5 Replies Latest reply on May 15, 2007 6:00 PM by jorell

    Building and using the Graphical Designer from Source

    alaak

      Hello

      I am really new to eclipse Plugin Development and jBPM. I want to extend the Graphical Process Designer from the sources. So I got them by CVS like it ist explained in the corresponding wiki article.
      I checked out jbpm.3 from the CVS HEAD and now I need to build the process designer from the sources to add my own extensions. I read how to do this in the Eclipse Platform Plugin Guide. In this Guide they clicked on the plugin.xml File and wrote there which Extension goes to which Extension Point. Well that sounds easy but in the jbpm-gpd sources there are so many plugin.xml files. I do not know why they are there and which one is the right to get the Process Designer testet.
      I tried the one from org.jbpm.gd.jpdl.ui and added the HelloWorld View from the Eclipse Simple Plugin Tutorial to that file. But I was not able to chose it, when I started a new Eclipse from the link on the Overview tab provided by the Plugin Perspective.

      Can anyone give me an explanation on how I can build the designer and test this freshly built version?

      Thank you

        • 1. Re: Building and using the Graphical Designer from Source
          koen.aers

          Hi,

          The sources of the current designer are in 'org.jbpm.gd.jpdl'. Check out this module as a project in Eclipse. The plugin.xml you want to study is in that project.
          If you are starting Eclipse development, you should start by reading the docs and building a little plugin of your own. Building on top of the GPD is a daunting task for a newbie. But I encourage you to keep going, we are definitely in need for collaboration on the GPD.

          Cheers,
          Koen

          • 2. Re: Building and using the Graphical Designer from Source
            alaak

            Thank you very much. This works.

            I hope I can manage to work into the Designer a bit fast. I need some way to build an editor for jPDL as Eclipse plugin that can interactively transform between different jPDL Files. I think the designer needs only some extensions to achieve this goal, so I am going to try this approach.

            • 3. Re: Building and using the Graphical Designer from Source
              jorell

              Hi
              I've just gotten the GPD source and am having some issues. It builds fine but I dont see any of the context menus (like 'add action' when the user right clicks on a transition). I looked at the plugin.xml and the popupMenus and propertyPages extension point is commented out. If i 'un-comment' these extension points I do see the context menus and the property pages but I get an error when they open up :
              Plug-in org.jbpm.gd.jpdl.ui was unable to load class org.jbpm.gd.jpdl.ui.properties.JpdlElementGeneralPropertyPage.

              Can anyone tell me what I am doing wrong.
              Thanks

              • 4. Re: Building and using the Graphical Designer from Source
                kukeltje

                Might be related to the fact that it is alpha code and under development.

                • 5. Re: Building and using the Graphical Designer from Source
                  jorell

                  I was actually just looking for a way to add events and actions which I knew was supported. Just found the tabbed propertys view.
                  Thanks. :)