3rd party developers can develop and give away (or even sell) plugins for VisualCron.

I agree with this, to a point. not sure i'd open up VC to 3rd party development. i'm saying that for the developers of VC's sake 🙂 I personally, would love it.

I do, however, wish something similar to this was available. I like the .NET Execution, Powershell, Execute Tasks, etc.... but what I do feel is lacking is some form of 'Custom/Repeatable' task that takes arguments. I explained this a bit ago in this post, http://www.visualcron.co....aspx?g=posts&t=2617  , but I'd love to be able to design my own Task.... whether that be executing a specific Executable (i realize this just one step away from an Execute task) to something much more involved. In my mind I'd like to not have to create an execute task, specify the path to the executable, and then toss arguments on a second line. I'd rather have the ability to create a task that already has the Executable information and all I need to tell it, in an easy to read format, are the parameters it requires.

Obviously as matthew suggested, plugins might be nice also. I'd just rather keep it internally supported and not have to involve too many vendors :)

Good idea, regardless of my personal opinions on the matter.

Brian

hi Brian

I think i understand where you are coming from with this. Something that I am currently implementing for one of my customers involves a simple database table in our ERP system to achieve something similar. The same sort of thing can be achieved with an excel spreadsheet, a text file or an xml file for that matter. Basically by defining a set of parameters, in a table which in my case is keyed on a customer reference, i can decide what i want to run ( an exe, a script or a batch file), any parameters required, and workflow criteria. An email trigger with a customer reference id kicks off a job that issues an sql query, pulls in the required parameters, assigns values to vc user variables, and calls the necessary executables or scripts.

It is a bit basic right now but forms what could become an incredibly powerful framework driven by job templates, particularly with Some enhancement requests i have submitted, including support for Select/Case statements, multiple delimited record (csv) support, and Interactive forms and user prompts. With any luck, if these can be implemented we're on to an incredibly powerful toolset that will prove very tough to beat!

Happy to provide more detail if anyone is interested :-)

cheers

Andy