[jbpm-issues] [JBoss JIRA] Commented: (JBPM-2166) add extensibility to jpdl schema

[Gregg Freeman (JIRA)]

    [ https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/JBPM-2166?page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:comment-tabpanel&focusedCommentId=12509056#action_12509056 ] 

Gregg Freeman commented on JBPM-2166:
-------------------------------------

What if there were a different approach?  I feel like the available node set is adequate, with the existing custom node.  The "killer" feature that's missing is the ability to enhance or replace the existing node behavior.  So, what do you think about optionally allowing an activity behavior chain?  

Any activity could specify a list of ActivityBehavior implementations that would be executed on activity start.  Additionally, we could specify 2 additional flags: include-default-behavior and default-behavior-location.  

The attribute include-default-behavior would specify to include the default (a boolean attribute), pre-implemented behavior in the node execution and would default to true if not specified. 

The attribute default-behavior-location is a enumerated attribute of "first" or "last" and would specify where in the chain the default behavior would be executed.  It would be defaulted to "first" if not specified.

ActcivityBehavior would be enhanced to return a boolean from the execute(ActivityExecution) method and would indicate if processing in the chain should continue.  All of the default implementations would return "true", indicating the execution chain should continue.  A return value of "false" would indicate that no further processing should continue.  

This would allow custom behavior to do things like conditionally create tasks in the task node, or notify task candidates after the task has been created.  It could open up a bunch of possibilities...

I'll upload an example xml file of what I've described.

> add extensibility to jpdl schema
> --------------------------------
>
>                 Key: JBPM-2166
>                 URL: https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/JBPM-2166
>             Project: jBPM
>          Issue Type: Task
>      Security Level: Public(Everyone can see) 
>            Reporter: Tom Baeyens
>            Assignee: Tom Baeyens
>            Priority: Optional
>             Fix For: jBPM 4.x
>
>         Attachments: jpd-example.jpdl.xml
>
>
> Add activity pluggability.  (add the proper any's and anyAttributes)

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