New Activiti Modeler released

[trademak]

Hi all,

We've some exciting news today. We just released a new version of the Activiti Modeler that will be maintained by the Activiti project and is open sourced by KIS BPM (http://www.kisbpm.com).
The Activiti Modeler is integrated in the Activiti Explorer and an alpha version is available at the Activiti download page.

The following features are present in the new Activiti Explorer/Modeler:

- Create new models using the web modeler with a palette supporting all Activiti constructs
- Edit already deployed process definitions (with BPMN DI info) using the web modeler
- Deploy modeled process definition to the Activiti Engine directly

We'll provide more information and documentation about this new functionality in the coming days.
Please note that the functionality is still in alpha status and not all Activiti constructs are supported yet.
But before we release Activiti 5.11 the Activiti Modeler will have support for the Activiti BPMN elements.

Best regards,

[kafeitu]

try it, now  :lol:

thx

[m2spring]

Will the new Modeler accept the same extensions as the Designer?
-Max

[jbarrez]

Yes- that's the idea. Both should cover all Activiti specific extensions

[lspellman]

I know the Modeler is in Alpha.  Are bugs being tracked for it?  I haven't found anything so far.

In the replacement activitity-explorer app that has Modeler in it, I've found some issues.
When you create a new model and go to the "deploy process definition" button, it does not handle this correctly.

Issue 1:
The Manage Deployments page shows it correctly, but the Deployed Processes page only shows the item as "process" rather than the name you gave the model.
Also, only 1 model from the modeler will be shown there as "process".  If you create a 2nd model, it will replace the first one as Version 2 of "process".

Issue 2:
After shutdown and restart, the Deployments, Deployed Processes, and even instances created with the new process are retained. However, on the Model Workspace page, none of the new models are retained.  This is after the db.properties and persistence.xml files have been updated to point to a persistent H2 instance.

Digging in a little bit, the MODELDATA table has a record in it for the new model, and the JSON looks complete.
In the ACT_RE_PROCDEF table, the ID_ field has "process:6:4024" and NAME_ field is blank and the KEY_ field contains "process".  The DEPLOYMENT_ field has "4021"
The ACT_RE_DEPLOYMENT table has a record with ID_ = "4021" so there's a linkage between the PROCDEF AND DEPLOYMENT tables, but with the ID_ KEY_ and NAME_ fields being mangled, it explains the UI behavior.

In short, it looks like the code behing the "deploy process definition" button in the Model Workspace screen is failing to submit the data to the tables correctly.

[trademak]

Sure, you can raise issues in the Activiti JIRA on the Explorer component.
1. You can change the process name "process" by changing the id property in the Modeler when you click on the canvas.
2. You should try the latest version built from the source. There's no persistence.xml anymore, the model data table is created by the Activiti Engine now and you only have to change the db.properties.

Best regards,

[mrhu]

Hallo,

I'm trying the activiti modeler that comes with Activiti 5.11. Now, I'm wondering how to model participants because I can't find swinlane in the model palette. Does some know how get swimlane in the model palette.

Thanks,
Marco

[frederikherema1]

Swinlanes (pools and lanes) are supported in activiti, but only have a visual meaning. Having two user tasks in a particular lane does NOT affect the assignee/candidate fields. If you want to have the same assignee/candidates for different tasks, you should define this explicitly in the usertask-properties.

[mrhu]

ok, you are right regarding this, but I see that my question was not good expressed.  I want to know why the Activiti Modeler UI by KIS does not offer the possibility to use swimlanes? In the signavio version I could use swimlanes in the diagram.

Thanks,
Marco

[jbarrez]

It is a matter of time and resourcing. There are only so many thing we can do at once. So yes, we will support pools/lanes in a future version, but we haven't planned it yet.

Of course, the cheesy answer would be that we welcome any contributing on that front 😉