topic Re: Activiti Designer 5.9.1 released in Alfresco Archive

Activiti Designer 5.9.1 released

trademak — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 13:22:54 GMT

Hi all,I've just released a new version of the Activiti Designer (5.9.1).This version was intended to be just a bug fix release but also includes:- Pools and lanes support. A lot of people were asking for this so I'm happy to say that it's included now. I'm also looking for feedback on how this supp

Re: Activiti Designer 5.9.1 released

weissenberg — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 14:25:20 GMT

Hi trademak,

its good to have pools now, but what about message flow between pools (and data objects)?

My further simple extension wishes are:
- comment annotations in process models
- *collapsable* subprocesses

Best regards,

Re: Activiti Designer 5.9.1 released

trademak — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 14:29:10 GMT

Hi,

Thanks, comment annotations and collapsible sub process are on my list as well, so that's good.
There's no support for message flows between pools, because that's also not yet supported in the Activiti Engine.
But this could be a feature request for the Activiti Engine.

Best regards,

Re: Activiti Designer 5.9.1 released

pgadecki — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 15:12:18 GMT

Could you keep repositories for old versions?

When the new release comes out my build process brakes down as there is no Activiti Designer feature with a previous version in the repository location specified in my target file. Maybe instead of keeping it zipped you can have separate version subdirectories on the server?

Re: Activiti Designer 5.9.1 released

trademak — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 15:20:50 GMT

Hi,

Could you elaborate a bit more on what you are using in your build process? Are you customizing the Activiti Designer or something like that? What functionality are you adding?
I don't think separate version URLs would be a solution.

Best regards,

Re: Activiti Designer 5.9.1 released

pgadecki — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 16:07:25 GMT

I'm customizing Designer, designer feature is required by some plugins in my Eclipse RCP feature based project which is build on maven+tycho. It has *.target files which, among other locations that provide required features, contains:


<location includeAllPlatforms="false" includeMode="planner" includeSource="false" type="InstallableUnit">
<unit id="org.activiti.designer.feature.feature.group" version="5.9.1"/>
<repository location="http://activiti.org/designer/update/'/>
</location>

During build process tycho tries to assemble target platform based on the information in my *.target file. When you release new version, the old one is no longer available in location="http://activiti.org/designer/update/" and tycho breaks the build.

Re: Activiti Designer 5.9.1 released

oca — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 17:56:02 GMT

Hi,
thanks, changeing element's type and changeing task name work fine for me now.

There is still a small glitch, the icon "change element type" on the surronding menu of a start element is corrupted (this icon on other element is fine)
Cheers.

Olivier

Re: Activiti Designer 5.9.1 released

oca — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 18:24:33 GMT

BTW I just would like to comment this one :

There's no support for message flows between pools, because that's also not yet supported in the Activiti Engine.

Well… support is not complete for sure, but there is still a few things that are allready working with version 5.9 of the engine.
I'm talking about the cxf exemples provided with version 5.9

for instance, let's have a look at …\activiti-5.9\workspace\activiti-cxf-examples\src\test\resources\org\activiti\engine\impl\webservice\WebServiceTaskTest.testWebServiceInvocation.bpmn20.xml

or even a more complete one : …\activiti-5.9\workspace\activiti-cxf-examples\src\test\resources\org\activiti\engine\test\bpmn\sendtask\WebServiceUELTest.testAsyncInvocationWithDataFlowUEL.bpmn20.xml

in these files, there are some messages logic that would be fine to do with the designer, by using a message flow to a non executable pool for instance.

ideally, I would like to drag and drop information from xsd/wsdl files direcly to "message flow" and/or "##webservice service task " on the diagram to generate bpmn interface, message, itemDefinition, ioSpecification, dataInputAssociation and so on … that would be really usefull even with the actual version of the engine…

Cheers

Olivier

Re: Activiti Designer 5.9.1 released

trademak — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 09:54:09 GMT

@oca The start event change element icon is not a bug, at the moment there's just no support to change a start event, so the icon is grayed out

About the message flow discussion, to me this is different from the example you are giving.
Message flows between pools would mean in Activiti that you can send a message from one process definition to another.
This is a feature that's not yet implemented.

The web service example you are giving is different. What you are asking for is to add support to import an XSD and WSDL and generate the message, interface definition etc out of it.
I don't see the relationship with a pool with this, can you explain what you mean with this?
But of course this is a valid feature request and certainly something to look into.

Best regards,

Re: Activiti Designer 5.9.1 released

trademak — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 09:55:20 GMT

@pgadecki okay but why don't you use a local archived site then?
Why are you pointing to the remote update site?

Best regards,

Re: Activiti Designer 5.9.1 released

oca — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 10:30:09 GMT

What you are asking for is to add support to import an XSD and WSDL and generate the message, interface definition etc out of it.
…
I don't see the relationship with a pool with this, can you explain what you mean with this?

You're right, my needs is really all about web services orchestration, and to me, web services are really tightly related to messages (and obviously "message flow" in a BPMN Diagramm), and messages flows connects activities between pools. that's why I would like to modelize web services calls using message flows and Pools.

I will start a proper "WebService modelisation" topic where I will explain my ideas in more details.
Cheers

Olivier

Re: Activiti Designer 5.9.1 released

gunnar1 — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 15:15:36 GMT

Hi all,

I've just released a new version of the Activiti Designer (5.9.1).
This version was intended to be just a bug fix release but also includes:

Since version 5.9.x the Designer is almost all unusable due to a severe problem:

Create a new diagram using "New->Activiti Diagram"

Add some elements

Save and close the editor

Open the diagram again by double clicking on the file

Result

the editor opens, for about 1 second i can view the diagram - afterwards the diagram has disappeared and I'm left with a blank empty editor screen

This happens in about 95% of my work. No difference between existing old diagrams from previous 5.8.x releases and newly created ones.

Furthermore it looks like you haven't stored the position of flow names. From my side this is as well not a just nice to have…

Summary: low quality, poorly tested. Half baked graphics in alpha status. Frustrating. What a pity!

P.S.: Working with JDK6 and an up to date Eclipse Indigo on a 32bit Windows XP system
(the Windows XP is owned by my customer and I'm not allowed to use anything different).

Re: Activiti Designer 5.9.1 released

trademak — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 15:56:02 GMT

Hi,

This is not a very friendly and constructive post.
Of course this has been tested, because that's the foundation of the editor.
It may be that this is some kind of lower level bug in Windows 32-bit Eclipse or Graphiti.
I'll test it on my Windows image to see if I can reproduce it.
The flow names position is not yet stored, right. You can add a JIRA for this.

Re: Activiti Designer 5.9.1 released

trademak — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 16:32:15 GMT

@Gunnar, I just tested it on Windows 7, 64-bit and it worked just fine.
Maybe it's a Windows XP issue. Has anyone used the Activiti Designer 5.9.x on Windows XP?

Re: Activiti Designer 5.9.1 released

gunnar1 — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 06:26:22 GMT

Hi Tijs,

sorry for being destructive… To put it in a nutshell: The majority of users won't tell you. Especially new users might just silently turn away from the whole project. Relating to the Activiti Process Engine I'm acting on conviction - this is rock solid design and definitely feasible for production usage. But tooling and the whole development process is essential in a BPM project… From my point of view currently the Designer is the Achilles heel. And I know other users who will agree with that.

You guys have made a lot of progress when looking at the BPMN features.
So I'm confident that the problems with Graphiti will be solved as well.

Regards
Gunnar

Re: Activiti Designer 5.9.1 released

trademak — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 09:27:32 GMT

Hi Gunnar,

Absolutely, and I welcome any feedback you may have, but this post was just a little too bold for my liking.
But now let's try and solve this issue. I tested it on my windows 7 image and it works just fine.
I think I have a windows xp box somewhere, let me dig it up 😉

Best regards,

Re: Activiti Designer 5.9.1 released

gunnar1 — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 09:53:35 GMT

Tijs,

eventually you might have a look at the current Graphiti bugs - my Eclipse Installation History says that with the Designer 5.9.0 you started using Graphiti 0.9.0, latest Milestone release. Are you sure that 0.9.0 is already stable?

Regards
Gunnar

Re: Activiti Designer 5.9.1 released

ronald_van_kuij — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 19:44:10 GMT

Are you sure that 0.9.0 is already stable?

Stable or not, it works for me…

Especially new users might just silently turn away from the whole project.

Or most do not have this problem…

(the Windows XP is owned by my customer and I'm not allowed to use anything different).

Are you SERIOUS??? You can use the latest Activiti, the latest Eclipse and a prehistoric Windows… Then I'd find a new customer… Seriously…

Support for XP ended July 2010… http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/windows/help/end-support.

Re: Activiti Designer 5.9.1 released

oca — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 06:15:04 GMT

Hello,

I also have some trouble with version 5.9.1
I was trying to do a diagramm to explain my idea about web service, but I was unable to produce that diagramm.
see image attached. (the diagramm is fine, then I save, close, reopen, and obtain that strange digramm with missing activities)

Here is something that produce that kind of blank screen blank (a whole blank screen, not exactly the same as the image attached which I can not reproduce every time…)

1) start a new diagramm
2) add a pool (using the palette)
3) add another pool (using the palette)
4) add a user activity to the first pool (using the palette)
5) add a user activity to the second pool (using the palette)
6) Save
7) Close
😎 reopen, and here the diagramm is whole blank

I'm using
Windows Vista (on a VMware image)
Eclipse JEE Indigo SR2 (a brand new install with only activti plugin on it)

Cheers

Olivier

Re: Activiti Designer 5.9.1 released

oca — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 06:54:01 GMT

Here is some more info about the blank digramm produced using the sequence described in my previous post.

if I open it with an xml editor, we cas see that some ids are not unique.

<process id="process_pool1" name="process_pool1">
    <laneSet id="laneSet_process_pool1">
      <lane id="lane1">
        <flowNodeRef>usertask1</flowNodeRef>
      </lane>
    </laneSet>
    <userTask id="usertask1" name="User Task"></userTask>
</process>
<process id="process_pool1" name="process_pool1">
    <laneSet id="laneSet_process_pool1">
      <lane id="lane2">
        <flowNodeRef>usertask2</flowNodeRef>
      </lane>
    </laneSet>
    <userTask id="usertask2" name="User Task"></userTask>
</process>

If I manually restore proper ids, the diagramm showup correctly.
Cheers

Olivier

PS : Here is the whole file :

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<definitions xmlns="http://www.omg.org/spec/BPMN/20100524/MODEL" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:activiti="http://activiti.org/bpmn" xmlns:bpmndi="http://www.omg.org/spec/BPMN/20100524/DI" xmlns:smileysurprised:mgdc="http://www.omg.org/spec/DD/20100524/DC" xmlns:smileysurprised:mgdi="http://www.omg.org/spec/DD/20100524/DI" typeLanguage="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" expressionLanguage="http://www.w3.org/1999/XPath" targetNamespace="http://www.activiti.org/test">
  <collaboration id="Collaboration">
    <participant id="pool1" name="Pool" processRef="process_pool1"></participant>
    <participant id="pool1" name="Pool" processRef="process_pool1"></participant>
  </collaboration>
  <process id="process_pool1" name="process_pool1">
    <laneSet id="laneSet_process_pool1">
      <lane id="lane1">
        <flowNodeRef>usertask1</flowNodeRef>
      </lane>
    </laneSet>
    <userTask id="usertask1" name="User Task"></userTask>
  </process>
  <process id="process_pool1" name="process_pool1">
    <laneSet id="laneSet_process_pool1">
      <lane id="lane2">
        <flowNodeRef>usertask2</flowNodeRef>
      </lane>
    </laneSet>
    <userTask id="usertask2" name="User Task"></userTask>
  </process>
  <bpmndi:BPMNDiagram id="BPMNDiagram_process1">
    <bpmndi:BPMNPlane bpmnElement="process1" id="BPMNPlane_process1">
      <bpmndi:BPMNShape bpmnElement="pool1" id="BPMNShape_pool1" isHorizontal="true">
        <omgdc:Bounds height="150" width="500" x="150" y="110"></omgdc:Bounds>
      </bpmndi:BPMNShape>
      <bpmndi:BPMNShape bpmnElement="lane1" id="BPMNShape_lane1" isHorizontal="true">
        <omgdc:Bounds height="150" width="480" x="170" y="110"></omgdc:Bounds>
      </bpmndi:BPMNShape>
      <bpmndi:BPMNShape bpmnElement="pool1" id="BPMNShape_pool1" isHorizontal="true">
        <omgdc:Bounds height="150" width="500" x="150" y="350"></omgdc:Bounds>
      </bpmndi:BPMNShape>
      <bpmndi:BPMNShape bpmnElement="lane1" id="BPMNShape_lane1" isHorizontal="true">
        <omgdc:Bounds height="150" width="480" x="170" y="110"></omgdc:Bounds>
      </bpmndi:BPMNShape>
      <bpmndi:BPMNShape bpmnElement="usertask1" id="BPMNShape_usertask1">
        <omgdc:Bounds height="55" width="105" x="360" y="170"></omgdc:Bounds>
      </bpmndi:BPMNShape>
      <bpmndi:BPMNShape bpmnElement="usertask2" id="BPMNShape_usertask2">
        <omgdc:Bounds height="55" width="105" x="340" y="420"></omgdc:Bounds>
      </bpmndi:BPMNShape>
    </bpmndi:BPMNPlane>
  </bpmndi:BPMNDiagram>
</definitions>