Chapter 4. User Interface

Table of Contents

Main menu
Main tool bar
Info bar
Graph Overview
External Package Relations
Transient Package Pool
Graph
XPDL View
Navigator
Package tree
Properties component
Search component
Problems component
WfXML component
LDAP component

The Together Workflow Editor user interface consists of several parts. The order and the number of the displayed parts depend on the actually used configuration. This chapter explains the default configuration layout.

Right below the title line of the editor window you will see the main menu, the main tool bar and the info bar. The rest of the window contains different components. The components are placed in the corresponding are depending on their type.

Each component is responsible either for providing a different view of the WfMC XPDL elements, for displaying some additional information about XPDL elements (such as validation problems) or for displaying the result of some search.

Figure 4.1. Default configuration layout

Default configuration layout

There are two areas on the left hand side: The upper area (marked as "Special Area") contains the Graph overview, the External package relations and the Transient package pool components. The lower area (marked as "Tree Area") contains the tree type components Navigator and Package tree.

There are also two areas on the right hand side: The upper area (marked as "Main Area") contains the Graph and the XPDL View components. The lower area (marked as "Other Area") contains the Properties, Search, Problems, WfXML and LDAP components.

(NOTE: by right-clicking on the tab you are able to close some component's view or to move it from one area to another)

See the section called “Property file togwecontroller.properties for details about the configuration of the main frame.

The rest of this chapter explains all these editor parts in detail.

Main menu

This is the core of the Together Workflow Editor. All the actions needed for opening, creating and manipulating XPDL files and elements are here.

The actions in the main menu are organized in the following groups:

  1. File

    New

    This action creates a new "empty" XPDL package.

    Open

    This action opens an existing XPDL file. The file is chosen through the standard file selection dialog.

    Reopen

    This action reopens the currently edited XPDL file.

    Close

    This action closes the currently open XPDL package / file.

    Save

    This action saves the currently open XPDL package to the file. If no file name has been specified for the current package, the "Save As..." dialog will be shown.

    Save As...

    This action saves the currently open XPDL package into a file with a new filename and location specified through a standard file dialog.

    Recent Files

    This action opens a sub-menu with a listing of recently used files which can be re-opened.

    Exit

    This action exits the editor applciation. An appropriate dialog will appear if the current work hasn't been saved into a file.

  2. Edit

    Undo

    This action reverts the last operation on the XPDL model. Every operation / change performed to the XPDL model can be undone step-by-step without any limits.

    Redo

    This action repeats the previously undone XPDL model operation.

    Cut

    This action will remove the currently selected elements from the model and place them into the clipboard, allowing the user to paste them somewhere else. This operation uses the internal clipboard of the editor.

    Any previous content of the internal clipboard is discarded when this action is executed.

    Copy

    This action will copy the currently selected elements into the clipboard, allowing the user to paste them somewhere else. This operation uses the internal clipboard of the editor.

    Any previous content of the internal clipboard is discarded when this action is executed.

    Paste

    This action will copy the elements from the internal clipboard to the current location. It will only be enabled if the internal clipboard currently contains at least one element.

    Delete

    This action removes the currently selected elements from the XPDL model.

    Properties

    This action opens a dialog to define properties for the currently selected element.

  3. Search

    Search

    This action finds XPDL elements based on certain search criteria.

    References

    This action seaches for all elements in the XPDL model which refer to the currently selected element.

  4. Package

    Check validity

    This action runs a check on the XPDL model's validity based on the WfMC specification and produces a problem list.

    Insert new process

    This action inserts a new workflow process definition into the XPDL package.

    Namespaces

    This action shows a dialog for handling the package's namespaces.

    Package properties

    This action opens a dialog for editing the XPDL package properties.

    Processes

    This action shows dialog with list of the workflow process definitions defined in selected XPDL package.

    External packages

    This action opens a dialog to handle references to external XPDL packages.

    Add external package

    This action opens a dialog to import / reference an external package.

    Remove external package

    This action removes an external package reference.

    Type declarations

    This action shows a dialog to manage type declarations.

    Participants

    This action shows a dialog to managing participants.

    Applications

    This action shows a dialog to manage applications.

    Workflow variables

    This action shows a dialog to manage variables.

    Open referred document

    This action opens the document attached to the package.

  5. Process

    Process properties

    This action opens a dialog to edit the properties of the selected process.

    Participants

    This action shows a dialog to manage participants of the selected process.

    Applications

    This action shows a dialog to manage applications of the selected process.

    Workflow variables

    This action shows a dialog to manage variables of the selected process.

    Formal parameters

    This action shows a dialog to manage parameters of the selected process.

    Activity sets

    This action shows a list of all activity sets contained within the selected process.

    Activities

    This action shows a list of activities contained within the selected process.

    Transitions

    This action shows a list of transitions contained within the selected process.

  6. External Packages

    External participants

    This action shows a list of all participants that are in the external packages.

    External processes

    This action shows a list of all processes that are in the external packages.

    External applications

    This action shows a list of all application that are in the external packages.

    External type declarations

    This action shows a list of all type declarations that are in the external packages.

  7. Settings

    Language

    This menu shows the list of languages you can use (currently English, German, French, Portuguese and Serbian). The selection takes effect after you restart the editor.

    Configuration

    This menu shows the list of configurations that you can use (currently default, shark and samples-loopactivity configurations are provided). After you select the configuration, the editor is being re-configured to use this new configuration with all of its customizations (special validation, restrictions, etc.)

  8. Help

    Manual

    This action opens the this User Guide.

    About

    This action shows the version, license and other information about the editor.