Suggested improvements to the Invoke Method activity

[jeevith (Jeevith Hegde, Ph.D.)]

Hello,

The new feature in for each loop where the datatype of the item is automatically parsed by assessing the iterable object is really helpful.

In the past few months the Invoke Method activity has been a life-saver while having to perform different manipulations, however this activity in my view can be improved in 2 ways.

1. Automatically populate available methods for the Target Object

   The Target Object datatype can be parsed and all the methods available for that datatype can be populated in drop down.

   So in the example below, since the target object is a List(of String) all the associated methods could be extracted and the user can select using a dropdown interface.
   

   

   If dropdowns are not elegant, could IntelliSense on available methods type be populated in the MethodName field?

   

   Disadvantage : Much like the current for each implementation, there is a slight lag when the Target Object is edited as studio actively is trying to parse the datatype. But in my view, if For each activity can parse an object type, Invoke Method should be able to as well.

2. Indicating positional parameters

   Now lets focus on the parameters themselves. Currently, the user needs to navigate to the properties and click on Parameters option to allocated them. I think this is how it should be as the user actively is performing this action. But the improvement can be to mention to the user that the order of the parameters is important as these are taken in as positional arguments by the Invoke Method activity.

   For example, when I used the Add method above, there is only one positional parameter the user can input. This can be visualized by a column name specifying which Positional Parameter the user is allocating the value to.

   

   Add method above is quite simple, but if one wants to use the Invoke Method activity for complex method calls, it would be easier if this positional parameter is already laid out to the user.

   If for example a method has 4 maximum positional parameters the user gets four rows prepopulated. If some of them are option the user can ignore allocating them and only allocate the ones needed by the method.

3. Hyperlinks to the Method’s documentation page
   While the user types the IntelliSense could also provide the user access to the documentation of the method. By studying the documentation further the user can use the positional parameters with ease.

Thank you for your efforts and consideration.

[loginerror (Maciej Kuźmicz)]

Great suggestions @jeevith

I kind of want to see those implemented as well now

But I have to leave it in the hands of the system activity package team to consider it for the future