Implementing data types using the IDataType2 interface

Last published at: May 14th, 2024

FlowWright customers can expand FlowWright’s capabilities as needed!  While FlowWright out-of-the-box includes many system data types you can also build your own data types. 

What's a data type? Data type is what gets rendered as a control for an input of a step.

Here's an example:

In the "Decision" step the “Condition to Evaluate” is rendered as a multi-line text control.  In oiur previous versions, controls like this were implemented using the "IDataType" interface. Now, FlowWright is enhanced to use the "IDataType2" interface: powerful context now gets passed into the rendering method.  This context gives you access to the outside world, similar to our interface for implementing workflow steps.

Here's what the "IDataType2" interface looks like:

FlowWright v9.6 is fully backwards compatible: data types implementing using the old interface "IDataType" will still function.  And FlowWright includes built-in validation to detect whether the interface is the old one or the new one.

You will find data type context is powerful and readily expandable to accommodate future functionality requirements.  All new custom data types should be implemented using the new "IDataType2" interface.