Custom extension elements.. possible ??

[rashmis]

Hi,

I was wondering how can I create my own custom extension element ?
For example, I am using a ServiceTask for sending mails. My xml looks something like this :

<serviceTask id="sendMail" activiti:type="mail">
      <extensionElements>
       <activiti:field activiti:name="from" activiti:string-value="xxx@foo.com" />
        <activiti:field activiti:name="to" activiti:string-value="yyy@bar.com" />
        <activiti:field activiti:name="subject" activiti:string-value="Hey There !" />
     </extensionElements>
</serviceTask>

I want to add a new extensionElement here called
<activiti:field activiti:name="myNewExtension" activiti:string-value="myNewExtnValue" />
Is this possible ?

Thanks

[tiesebarrell]

rashmis,

I am actually working on a feature that's similar to this at the moment. When it is finished, you will be able to create a jar file with a couple of annotated classes to define custom service tasks. You can then decide how the properties of those tasks are to be marshalled and displayed (i.e., edited in the properties view) in the designer. This effectively enables you to create extensions to the designer's palette, but also be able to execute a specific class that has your custom properties injected by the Activiti engine at runtime.

Please note that this feature might not be released in the next release as it is currently in an experimental stage and completely undocumented.

As far as emailing goes, there will be a special node for this in the designer, so you might not need to create an extension. There's an issue here that you can track:
http://jira.codehaus.org/browse/ACT-336