4 Replies Latest reply on Dec 14, 2006 6:20 PM by dmlloyd

Web Console: Componentizing

dmlloyd Dec 14, 2006 10:37 AM

In order to allow people to use the cool jBPM components outside of jBPM, I'm considering grouping the components into the following categories:

1. Regular JSF Components - These are components that do not do anything jBPM-specific, but add fuctionality not found in other component sets. This would include the custom dataTable, dataForm, tabset, base, bind, messages, and their relatives.

2. jBPM Task Form Components - These are components that are specific to using task forms, such as the taskForm tag as well as the various task form button components. Using these components would depend on #1 above (since as of now, generated task forms use the dataForm component).

3. jBPM Web Console Components - These are components that might not be useful outside of the Web Console, or they are most likely to be duplicated in functionality with other component libraries (I'm thinking of Seam here). These would include the search component, process image, and xml printer.

I'd like to consider packaging #1 and #2 separately.

Any opinions?

1. Re: Web Console: Componentizing

jonabbey Dec 14, 2006 5:09 PM (in response to dmlloyd)

Reasonable enough, I suppose, though it would seem that #2 and #3 could go together in one bundle.

Yay componentization!
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2. Re: Web Console: Componentizing

dmlloyd Dec 14, 2006 5:40 PM (in response to dmlloyd)

"jonabbey" wrote:
Reasonable enough, I suppose, though it would seem that #2 and #3 could go together in one bundle.

My fear with that is, I might want to remove or replace components in the #3 category as needed by the application. But #2 should be "stable" so that task forms can use future versions without fear of breakage.
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3. Re: Web Console: Componentizing

jonabbey Dec 14, 2006 6:08 PM (in response to dmlloyd)

Ah, right you are. That makes perfect sense.

I know this is a foolish question, but aren't the task forms held in the database? How is it that the forms are extracted and processed by JSF? Is there explicit code in the system which extracts the task forms and compiles JSF servlets from them?
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4. Re: Web Console: Componentizing

dmlloyd Dec 14, 2006 6:20 PM (in response to dmlloyd)

The task forms are in fact stored in the database as part of the process definition. The form content is included via a custom Facelets tag that includes the form content into the view. There's a few support components to allow the form buttons to work with the proper actions.

The idea is that the user should be able to include task forms in their own application.
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