I am happy to announce that we have released version 2.1 of the jBPM Designer. This is a big release which solves many issues we had in 2.0 as well as adds lots of new features. I am especially happy that jBPM Designer will also be included in the up-coming JBoss BRMS 5.3 release.
Here is a summary of what’s new and noteworthy in Designer 2.1 and I have also included a video below. Try it out and let me know what you think!
New and noteworthy
- Numerous bug fixes. The number of commits for bug-fixes alone was over 100 between 2.0 and 2.1.
- Increased performance for user interactions with the UI as well as loading time (JavaScript is now served compressed)
- New features: Support for Reusable Subprocesses (Call Activities), Multiple Instance Subprocesses, and Data Objects
- New feature: Support for Stencil set Perspectives. Allows you to specify a specific superset or a subset of supported BPMN2 nodes grouped in a named stencil set
- New feature: New data input editors. We added specific user-friendly editors for Process variables, Globals, Imports, Task Data Inputs/Outputs/Assignments, Called Elements, etc
- New Feature: Process dictionary support. Allows you to define your own process dictionary and use it inside your business processes.
- New Feature: In-Line editing of Process and User Task forms. This new feature allows you to create/modify your process and task forms in-line which is great as you do not have to leave your modelling environment to perform this feature.
- New Feature: Code highlighting and Code completion in Expression editors, code highlighting for process and task form editors and source views.
- New Feature: Smart node deletion – deleting a node will also delete its incoming and outgoing connections unless they specify an expression
- Support for both Drools Guvnor 5.3 and 5.4
Here is also a video for the Designer 2.1 release.
You can download this version from soureforge just like the previous ones. Simply replace your existing designer war with the new one. Make sure to clear our your browser cache before starting to use the new version.
As always your feedback is more than welcome. Hit us up on IRC if you would like to contribute to the jBPM Designer. Have fun!
Tihomir Surdilovic 
two questions
1- how can I delete items?. I set admin properties to guess, and modify the components.xml, but the option delete,remove, etc doesn´t apperar in menu. I’m in demo version
If you are asking how to delete shapes in Designer, select one or more shapes (single select by clicking on a shape or multi-select by dragging she selection area around multiple shapes on the canvas, then click on the red “x” in the upper toolbar -> “Delete all selected shapes”.
Not sure specifically what you are asking in your second question. If you are talking about how to delete your process asset in Guvnor, then you have to open your process first, and in the nav-bar above the editor select the File menu and use “Archive” or “Delete” options.
Hope this helps.
Ok, checked
Tank you
I am using Guvnor 5.3.0.Final and I can not get the new designer to work. I am getting “Unable to connect to Gunvor. Is it running? [Connection refused]”. It did not happen with previous versions I had (1.0.0.055, and 2.0). All I changed was replacing the .war file. I am using oryx.external.host property to set the guvnor address. When looking at UUIDBasedJbpmRepository class source I discovered that it does not log the url it is connecting to. It would be nice if it did, as it would help resolving issues like that.
Hi Kruger, take a look at https://github.com/tsurdilo/process-designer/blob/master/src/main/java/org/jbpm/designer/web/profile/impl/ExternalInfo.java. The properties have changed in 2.1, so you can change to using “designer.external.host”. I am updating the Designer documentation and this will be added to it. About the extra logging – sure that would be nice to add. Could you please raise a jBPM Jira ( https://issues.jboss.org/browse/JBPM ) and I’ll make sure it’s in the next release.
Thanks for a quick reply. The Jira issue is here https://issues.jboss.org/browse/JBPM-3620
Hi I’m testing designer 2.1 in the demo installation of JBPM (JBPM_Full_5_2).I’m having this Java exception when I try to generate Task Form Templates.
type Exception report
message
description The server encountered an internal error () that prevented it from fulfilling this request.
exception
java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException: 1
org.jbpm.designer.bpmn2.impl.Bpmn2JsonUnmarshaller.applyTaskProperties(Bpmn2JsonUnmarshaller.java:3419)
org.jbpm.designer.bpmn2.impl.Bpmn2JsonUnmarshaller.applyProperties(Bpmn2JsonUnmarshaller.java:1878)
org.jbpm.designer.bpmn2.impl.Bpmn2JsonUnmarshaller.unmarshallItem(Bpmn2JsonUnmarshaller.java:1640)
org.jbpm.designer.bpmn2.impl.Bpmn2JsonUnmarshaller.unmarshallItem(Bpmn2JsonUnmarshaller.java:1554)
org.jbpm.designer.bpmn2.impl.Bpmn2JsonUnmarshaller.unmarshall(Bpmn2JsonUnmarshaller.java:224)
org.jbpm.designer.bpmn2.impl.Bpmn2JsonUnmarshaller.unmarshall(Bpmn2JsonUnmarshaller.java:200)
org.jbpm.designer.web.server.TaskFormsServlet.doPost(TaskFormsServlet.java:73)
javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:754)
javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:847)
org.jbpm.designer.web.filter.impl.PluggableFilter.doFilter(PluggableFilter.java:70)
Any suggestion? I’m browsing Guvnor with Safari…
Looks as you have a an issue with data associations in your process. If you can patebin or provide some link to your process bpmn2 or json I will be able to take a closer look.
As you said it was a problem in associated variables… I’ve solved it. But there’s another strange behavior in designer… I draw my process, I save and it’s all ok.. the I re-open the process and delete one task… try to save the uncompleted process but designer does not save it and shows the old one… maybe some issue on cache in Chrome? The strange thing is that if I add something it save the process correctly… Now I’m doing some other tests just tell me if you think my newbie impressions are helpful
Hi, I’m trying to run the designer on weblogic.
What i’ve done so far:
1. Fixed web.xml – change default servlet to “weblogic.servlet.FileServlet”
2. Added log4j to lib
3. Added weblogic.xml with context root pointing to “designer”
But now I’m getting the NPE. Can you suggest me something?
Here is the stack trace:
<[ServletContext@7952623[app:designer module:designer-2.1.Final-jboss.war path:/designer spec-version:2.5]] Root cause of ServletException.
java.lang.NullPointerException
at java.lang.StringBuilder.(StringBuilder.java:92)
at org.jbpm.designer.web.plugin.impl.PluginServiceImpl.initializeLocalPlugins(PluginServiceImpl.java:98)
at org.jbpm.designer.web.plugin.impl.PluginServiceImpl.getLocalPluginsRegistry(PluginServiceImpl.java:85)
at org.jbpm.designer.web.profile.impl.DefaultProfileImpl.initializeLocalPlugins(DefaultProfileImpl.java:104)
at org.jbpm.designer.web.profile.impl.DefaultProfileImpl.(DefaultProfileImpl.java:83)
at org.jbpm.designer.web.profile.impl.DefaultProfileImpl.(DefaultProfileImpl.java:78)
at org.jbpm.designer.web.profile.impl.ProfileServiceImpl.init(ProfileServiceImpl.java:52)
at org.jbpm.designer.server.EditorHandler.init(EditorHandler.java:171)
at weblogic.servlet.internal.StubSecurityHelper$ServletInitAction.run(StubSecurityHelper.java:283)
at weblogic.security.acl.internal.AuthenticatedSubject.doAs(AuthenticatedSubject.java:321)
at weblogic.security.service.SecurityManager.runAs(SecurityManager.java:121)
at weblogic.servlet.internal.StubSecurityHelper.createServlet(StubSecurityHelper.java:64)
at weblogic.servlet.internal.StubLifecycleHelper.createOneInstance(StubLifecycleHelper.java:58)
at weblogic.servlet.internal.StubLifecycleHelper.(StubLifecycleHelper.java:48)
at weblogic.servlet.internal.ServletStubImpl.prepareServlet(ServletStubImpl.java:531)
at weblogic.servlet.internal.ServletStubImpl.execute(ServletStubImpl.java:235)
at weblogic.servlet.internal.TailFilter.doFilter(TailFilter.java:26)
at weblogic.servlet.internal.FilterChainImpl.doFilter(FilterChainImpl.java:56)
at org.jbpm.designer.web.filter.impl.PluggableFilter.doFilter(PluggableFilter.java:70)
at weblogic.servlet.internal.FilterChainImpl.doFilter(FilterChainImpl.java:56)
at weblogic.servlet.internal.WebAppServletContext$ServletInvocationAction.run(WebAppServletContext.java:3592)
at weblogic.security.acl.internal.AuthenticatedSubject.doAs(AuthenticatedSubject.java:321)
at weblogic.security.service.SecurityManager.runAs(SecurityManager.java:121)
at weblogic.servlet.internal.WebAppServletContext.securedExecute(WebAppServletContext.java:2202)
at weblogic.servlet.internal.WebAppServletContext.execute(WebAppServletContext.java:2108)
at weblogic.servlet.internal.ServletRequestImpl.run(ServletRequestImpl.java:1432)
at weblogic.work.ExecuteThread.execute(ExecuteThread.java:201)
at weblogic.work.ExecuteThread.run(ExecuteThread.java:173)
>
Hi, Designer tries to look up the plugin resources using the SevletContext getRealPath method which in your case might be returning null that causes the NPE. My best guess is to deploy the war as an exploded archive and see if that fixed it.
Thank you for the quick reply.
I used
InputStream is = context.getResourceAsStream(“file.xml”);
instead of
context.getRealPath(“/”)
This helps. But there are so many places where getRealPath has been used. I’ll need to deploy it as war file so I have to go thru this 🙂
The thing is that getRealPath can return null. It’s a normal behavior. Don’t you want to replace these calls to be more “portable”?
Once you are done making these changes, please submit a pull request and I’d be glad to accept it.
Could you please give me a hint about logging in this project? I’ve tried log4j and logback configurations. Neither of them worked for me. Can you share the config file with at least minimal instructions? Thank you.
Hi guys,
we have problem with designer in Guvnor. When we click on “Show in pop out window”, the address is localhost. It’s problem for us, because it runs on remove machine. Is there some option to configure desginer, to get link of remote client?
thx
VM
Take a look at http://docs.jboss.org/jbpm/v5.3/userguide/ch.designer.html#d0e4310 and let me know if this helps.
Hi,
thank you very much. It help. Sorry for my late response. I didn’t get your reply by mail.
Regards
VM
What i included in this 2.1 full fnal zip file?
– the designer only?
– the lates jbpm engine
– an embedded database, which one?
This is only the jBPM Designer. The jBPM 5.3 full installer comes with everything that you need which is the jBPM runtime, Guvnor, Designer, and jBPM Console. This gives you a easy-to-set-up full environment if that is what you are looking for.
Is this in any maven repo?
Currently Designer lives here: https://github.com/tsurdilo/process-designer
It will be moved to the Drools/jBPM repo soon tho: https://github.com/droolsjbpm/
Hello,
I am trying to generate a form from designer after creating and saving the process. It gives me the following error after opening a new page. Please help. Another question, I am not satisfied yet with the JBPM and drools documentation, or maybe I didn’t find a full case where I can design a process, forms and link them to each other and then add to them Business rules.
———————————————————
HTTP Status 500 –
type Exception report
message
description The server encountered an internal error () that prevented it from fulfilling this request.
exception
java.lang.NullPointerException
com.intalio.taskforms.TaskFormTemplateManager.processTemplates(TaskFormTemplateManager.java:96)
com.intalio.web.server.TaskFormsServlet.doPost(TaskFormsServlet.java:78)
javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:754)
javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:847)
com.intalio.web.filter.impl.PluggableFilter.doFilter(PluggableFilter.java:75)
note The full stack trace of the root cause is available in the JBoss Web/7.0.1.Final logs.
JBoss Web/7.0.1.Final
Judging from the stack trace you are using a VERY old version of the jBPM Designer. I’d suggest you get the latest bits from sourceforge: http://sourceforge.net/projects/jbpm/files/designer/designer-2.2/. Make sure to clear your browser cache before starting to use a new version.
tsurdilovic,
Thanks, appreciated.
I upgraded to JBPM 5.3. I want to ask why “intalio” mentioned in stack trace? did they take the interface package form intalio?
Another request, where can i have a FULL example of a complex process and connected business rules to it?
Kindest regards,
Hello Surdilovic,
I am trying to apply the process in the movie above. But the process stops on the gateway. After finishing the task form before the first gateway, it stopped there. As I see it on the image on the console. How to move forward with the process.
Also, the boolean variable, when I put it as in “Input” on the last task, it didn’t show if it is yes or no. Even though I mapped it to a same variable (Boolean).
Please advice,
Best Regards,