Hi,
Looks like you have a problem with the installation of the eclipse plugins for the BPMN Editor. I suggest you try out the following 2 methods :
Using the BPMN2.0 Editor
1. Clean up to ensure that you start from fresh ( $ ant clean.demo )
2. Start with a clean eclipse installation ( Indigo SR2 version mentioned in the build script ). Ensure that your eclipse home is properly set
to your downloaded location.
3. Ensure that eclipse drools JBPM plugin and eclipse GEF plugin are downloaded and installed into the appropriate locations as mentioned in the
build script. The build takes care of these but you have to ensure that it is done properly by cross-checking it
4. Set your eclipse home to point to the eclipse home directory where you downloaded eclipse in the build.properties file
5. Then follow Chapter 9 in the JBPM5.2 user guide for installing the graphiti and BPMN Editor plugins into eclipse
They have sugested Grpahiti 0.7.1 and BPMN2.0 but did not work for me. There were some compatibility issues.
So I installed Graphiti version 0.8.1 and BPMN2.0
6. Now start your demo and things should work fine and you should be able to use the BPMN editor to create the diagrams
$ ant start.demo
Using the Designer
You can also create BPMN diagrams using the designer. The designer has got a nice user interface. And you can save revisions into the
Drools Guvnor. You can later on import these artifacts into eclipse. The basics of the Designer is explained in Chapter 10 of the JBPM5.2 user guide.
That should be sufficient to start off with the designer. Here are the steps :
1. Ensure that your JBOSS App Server is up and runing. Ensure that the H2 database is started as well. You can see these printed when you run
$ant start.demo
2. Access the Drools Guvnor using the folowing link
http://127.0.0.1:8080/drools-guvnor
It should open up the Guvnor application. The Guvnor is a repository for storing artifacts. You can use one of the logins mentioned
in the users.properties file in the auth folder ( like krisv, mary, john etc. )
3. The designer is invoked through the Guvnor application.
Using the create -> new you can create a new BPMN drawing and then you can save it in the guvnor. You can save it either as part
of the default package or storage space.
4. This can be imported into eclipse using File -> import -> Guvnor -> Package -> Your BPMN diagram
Here are some links to useful docs :
JBPM5.2 User Guide
http://docs.jboss.org/jbpm/v5.2/userguide/
Drools Guvnor Manual
http://docs.jboss.org/drools/release/5.3.0.Beta1/drools-guvnor-docs/html_single/index.html
The designer is a very powerful tool and I believe we can also use it to create forms which we may need for human tasks.
You can also validate your BPMN process using the Designer. I am also a newbie and yet to explore the designer completely.
So I have just shared whatever I know about the Designer.
Article on JBPM Designer
http://surdilovic.wordpress.com/
Hope this helps.