Dynamically modify Task Flow at runtime

Question

I have a use case where I need to dynamically modify a task flow at runtime. In my use case, for all task flows I need to add a router that can navigate to any view activity on the flow. The router will need to have control flows from the router to each view activity and a case for each.
What I've Tried
I've written a test app that uses MDS to modify a single task flow. This works. I did it by using JDev in customization mode, adding the router and stuff to the flow manually, then running the app. This does exactly what I need it to do. The problem is, I need to do this dynamically at runtime. I'll need to have a process that looks at the task flow and generates the MDS metadata that will insert the router (and other stuff) at runtime. I'm not sure how to do this.
What I'd like to do
Ideally, I'd like to do this programmatically (not using MDS) by overriding the controller that returns task flow objects. I may be off the mark here, but I imagine that at runtime the task flow xml is represented by a java object. I also imagine that the java object gets returned by some controller based on the name (and maybe type) of the data requested. If I could override this controller to modify the task flow object before it gets returned, that would be ideal.
I've found some links from others looking to do something similar to what I'm attempting here. These links are over a year old, so I imagine that some progress has been made on this.
https://bug.oraclecorp.com/pls/bug/webbug_print.show?c_rptno=7355435
[ER] Add a way to decorate the current PageFlow
Re: To Simon Lessard - Usecase required for ER request
Thanks in advance for your help!!
Cheers,
Mike

Answer 1

I have three usecases where I need this ability.
- breadcrumbs - this should keep a historical trail of the pages the user has visited. clicking on a breadcrumb should take the user back to the page and remove the remainder of the trail.
- favorites - this is essentially bookmarking within the app. the user should be able to add a page as a favorite the navigate back to it by clicking the link in the favorites drop down.
- recent items - this is similar to breadcrumbs, but I imagine we will want it to persist across sessions for the user.
We are using bounded task flows and page fragments. All of these features will need the ability to navigate to any view on a flow (not just the default view). I can navigate to a flow just fine. We have implemented our own version of the XMLMenuModel and are using a dynamic region for navigation. To navigate, we just replace the task flow ID on the dynamic region with the target task flow ID then the region refreshes. This part work just fine. The part that I am working on is how to navigate to a view on the flow. I'm managing state by passing parameters between flows and pages. That part is working ok too. It's just the navigation piece that is giving me grief.
The little MDS prototype that I did looks promising, but I would need to figure some stuff out. The customization would need to apply to all users and all task flows. I'm not sure how to do that. Also, it would need to be dynamic. The MDS metadata that is responsible for the customization would be different for each task flow and would need to be generated at runtime. I can figure out how to generate the metadata at runtime based on the task flow, but I don't know where the hooks are in the MDS framework where I could put this logic. It would need to execute before the MDS framework tries to merge the base doc (the task flow) with the customization doc that I generate.
Thanks!!
Mike