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Chapter 20. Eclipse BPMN 2.0 Modeler

20.1. Overview
20.2. Installation
20.3. Documentation

The Eclipse BPMN 2.0 Modeler allows you to specify business processes, choreographies, etc. using the BPMN 2.0 XML syntax (including BPMNDI for the graphical information). The editor itself is based on the Eclipse Graphiti framework and the Eclipse BPMN 2.0 EMF meta-model.

Features:

The BPMN2 Modeler project is being developed at eclipse.org, sponsored by Red Hat/JBoss. Red Hat understands the benefits of developing software in the community, and therefore, the Eclipse BPMN 2.0 Modeler was developed not just for the jBPM project only, but it can be used in a much broader context and is fully spec compliant. jBPM-specific features are developed as part of a separate jBPM Target Runtime. We welcome other organizations in contributing to this modeler as well and (re)using the generic functionality and/or defining their own target runtime if necessary. Not only is this a good thing for the community, but it also leaves the path open for the jBPM suite to evolve as new features are requested by customers.

Many thanks go out to the people at Codehoop that did a great job in creating a first version of this editor.

The jBPM installer is capable of downloading and installing an Eclipse installation, including the Eclipse BPMN2 Modeler and the Drools and jBPM Eclipse plugin (with a full jBPM runtime preconfigured).

You can however also download and install the jBPM Eclipse Plugin manually. To do so, you need Eclipse 3.6.2 (Helios) or newer. To install, startup Eclipse and install the Eclipse BPMN 2.0 Modeler from the following update site (from menu Help -> Install new software and then add the update site in question by clicking the Add button, filling in a name and the correct URL as shown below). It will automatically download all other dependencies as well (e.g. Graphiti etc.)

Eclipse 3.6 (Helios): http://download.eclipse.org/bpmn2-modeler/updates/helios

Eclipse 3.7 - 4.2.1 (Indigo - Juno): http://download.eclipse.org/bpmn2-modeler/updates/juno

Eclipse 4.3 (Kepler): http://download.eclipse.org/bpmn2-modeler/updates/kepler

The project is hosted at eclipse.org and open for anyone to contribute. The project home page can he found here:

http://http://eclipse.org/bpmn2-modeler/

Sources are available here (using Eclipse Public License v1.0):

https://git.eclipse.org/c/bpmn2-modeler/org.eclipse.bpmn2-modeler.git

A community forum for posting questions and exchanging ideas is also available here:

http://www.eclipse.org/forums/

A Bugzilla bug tracking system is available for reporting new bugs, or checking the status of existing bugs, here:

https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/buglist.cgi?product=BPMN2Modeler

The Eclipse BPMN 2.0 Modeler documentation is available at:

http://eclipse.org/bpmn2-modeler/documentation.php

It contains various screencasts but also a full user guide, describing all its features in detail:

http://eclipse.org/bpmn2-modeler/documentation/UserGuide-v1.0.pdf

Here are some screenshots of the editor in action.