jbpm4jsf with seam

[girishkumarr]

Hi
  When i tried to use JBpm4JSF  within the seam-framework.I have all the jars in my lib. i get HTTP Status 500 - Error loading jbpm configuration: null .Can anybody please let me know what is the problem .Thanks in Advance

[kukeltje.ronald.jbpm.org]

What is the reason you want to use jbpm4jsf? It is in a kind of cryostasois, no maintainer and not sure if it will be supported in the current form. I do hope a supported alternative will arise and I'm even willing to heplp out developing one in agreement with the jbpm team... But don't expect things within a few weeks.

[www.supernovasoftware.com]

If there is going to be a JSF console for jBPM make it with Seam plus Richfaces.  Wouldn't that rock.  Sure it would be limited to JBoss Seam and JBoss Richfaces, but it is called JBoss Business Process Management. :)

[kukeltje.ronald.jbpm.org]

hahaha.... hmmm first of all it is JBoss jBPM (originally Java BPM ;-))

Regarding a jBPM console being based on Seam and Richfaces I'm with you. But...

The choice has been made to make the new jBPM console GWT Based and totally not use seam. Don't ask me about the details for the reason of not using Seam (I have some info, but that should be a JBoss internal thing). The choice for using GWT, afaik, is that it is an attempt to unify JBoss consoles (I'm not aware of other 'consoles' than the Drools one that uses GWT, but I'm not a JBoss employee) and that it looked more web 2.0. Imo that could have been done with richfaces as well, so imo that is not a valid argument, but that is my opinion and other did not share that :-(. The new GWT console is comming along nicely though. Heiko Braun is doing a nice job there.

Personally I think the inital attempt to make a JBPM4JSF was not completely wrong, but certainly not right either (imo). What was 'wrong' is that it did not make ui design a lot easier by introducing Gravel. The lack of end-user design docs certainly not helped usage/reputation of jsf, au contraire.

btw, you may always join the discussions on this subject in the jbpm-dev forum

[www.supernovasoftware.com]

Hmm.  SOA platform uses GWT. ;)

I still vote for Seam plus Richfaces.

I will have to take a look at the GWT console.

[jpviragine.jpviragine.gmail.com]

FLY: JBoss adopts GWT (Google Web Toolkit)

Regards,
JP

[www.supernovasoftware.com]

Hmm...

The world doesn’t need another Java framework for developing rich AJAX apps. so we’ve decided to go with what we think is a real leader - Google Web Toolkit.

Doesn't seem like much of a plug for Richfaces.

[kukeltje.ronald.jbpm.org]

Just read the announcement as well... Makes you wonder what they really mean with

Q. Does this mean that Red Hat doesn’t care about Rich Faces / ajax4jsf anymore ?

A. Not at all – for many Java developers - GWT is a complimentary technology for others it might be an alternative. We’re not prescribing one particular approach – we’re supporting what we believe are the best technologies for developers. Our commitment to Rich Faces and ajax4jsf continue.

<rand>
I always thought JBoss was no Apache, but with choosing 2 web frameworks for their own products (Although I know GWT and JSF target different types of developers ), developing 2 workflowengines with editors/designer, it makes you wonder what is next. You would expect them to focus more on stability and quality of what they have instead of going for yet another new technology....
</rand>

[www.supernovasoftware.com]

I started a discussion on the RF forum.

Link to RF forum post

[girishkumarr]

Hi
The reason i wanted to use jbpm4jsf is i have many task forms in my process .I thought i can use jbpm4jsf to move the token from one taskform to the next node and so on . please let me know if my approach is wrong.Thanks

[kukeltje.ronald.jbpm.org]

First of all you do not move the token from taskform to taskform, but from task-node to task-node (or even node to node since a task-node is essential also a node)

Taskforms in the jbpm sense are nothing more than jsf pages. If you already use seam, it is fairly easy to signal a task to end via the annotations. The 'advantages' of jbpm4jsf for signalling are reduced since you miss the seam intergration then. That is why I would make a new jbpm4jsf that works nicely with seam.

It might be that you have designed complex forms in the jbpm designer, don't. This way you put way to many domain data in the process engine. That data should be in your own domain model and only small relevant amounts of data, e.g. businesskeys should be in the processengine. So I'd do it just the way it is done in the seam examples.

[trouby]

btw Ronald, I personally keep most of the information in the process itself, I don't see a reason why not to (Unless we'r talking about complicated models, then I store keys)

That way it's very easy to work with variables when they are apart of the process for decisions/task assignments/etc... I reference them very easily in different kind of nodes without delegating to methods that will load the entities,
It's valuable when you write forms and would like to show content,imo,loading data from keys in the middle of the process everytime you want to show something is very annoying, so why not to avoid it if possible? :-)

Regarding forms, I find writing facelets/jsf pages and do the integration with SEAM manually easy enough and most importantly easy to customize later on. I would definitely be happy of some techniques where I can generate web forms based on the xml the form designer generates. (although the form generator in the designer is not advance enough)

I wonder why not stick with JSF when Richfaces is around, Seam and RF is probably the right choice for Jboss, I wonder what's the reason of choosing GWT,

In reality, these consoles are usually very nice when they are used as stand alone consoles,
But when it comes to reality, at the end, I always combine JBPM with other complicated apps and customer requirements are always different, so it doesn't help me much.

Asaf.

[girishkumarr]

Hi Ronald
     I understand it is from task form to the next node , but if i use seam and jbpm how can i generate the task form . If i  use jbpm alone then the designer generates the forms.xml i see the form when the token moves to that task node, but how does the form gets displayed when i use jbpm and seam ,please correct me if i am wrong and please let me know how the form gets generated and if i use jbpm alone who reads the forms.xml and displays the form .

Thanks