Tips for a workflow program

Question

Hi all!
As always I post here when I feel I need a good advice. Today at work my boss told some of us that we need some kind of workflow editor, since all of our projects to date are requiring it and he would like to "automatize" some of the process.
As of now, all the workflow is done through databases. For example in any web app first we make a login form and based in the user/pass decide what components appear at the menu or what page gets displayed next.
What we want to do is a system to define the workflow for different users, so roles could be created and every role can have different workflows through the assets (in this case web pages only). Once all the paths have been laid out, based in your current role the system would validate your request of a given page.
I started to google around for clues in order to get an idea of such a system and came up with Enhydra Shark workflow server. Looking the documentation it seems it's similar of what we need. It would be great to deploy such a tool since it's pure Java, open source and it has a graphical workflow editor written in java also.
The problem is that it seems something like overkill for the problem we are trying to solve. Our needs only include permissions of different people accesing a web app which is currently done with databases.
Does our problem justify the deployment of a tool like Shark server? could a simple app be done in like 3 or 4 days to address our needs (with 3 ppl working on it) ?? Do you have any ideas of how such a system would work ??
Thanks a lot for any pointers on these questions.
btw the url for Enhydra Shark server is: http://shark.objectweb.org/

Answer 1

Lynda,
are there any tips for a beginner?
First tip is to forget that you are a beginner. This will allow you to:
Start imagining your first site and looking round at other sites in a relaxed way to decide how you wish it to appear and work (so you and the visitors are happy), how you can make it unique (so it will stand out and be (re)visited (by) more).
When you have a strong image of your first site, you may start working on it and decide the tools to serve that purpose, without having been trapped unnecessarily in what you have seen elsewhere and in the predominant uses and seeming limitations of the tools.
I hope this is not too far out.
Padding/Margin are just minor tools to adapt to the overall size/size of the contents, in other words, whether you work from the element boundary in/out (in the former case it only takes up its own space as specified, in the latter it takes up its own space and the margin.