topic Re: GUI changes in 5.4? in Alfresco Archive

GUI changes in 5.4?

wolpert — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 21:54:08 GMT

This is a minor question… but did the UserTask object change in the 5.4 release of designer? Specifically, an activiti diagram I had pre-5.4 has rectangle blue-shaded objects to represent user tasks. On that diagram which I opened with the 5.4 release of designer, when I add a new UserTask, its now

Re: GUI changes in 5.4?

jbarrez — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 08:18:03 GMT

Yes - the designer was made to look more like the Modeler.

Re: GUI changes in 5.4?

wolpert — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 16:22:51 GMT

Why are the objects made before the change in the old style, and new objects are in the new style… why are they mixed? Specifically, A document I created using the pre-5.4 plugin was edited, so old user tasks look different then the new ones. Is there a way to make them look the same? I'd rather not delete/re-add them.

Re: GUI changes in 5.4?

tiesebarrell — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 07:27:40 GMT

This is caused by the fact that the graphical information is stored with the diagram. Things like the colors of lines, widths, gradients, etc are all stored in the diagram. This means that the diagram is not re-rendered upon reloading in a new version of Designer. New shapes are added with the new style, but the old ones remain as they were.

Unfortunately, at the moment, there's no easy way to deal with this. The only way to get new style elements is to add them, which would mean replacing all the old shapes.

Re: GUI changes in 5.4?

tiesebarrell — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 07:32:21 GMT

Thinking about this, there's one thing we could do, which is to store a version in the diagram that we can retrieve on loading and detect whether the diagram has no/an old version. If that's the case, open a dialog to the user with the question whether to perform an upgrade. The upgrade would then entail re-creating all of the shapes, which would inherently update them to the new style. It would also be a great way to assist in changed attributes, newer configuration options, etc.

Such a functionality would be a useful addition to Designer IMHO. If you'd like to see this too, please create an issue so we can look into its feasibility.

Re: GUI changes in 5.4?

walterjs — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 08:27:26 GMT

I still think that this should all be hidden away in the internals of the designer and the bpmn2.xml should be the primary artifact. Everything you need is in there, so you should be able to generate the .activiti file from it on the fly.

Re: GUI changes in 5.4?

trademak — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 09:38:21 GMT

Hi,

It's actually not difficult to get an "old" diagram in the new format.
Just delete the .activiti file (maybe archive it to be fail-save) and open the bpmn20.xml file.
The activiti diagram is regenerated at that point with the new look and feel.
You may need to drag a few elements to get it into a nice shape, but that should work.

Best regards,

Re: GUI changes in 5.4?

walterjs — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 09:45:52 GMT

Yes, I tried that as soon as the new version came out, but it is not feasible for me to drag all my elements around again. I've reopened the layout bug as well since the bpmn waypoints are still not created properly either. I'm eagerly anticipating a two-way round-trip!

Re: GUI changes in 5.4?

trademak — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 09:58:20 GMT

Hi,

Good to raise the bar, but be aware that this is not easy stuff.
You are very welcome to contribute to the project if you have ideas about this.
Providing example diagrams that we can use for testing would also be great.

Best regards,

Re: GUI changes in 5.4?

wolpert — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 20:35:55 GMT

I did try deleting (with backups) the core activiti file, leaving the xml and png one. This forced the layout to be reset. But it looks like it also blanked out the labels of the connectors as well as emptying out the activiti:formKey fields.

Re: GUI changes in 5.4?

trademak — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 20:53:25 GMT

Hi,

Labels of connectors could be an issue yes. Could you provide a test diagram that I could use?
Emptying the activiti:formKey fields is really a bug, so that should be fixed, shouldn't be too difficult.

Best regards,

Re: GUI changes in 5.4?

wolpert — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 21:02:10 GMT

I'll see if I can make one. I can't use our current process due to proprietary issues. I've updated them and new versions are working fine.

Re: GUI changes in 5.4?

wolpert — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 21:07:42 GMT

Actually, its easy to reproduce. I just created a brand new diagram using the 5.4 version of designer, making sure the formKey was set. Quit the designer, and verified the key was in the xml file. Then remove the my_bpmn2_diagram.activiti file and restarted the 5.4 version of the designer. Sure enough, the formKey for the user task was empty…. saved the project and the xml file didn't have the formKey anymore.

Re: GUI changes in 5.4?

wolpert — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 23:57:02 GMT

I found a new issue on when I delete the original activiti file, and have it regenerate from the xml one. I inserted a new user task after an existing one in long chain of tasks. I can validate the diagram and its fine. But the xml fails due to the ID of the new task (and flows) already exists. Specifically, it gave it the ID of 'usertask2' even though there are 5 usertasks already. (Coincidently, I did place the task after the first usertask.)

Let me know if you can reproduce it. If not, I'll come up with an example for it.

Re: GUI changes in 5.4?

trademak — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 09:36:41 GMT

Hi,

I've committed a fix to the trunk a few minutes ago for the formKey attribute.
The generation of the IDs is also improved in the trunk so you shouldn't be running into these problems starting from version 5.5.

Best regards,

Re: GUI changes in 5.4?

wolpert — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 16:13:57 GMT

Very nice, thank you!