[jwt-dev] Extending JWT Plugin

[Ralph.Soika@xxxxxxxxx]

Hi,

as I posted before in the news group
I want to understand which extension points exists in the JWT Plugin. Let
me try to explain some of my thoughts of extending the JWT.
I am not sure but I believe that I and
my college Gaby Heinle meet some of you on Systems 2006 in munich?

Imixs.org is  a open source workflow
project. We support different technologies to build a workflow engine or
workflow applications. So we implement a JEE based Workflow Server (IX
JEE Workflow) (http://www.imixs.org/websites/imixs-org.nsf/chapter/3000.0020.?OpenDocument)
which for example can be used as a component in a JEE Application Infrastructure.
Also the project supports an Eclipse
based modelling tool (IX Modeler) (http://www.imixs.org/websites/imixs-org.nsf/chapter/3000.0030.?OpenDocument).

So after I played around with the JWT
Editor I think there are two different approaches. The goal of the JWT
is - as I understood - a generic framework to support and integrate workflow
engines. The IX Workflow is an individual implementation of a human centric
workflow engine. As our workflow engine supports no monitoring tooling
yet the JWT Monitoring would be also very interesting for us and one point
of integration - or better cooperation. Open source projects should not
integrate but extend and empower each other ;-)
From the modelling view I think you
follow a generic way. Is XPDL the current modelling fundament?
The Imixs Modeller is more specific
and focusing on the behavior of teh IX Workflow Engine. So the Imixs Modeller
is also working with ProcessEntities and ActivityEntites an Transitions.
But the main goal is to configure what should happen during a transition
inside the workflow engine. So we model technical things like who should
receive an email or who will be granted read or write access (granting
access is one of the most important features in our implementation)
So on one Workflow Activity we model
a lot of attributes (normally more then 50). So this can not be mapped
through the datatype package from your model as I understood?  
So it would be interesting to combine
this two modellers. The general approach of modelling is important to get
an understanding what happens during the flow. but also the technical details
should be modelled. 
As our modeller extend the ProtperyView
form Eclipse which an extendable dialog it is possible to combine the two
modellers if you support an extension point to handle an Object from the
class org.imixs.eclipse.workflowmodeler.model.ModelObject
This object implements the org.eclipse.ui.views.properties.IPropertySource
and is the basic class of our technical representation of a ProcessEntity
or an ActivityEntity. 
But I know that graphical eclipse modellers
are based on an individual domain object model and it could be problematic
to find a way handle model objects from another plugin?

As I sayed before the monitoring part
of JWT is also interesting for our project. 
How is it possible to monitor an external
Workflow Engine running in a JEE Container?
I am interesting in reading also more
about this part of your project.

Ralph