Eclipse BPMN2 Modeler Project 1.0 Release Review

Type
Release
Graduation
State
Successful
End Date of the Review Period

Reviews run for a minimum of one week. The outcome of the review is decided on this date. This is the last day to make comments or ask questions about this review.

Release

1.0

Description

The BPMN2 Modeler is a graphical modeling tool which allows creation and editing of BPMN 2.0 spec compliant diagrams. The tool is built on Eclipse Graphiti and uses the MDT BPMN2 project as the underlying model. This release represents the first stable version of the editor.

Version 1.0, while still not a final, polished product, is very stable and offers a very complete API that achieves the goals set for this release. The project leadership would like to thank the university researchers and community users who helped define and refine the editor API (you know who you are ) and for making BPMN2 Modeler a better product.

Architectural Issues

Because the BPMN 2.0 specification is so complex, many BPM execution engines do not support all features of the language. The good news is that a smaller language subset is sufficient to handle most use cases.

The primary goal, and also the biggest challenge during development of the BPMN2 Modeler was to provide a graphical editing tool that not only supports the full BPMN 2.0 spec but is also customizable so that only those features of the language supported by the target runtime are rendered in the UI. Even Camunda, one of the early adopters of the BPMN2 Modeler, were skeptical that this could be done effectively and had decided early on to create their own fork of the code and tailor the core editor to their execution engine.

The BPMN2 Modeler project leadership is happy to announce that we feel this goal has been accomplished, and point to the jBPM extension plug-in as proof. jBPM is a java-based, embeddable process engine that supports a rich BPMN 2.0 subset, along with several language extensions, and The jBPM extension plug-in is tailored to fit this language subset precisely.

Security Issues

BPMN2 Modeler does not access any personal user information, nor does it share user information on the web.

BPMN2 Modeler does not use encryption of any kind.

Non-Code Aspects

Documentation: User Documentation and Developer Documentation is currently in development and will be published as part of the service release scheduled for end of Q4, 2013.

Internationalization: As discussed in the Internationalization section, string externalization and translation will be published in the next service release.

Code Examples: All plug-in code examples have been updated to work with this release. Also a new Java code example has been created (see this forum post for details).

Tutorials: Several screencasts demonstrating project setup and plug-in extension development exist but still need to be updated to reflect this version.

IP Policy:

  • "About" files and user licenses are in place as per the Eclipse Guidelines
  • All contributions have been made by individuals who have signed a CLA
  • The "Provider" of each plug-in is set to "Eclipse.org"
  • The "Copyright" of each plug-in is set to the copyright owner
  • There are no 3rd party logos or fonts that need to be licensed under the EPL
Usability Details

Because BPMN2 Modeler is based on the Graphiti framework, it adheres to the Eclipse UI Guidelines. Supporting views include the tabbed Property Viewer and Content Outline Viewer.

Users may experience a startup delay if a file being edited references resources on the web, such as XSDs, WSDLs, or other process files, until those documents have been cached by the Eclipse workbench.

End of Life

No features are planed for EOL with this release.

Standards
Communities

News Group & Forum

  • bpmn2-modeler-dev@eclipse.org
  • http://www.eclipse.org/forums/index.php/f/226/ddf71c892847b96912ebdb3c19ce41f5/

Developers

  • 4 active committers
  • 17 contributors

Adopters

  • http://www.jboss.org
  • http://camunda.org
  • http://www.sungard.com
  • http://www.xerox.com

Academia

  • T.U. Dortmund
  • University of Sfax
  • UFPE, Brazil

Release Review