Custom UI - bpmn-io

Flowable Application
1

Hi folks,

our company wants to provide the ability to manage workflows in our software product. Therefor we want to integrate your process engine.
Now I am looking for a solution to provide an UI. To fit our look and feel and in order to offer additional functionality we cant use your modeler (without cusomization).
So I searched for a framework that provides to create a bpmn-process graphically, holds its informations and offers the ability to manipulate it in many ways programmatically.

I found two frameworks to achieve that:

  • Oryx: This framework is used by flowable and activiti. To use that framework in a commercial way we have to deal with licenses. So I didnt folow up that way first.
  • bpmn-io: This open-source javascript framework is used by camunda. It hits all of our requirements so far. Unfortunately the documentation is rare but the community is great and there are examples for some use-cases.

Now I have an issue with bpmn-io: It is possible to extend its meta-model (https://github.com/bpmn-io/bpmn-js-examples/tree/master/custom-meta-model) To achieve that a json file is needed. But I only found the flowable-bpmn-extensions-X.X.xsd files. I tryed to convert the xsd files with xsd2json and Jsonix but it didnt work as expected (see below). Can you offer your extension elements in a json format?

Another question: What is the recommended way for those who want to build an own UI? Can you imagine to offer bpmn-io support like camunda?

Converting-Errors:
C:…\resources\extensions>java -jar jsonix-schema-compiler-full-2.3.9.jar ./xsd/flowable-bpmn-extensions-6.0.xsd
[ERROR] Eigenschaft “Value” ist bereits definiert. Verwenden Sie <jaxb:property> zur Lösung dieses Konflikts.
Zeile 96 von file:/C:/…/resources/extensions/xsd/flowable-bpmn-extensions-6.0.xsd
[ERROR] Das folgende Verzeichnis ist für den obigen Fehler relevant
Zeile 187 von file:/C:/…/resources/extensions/xsd/flowable-bpmn-extensions-6.0.xsd
[ERROR] Eigenschaft “Expression” ist bereits definiert. Verwenden Sie <jaxb:property> zur Lösung dieses Konflikts.
Zeile 289 von file:/C:/…/resources/extensions/xsd/flowable-bpmn-extensions-6.0.xsd
[ERROR] Das folgende Verzeichnis ist für den obigen Fehler relevant
Zeile 293 von file:/C:/…/resources/extensions/xsd/flowable-bpmn-extensions-6.0.xsd
[ERROR] org.hisrc.jsonix.execution.JsonixInvoker - The model is null, there was probably a problem parsing schemas.

2

Hi,

There is no issue with licenses with our Flowable Modeler. We are using the MIT licensed version of Oryx and everybody can use and extend it like they want to, commercial or in another way. If you choose to go for the Flowable Engine I would definitely recommend to use the Flowable Modeler (web) or Flowable Designer (Eclipse). This ensures that all the features that we offer in Flowable will be available for you to model your processes.

Best regards,

Tijs