Some interesting reads

A lot of activity in the jBPM5 community the last few weeks, so here's a list of links that caught my eye and might be an interesting read for you as well:

• A lot of detailed examples on bpmn2 user's blog:
  
  • jBPM5 example - human task forms with variables
  • jBPM5 console integration with Tomcat6
    
  • Oracle and tomcat integration for jBPM5
    
  • Eclipse plugin installation for jBPM5
    
  • HelloProcess example using jBPM5 Eclipse plugin
    
  • jBPM5 console - hello process example
    
  • jBPM5 loop example
  • jBPM5 sub-process loop example
    
  
  
• Salaboy has been working on a jBPM5 community training
  
  • Announcing jBPM5 community training
  • Module #1: jBPM5 introduction
  • Module #2: the BPM practice
  • Module #4: the jBPM5 API overview
  He has also been nominated for the JBoss Community Recognition Awards 2011 in two categories, I know you would do him a big favor by voting for him, he's definitely got my vote for all the work he's been doing !
  
  • New Features
  • Bug Fixes

• Viki has created a very nice video on getting started with jBPM5
  

Let me know if I missed any, I'll add them to the list.

Finally, I've also done two interviews lately:

• InfoQ: Red Hat's jBPM5 Brings a New API, New Tooling and Support for BPMN 2.0

• jaxenter: What's new in jBPM 5.0

Lots of reading, enjoy !

New BPMN 2.0 Eclipse editor

We would like to show you our new and improved BPMN 2.0 Eclipse editor, which is currently being developed for jBPM 5.1 and will support a much larger part of the BPMN 2.0 specification (hopefully even including basic choreography and conversation).

For this, we've had a lot of help from the guys at Codehoop. They've been working on it for the last few months, and we believe it's currently at a stage where people can start to play it with and give us feedback.

(click on image to enlarge)

Features:

• It supports almost all BPMN 2.0 process constructs and attributes (including lanes and pools, annotations and all the BPMN2 node types).
• Support for the few custom attributes that jBPM5 introduces.
• Allows you to configure which elements and attributes you want use when modeling processes (so we can limit the constructs for example to the subset currently supported by jBPM5, which is a profile we will support by default, or even more if you like).
  

Since it is still work in progress, there are still a few limitations or missing elements, but we should be able to clean it all up pretty soon, and include it as part of jBPM 5.1. But if you're looking for an open-source BPMN2 editor and might be interested in participating, let us know !

You can find the codebase here. We will be providing an easy-to-use update site for installation once we reach the final milestone, but if you already want to give it a go and build it from source:

• Fetch the source and import the projects into Eclipse.
• The project is reusing the Eclipse BPMN2 meta-model project for loading / saving BPMN 2.0 XML, so you will need to download and import the projects from the Eclipse BPMN2 repository (git://git.eclipse.org/gitroot/bpmn2) as well.
• If you then run as Eclipse application, a new Eclipse environment should come up.
• Create a new BPMN2 diagram by selecting File -> New -> Other and then select BPMN2 Diagram Wizard (under BPMN2 category).
  

There is also a Wiki page that contains some screenshots useful information.

Codehoop is a small agency building Eclipse toolkits and Java+Scala enterprise middleware. The team has been excited to work with Fortune 500 companies as well as small startups. The result is a great variety of expertise on Eclipse technologies, ranging from database management to code editors, visual modelling and vector-based animation studio.

Let us know what you think !

Recording of jBPM5 webinar available

The recording for the webinar on jBPM5 is now available here. For people that want to get access to the slides, I uploaded them here.

A lot of people attended one of the two available sessions, and as a result, there wasn't enough time to answer all the questions. But as promised, we are trying to answer each an every one of them. I will post a blog entry with the questions and answers as soon as possible.

Reminder: jBPM5 Webinar Feb 24th

Just a reminder that there will be a jBPM5 webinar tomorrow, Februari 24th.

You can choose one of these two live events:

• 9am EST (GMT-5 New York) / 14:00 GMT / 3pm CET (GMT+1 Paris)
• 2pm EST (GMT-5 New York) / 19:00 GMT / 8pm CET (GMT+1 Paris)

So register now !

An executable process using the designer

Tihomir has been working on the designer lately to make sure that the web-based process designer can be used to create executable processes from scratch using the designer only.

He has created a nice screencast and blogged about it:

"Here is an example of creating and executing a simple BPMN2 process created with the Oryx designer (click on the screenshot below). It shows off the ability to create both business rules and BPMN2 processes in the same environment and expose them to the client application that consume them.











In order to recreate this example, you must use the latest version of the Oryx designer which you can download from here (rename it to designer.war and replace your existing one in $jbossHome/server/$config/deploy directory). If you prefer to use the jbpm-console for executing the process instead of from Eclipse like shown in the example, you can do that as well if you define the process as part of the defaultPackage (or update your jbpm-console configuration to load processes from another package)."

The jBPM team is looking to hire !

With the first jBPM5 release out there, the work isn't done! We have lots of existing customers that need support or are eager to move to the new version and need some assistance. On top of that, we obviously want to keep improving and extending our latest version with new and exciting features.

That's why we are looking for someone who is willing to take on the challenge and join the team ! No need anymore to find some spare time to do contributions to jBPM, now you can do it fulltime.

Are you looking for something new and exciting and do you have what it takes? Previous experience with jBPM, BPM in general or open-source is a plus ;) Are you interested in joining the jBPM team to solve issues and add new features? Let us know !

Webinar on jBPM5: it's demo time !

With the release of jBPM 5.0 also come new presentations. And this time, I'll be doing a runthrough of the different tools, so you can get a feeling of what the different tools look like and see them in action.

The webinar will be on February, 24th and there will be two slots available, to make sure there is something that fits your time zone.

Don't miss this and register now !

If you're looking for a more technical overview of jBPM5, you can still take a look at the recorded version of the previous webinar.