Hello,
I am using JBPM with Spring and Struts, so I do not use JSF for task form generation which is a mechanism supported by GPD. I generate task form on my task form jsp page by using some gymnastics with predefined prefixes in variable mapped-name and it works well more than 1 year (touch the wood).

jbpm-3.2 XSD for variable looks like this:

 <xs:element name="variable">
 <xs:complexType>
 <xs:sequence>
 <xs:any processContents="lax" minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="unbounded" />
 </xs:sequence>
 <xs:attribute name="name" type="xs:string" use="required"/>
 <xs:attribute name="access" type="xs:string" default="read,write"/>
 <xs:attribute name="mapped-name" type="xs:string" />
 </xs:complexType>
 </xs:element>

What by my opinion is missing here is the way to specify default value.
How I do it in the moment, is to specify variable in process-start event script, and use the same variable in controller.

So, I would be happy if variable definition could have also these attributes:

<xs:attribute name="default-value" type="xs:string" />

and maybe:

<xs:attribute name="description" type="xs:string" />

which should store some custom info usable by somebody like me, who has different way to generate task forms :)

But wouldn't it be more comfortable for process designer to have ability to specify variable default value inside task directly?

I would appreciate your views.
Thanks a lot,
Milan

P.S
I read all Tom's articles about different roles for BA and developer, but my research is not targeted to BAs but for scientists, who usually do not have developer in the same room.