Pausing execution to prompt for input

Feedback & Ideas
1

Hello Everybody,

Does knime support pausing execution to prompt for input?

The best I could do so far is creating a component using “integer configuration” node to manually insert a value.

This also requires to explicitly click on the component to adjust the value before running the workflow..

Thanks,
Wessam

2

Could you explain why you want to pause execution for an input rather than using an input widget and then running the entire workflow?

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3

Hello,

My goal is not to pause, i simply want to run the workflow and get the prompts so the user enter the corresponding values.

I tried using integer widget, it didn’t work. Maybe you could show me a short example?

For now , I’m using the integer configuration to manually enter them.

Thanks

4

Hi @walhallak,

you might want to have a look at the approach I recently implemented myself:

Best
Mike

5

Can you share your wworkflow? Withtout knowing what you’re trying to do its difficult to offer suggestions.

6

Hi @walhallak .

The trick with widgets is that they typically only behave the way you expect them to when you encapsulate them inside a component.

Take a look at

Br

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7

There isn’t a “user friendly” way to pull this off, however you can create a component with a 1 time manual function via a component setting writhin a loop. Basically you make the default setting an execution failure to stop everything downstream, and when a user selects the setting to pass the info then it would execute and return to the off mode. (This has to be done in the “Interactive View”, which must be manually opened at this point) The only way that I have pulled this off is to place the entire downstream workflow within that manual trigger component though… Not super friendly.

Perhaps if you are just sending an integer, then you could build a 1 time function component that’s only purpose is to pass an empty table (or value that triggers errors) if no integer is selected and sent downstream, then you might be able to keep the downstream processes visible in the wider workflow? You would just need the subsequent nodes to fail when an empty table or non-numeric value is passed.

Here is an example of a component I made with a 1 time functioning loop structure.

8

Hello, my request is actually not worflow specific, it is as follows: a row filter node with a connected widget that, when you run the wokflow, pops up and you need to enter the value which ultimately a flow variable in the row filter node.

Hope this makes it more clear.

9

Hi @hmfa thanks i’m aware of this point and I have already mentioned it in my original post.

@All, after reading through the below article, i think that,in a straightforward way, it’s not possible to get a prompt while running the wokflow and any value adjustment has to be done beforehand.

The article:

Thanks

10

Another trick you could do is to place the entry into a temporary Excel file. You could have the workflow copy your entry template over to a working folder location, then have the workflow open the file in the event that the integer value was empty. Make sure that the workflow structure throws an execution error to stop it in the event it is blank. Once the user has entered and save a number in the excel file you would then re-execute all. Then at the final step of the workflow you would delete the entry file to set up for next time. It is a bit advanced, but it works.

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