Open Source Technical Blog

Limit bandwidth for a service

Tomasz Muras — Mon, 14 May 2012 22:17:14 +0000

To test a performance of multiple parallel file downloads, I had to make sure that a download takes significant amount of time. I could use huge files but that’s not very helpful if you work on a local, 1Gb LAN. So I’ve decided to limit download speeds from my Apache server to my PC. Here we go.

1. Mark packages to be throttled, in my case those originating from port 80

$ iptables -A OUTPUT -p tcp --sport 80 -j MARK --set-mark 100

2. Use tc utility to limit traffic for the packages marked as above (handle 100):

$ tc qdisc add dev eth0 root handle 1:0 htb default 10
$ tc class add dev eth0 parent 1:0 classid 1:10 htb rate 1024kbps ceil 2048kbps prio 0
$ tc filter add dev eth0 parent 1:0 prio 0 protocol ip handle 100 fw flowid 1:10

3. That’s it, you can monitor/check your rules with:

$ tc filter show dev eth0
$ tc -s -d class show dev eth0

and finally remove the throttling with:

$ tc qdisc del dev eth0 root
$ iptables -D OUTPUT -p tcp --sport 80 -j MARK --set-mark 100

Basic python script for Gimp

Tomasz Muras — Sun, 06 May 2012 19:09:53 +0000

Some time ago I had to porcess a lot of images in a simple way – remove the top and bottom part of them. It was not a task I could automate – the amount of image I had to cut from the top & bottom varied for each photo. To make the mundane work a bit easier, I’ve created a script – python plugin.

The script assumes you have put two guide lines onto the image. It finds them, cuts the image from between them and saves as a new file.

To create such a simple script in python you need to:

import gimpfu
run register method that tells gimp (among other things), a function name that implements the script (special_crop) and where to put a link to the script in gimp menu (/Filters)
implement your function
copy script to your custom scripts folder (e.g. /home/…/.gimp-2.6/plug-ins)

The other locations you could use when choosing where in menu system a script should appear are:
“”, “”, “”, “”, “”, “”, “”, “”, “”, “”, “”, “” or “”

And finally, the script itself. It’s fairly self-explanatory – enjoy and happy gimping!

#!/usr/bin/env python
from gimpfu import *
 
def special_crop(image):
        print "Start"
        pdb = gimp.pdb
        top = pdb.gimp_image_find_next_guide(image, 0)
        top_y = pdb.gimp_image_get_guide_position(image,top)
        bottom = pdb.gimp_image_find_next_guide(image, top)
        bottom_y = pdb.gimp_image_get_guide_position(image,bottom)
        if top_y > bottom_y:
                temp_y = top_y
                top_y = bottom_y
                bottom_y = temp_y
        print "Cutting from", top_y,"to",bottom_y
        pdb.gimp_rect_select(image, 0, top_y, image.width, bottom_y-top_y, CHANNEL_OP_REPLACE, FALSE, 0)
        pdb.gimp_edit_copy(image.active_drawable)
        image2 = pdb.gimp_edit_paste_as_new()
        new_filename = image.filename[0:-4]+"_cut.jpg"
        pdb.file_jpeg_save(image2, image2.active_drawable, new_filename, "raw_filename", 0.9, 0.5, 0, 0, "New file", 0, 0, 0, 0)
        pdb.gimp_image_delete(image2)
 
register(
    "python-fu-special-crop",
    "Crop an image",
    "Crops the image.",
    "Tomasz Muras",
    "Tomasz Muras",
    "2011",
    "Special crop",
    "*",
    [
        (PF_IMAGE, "image","Input image", None),
    ],
    [],
    special_crop,
    menu="/Filters",
    )
 
main()

Monitoring of Tomcat with VisualVM and VisualGC

Joanna Muras — Sat, 05 May 2012 19:38:31 +0000

Introduction

Sometimes it can be useful to monitor performance of Java Virtual Machine (VM) on remote host. To do so, a very nice tool – VisualVM – can be used. It can be run on local host and get information from jstatd running on a remote host. In addition, VisualVM comes with a number of useful plugins. This blog describes how to run VisualVM with VisualGC, which is Visual Garbage Collection Monitoring Tool to monitor Tomcat on remote machine. However, the solution can be also applied to other applications running on JavaVM.

Remote machine

Run Tomcat

Add the following options to CATALINA_OPTS variable to enable JMX support in Apache Tomcat.

CATALINA_OPTS="
    -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote=true
    -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.port=
    -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.ssl=false
    -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.authenticate=false
    -Djava.rmi.server.hostname="

in my case:

CATALINA_OPTS="
    -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote=true
    -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.port=8084
    -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.ssl=false
    -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.authenticate=false
    -Djava.rmi.server.hostname=192.168.1.20"

You can find more information about Monitoring and Managing Tomcat here: Monitoring and Managing Tomcat

Run Tomcat:

startup.sh

We want to monitor Tomcat instance running on remote machine. To check whether it is running use:

ps aux | grep tomcat

The above command run on my remote machine returns the following:

tomcat6  28743  181  3.4 5136644 210932 ?      Sl   13:15   0:20 /opt/java-1.6.0_22/bin/java -Djava.util.logging.config.file=/var/lib/tomcat6/conf/logging.properties -Djava.awt.headless=true -Xms512m -Xmx3048m -XX:+UseConcMarkSweepGC -XX:MaxPermSize=512m -XX:-DisableExplicitGC -Djava.util.logging.manager=org.apache.juli.ClassLoaderLogManager -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote=true -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.port=8084 -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.ssl=false -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.authenticate=false -Djava.rmi.server.hostname=192.168.1.20 -Djava.endorsed.dirs=/usr/share/tomcat6/endorsed -classpath /usr/share/tomcat6/bin/bootstrap.jar -Dcatalina.base=/var/lib/tomcat6 -Dcatalina.home=/usr/share/tomcat6 -Djava.io.tmpdir=/tmp/tomcat6-tomcat6-tmp org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap start

Notice that pid is ’28743′.

To get JavaVM process status you can run jps command, which is Java Virtual Machine Process Status Tool. jps is located is your Java JDK HOME/bin directory. Description of jps command can be found here. Note that jps returns only Java processes run by the user, who runs jps. To get list of all Java processes run sudo jps. See examples below.

Outcome of jps run on my remote machine:

28144 Jps

Outcome of sudo jps run on my remote machine:

28743 Bootstrap
1673 CPService
28159 Jps
28897 Jstatd

Notice that lvmid for Tomcat (in this case – Bootstrap) is ’28743′ which is the same as pid.

Hostname

Run

hostname

to check the host name, e.g., agile003.

Make sure that in /etc/hosts file this hostname has IP by which it is visible to the machine that will be running VisualVM (local machine), e.g., 192.168.1.20 agile003.

Run jstat Deamon

jstatd, which is jstat Daemon can be found in Java JDK HOME/bin. As described in documentation to jstatd, which can be found here: , create a file called jstatd.policy in any directory you choose, e.g., /home/joanna. The file should contain the following text:

grant codebase "file:${java.home}/../lib/tools.jar" {
    permission java.security.AllPermission;
};

Run jstatd using the following command. Make sure you run it with root permissions.

sudo jstatd -J-Djava.security.policy=/home/joanna/jstatd.policy

You can add the following flag to log the calls and see what is going on:

-J-Djava.rmi.server.logCalls=true

Local machine

Check access to jstatd

Run:

jps <hostname>

in my case

jps agile003

You should see the same output as for sudo jps running on remote machine.

1673 CPService
28743 Bootstrap
28897 Jstatd

Run VisualVM

Run:

jvisualvm

visualvm

jvisualvm can be located in your Java JDK HOME/bin directory also it can be downloaded from here: JVM download

Go to

Tools -> Plugins

and install the plugins you require including VisualGC plugin. My selection is presented in the screen shot below.

Restart VisualVM.

Add remote host – one that jstatd is running on.

File -> AddRemoteHost...

give IP of the host, e.g., 192.158.1.20. The same IP should be set for the host name in /etc/hosts on remote server.

Now you should be able to access the Java processes running on remote host including Tomcat as presented below.

All tabs including VisualGC on right hand site should now show appropriate graphs. See sample screen shot below:

Enjoy!

git server with apache authentication on Ubuntu/Debian

Tomasz Muras — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 14:18:22 +0000

Introduction

This guide will describe how to serve git repository on HTTP port using Apache. This should work on any recent Ubuntu or Debian release, I’ve tested it on Ubuntu Server 11.10. I’m setting it up on my local server 192.168.1.20 under git/agilesparkle, so my repository will be available at http://192.168.1.20/git/agilesparkle. I want it to be password protected but with only single user with following credentials: myusername/mypassword.

Server side

I assume you have Apache installed already. Switch to root account so we won’t need to add sudo all the time and install git:

$ sudo su
$ apt-get install git-core

Create directory for your git repository:

$ mkdir -p /var/www/git/agilesparkle

Create bare git repository inside and set the rights so Apache has write access:

$ cd /var/www/git/agilesparkle
$ git --bare init
$ git update-server-info
$ chown -R www-data.www-data .

Enable dav_fs module. This will automatically enable dav module as well:

$ a2enmod dav_fs

Configure Apache to serve git repository using dav:

$ vim /etc/apache2/conf.d/git.conf

Copy following inside the newly created file:


	DAV on
	AuthType Basic
	AuthName "Git"
	AuthUserFile /etc/apache2/passwd.git
	Require valid-user

Create new file with new user and his password:

$ htpasswd -c /etc/apache2/passwd.git myusername

Restart Apache server

$ service apache2 restart

Client side

Clone the repository:

% git clone http://192.168.1.20/git/agilesparkle
Cloning into agilesparkle...
Username: 
Password: 
warning: You appear to have cloned an empty repository.

Create sample file and push it into empty repository:

% cd agilesparkle
% echo test file > readme.txt
% git add readme.txt
% git commit
% git push origin master

For the following pushes you can simply use:

% git push

If you don’t want to be prompted for the password each time and you don’t mind storing it in plain text, edit following file:

% vim ~/.netrc

and add following:

machine 192.168.1.20
login myusername
password mypassword

Print default Java performance options

Tomasz Muras — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 21:36:23 +0000

Unless provided explicitly, Java VM will set up several performance-related options depending on current environment. This mechanism is called ergonomics. You can see what defaults would be used on the machine by invoking:

$ java -XX:+PrintCommandLineFlags -version

The decision on the settings will be made based on the number of processors and total memory installed in the system. On my 32bit EeePC with 2 processors (as visible by OS) and 2GB memory, the output is:

$ java -XX:+PrintCommandLineFlags -version
-XX:InitialHeapSize=32847872 -XX:MaxHeapSize=536870912 -XX:ParallelGCThreads=2 -XX:+PrintCommandLineFlags -XX:+UseParallelGC 
java version "1.6.0_23"
OpenJDK Runtime Environment (IcedTea6 1.11pre) (6b23~pre11-0ubuntu1.11.10)
OpenJDK Server VM (build 20.0-b11, mixed mode)

And just for comparison, the output from Oracle Java 7:

$ java -XX:+PrintCommandLineFlags -version
-XX:InitialHeapSize=32847872 -XX:MaxHeapSize=525565952 -XX:ParallelGCThreads=2 -XX:+PrintCommandLineFlags -XX:+UseParallelGC 
java version "1.7.0_03"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.7.0_03-b04)
Java HotSpot(TM) Server VM (build 22.1-b02, mixed mode)

On 64bit system with 8 CPUs and 16GB memory, the output is:

$ java -XX:+PrintCommandLineFlags -version
-XX:InitialHeapSize=263071232 -XX:MaxHeapSize=4209139712 -XX:ParallelGCThreads=8 -XX:+PrintCommandLineFlags -XX:+UseCompressedOops -XX:+UseParallelGC 
java version "1.6.0_23"
OpenJDK Runtime Environment (IcedTea6 1.11pre) (6b23~pre11-0ubuntu1.11.10.2)
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 20.0-b11, mixed mode)

Oracle Java 7 again gives exactly the same ergonomics defaults.

Moodle Global Search and Zend Lucene performance

Tomasz Muras — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 19:50:53 +0000

Introduction

I’ve been working for some time on rewriting Global Search feature for Moodle. This is basically a search functionality that would span different regions of Moodle. Ideally it should allow to search everywhere within Moodle: forums, physical documents attached as resources, etc. The implementation should work in PHP, so as a search engine I’ve decided to use Zend’s implementation of Lucene. The library unfortunately doesn’t seem to be actively maintained – there were very few changes in SVN log – practically there was no development of Search Lucene since November 2010 (few entries in 2011 are just fixing typos or updating copyright date). The bug tracker is also full of Lucene issues and very little activity.
Having said that, I didn’t find any other search engine library implemented natively in PHP, so Zend_Search_Lucene it is! (please, please let me know if you know any alternatives)

Zend Lucene indexing performance-related settings

There are only 2 variables that can be changed to affect the performance of indexing:

$maxBufferedDocs
$maxMergeDocs

maxBufferedDocs

From the documentation:

 Number of documents required before the buffered in-memory
 documents are written into a new Segment
 Default value is 10

This simply means that every $maxBufferedDocs times you use addDocument() function, the index will be commited. Commiting requires obtaining write lock to the Lucene index.
So it should be straightforward: the smaller the value is, the less often index is flushed – therefore: overall performance (e.g. number of documents indexed per second) is higher but the memory footprint is bigger.

maxMergeDocs

The documentation says:

 mergeFactor determines how often segment indices are merged by addDocument().
 With smaller values, less RAM is used while indexing, and searches on unoptimized indices are faster,
 but indexing speed is slower.
 With larger values, more RAM is used during indexing, and while searches on unoptimized indices are slower,
 indexing is faster.
 Thus larger values (> 10) are best for batch index creation,
 and smaller values (< 10) for indices that are interactively maintained.

So it seems it’s pretty simple – for initial indexing we should set maxMergeDocs as high as possible and then lower it when more content is added to the index later on. With maxBufferedDocs we should simply find a balance between speed & memory consumption.

Testing indexing speed

I’ve tested various settings with my initial code for Global Search. As a test data I’ve created Moodle site with 1000 courses (really 999 courses as I didn’t use course id=1 – a frontpage course in Moodle). Each course has 10 sections and there is 1 label inside each section. That is: 10 labels per course (note: number of courses and sections is not really relevant for testing indexing speed).

Each label is about 10k long simple HTML text randomly generated, based on the words from “Hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy”. Here is a fragment of a sample label text (DB column intro):

whine the world, so far an inch wide, and
humanoid, but really knows all she said. - That
stellar neighbour, Alpha Centauri for half an interstellar distances between different planet. Armed intruders in then turned it as it was take us in a run through finger the about is important. - shouted the style and decided of programmers with distaste at the ship a new breakthrough in mid-air and we drop your white mice, -  of it's wise Zaphod Beeblebrox. Something pretty improbable no longer be a preparation for you. - Come off for century or so, - The two suns! It is. (Sass:
[...9693 characters more...]

The intro and the name of a label is index. The total amount of data to index is about 100MB, exactly: 104,899,975 (SELECT SUM( CHAR_LENGTH( `name` ) ) + SUM( CHAR_LENGTH( `intro` ) ) FROM `mdl_label`) in 9990 labels. (Note for picky ones: no, there are no multi-byte characters there).
I’ve tested it on my local machine running: 64 bit Ubuntu 11.10, apache2-mpm-prefork (2.2.20-1ubuntu1.2), mysql-server-5.1 (5.1.61-0ubuntu0.11.10.1), php5 (5.3.6-13ubuntu3.6) with php5-xcache (1.3.2-1). Hardware: Intel Core i7-2600K @ 3.40GHz, 16GB RAM.
The results:

Time	maxBufferedDocs	mergeFactor
1430.1	100	10
1464.7	300	400
1471.1	200	10
1540.9	200	100
1543.3	300	100
1549.7	200	200
1557.5	100	5
1559.3	300	200
1560.4	300	300
1577.0	200	300
1578.9	50	10
1581.5	200	5
1584.6	300	50
1586.6	300	10
1589.3	200	50
1591.2	200	400
1616.7	100	50
1742.2	50	5
1746.4	400	5
1770.7	400	10
1776.1	300	5
1802.3	400	50
1803.9	400	200
1815.7	50	50
1830.7	400	100
1839.4	400	400
1854.9	100	300
1870.1	400	300
1894.1	100	100
1897.2	100	200
1909.7	100	400
1924.4	10	10
1955.1	10	50
2133.4	5	10
2189.0	10	5
2257.6	10	100
2269.8	50	100
2282.7	5	50
2393.5	5	5
2466.8	5	100
2979.4	10	200
3146.8	5	200
3395.9	50	400
3427.9	50	200
3471.9	50	300
3747.0	10	300
3998.1	5	300
4449.8	10	400
5070.0	5	400

The results are not what I would expect – and definitely not what the documentation suggests: increasing both values should decrease total indexing time. In fact, I was so surprised that the first thing I suspected was that my tests were invalid because of something on the server affecting the performance. So I’ve repeated few tests:

First test	Second test	maxBufferedDocs	mergeFactor
1430.1	1444.9	100	10
1464.7	1490.6	300	400
1471.1	1491.1	200	10
1540.9	1593.5	200	100
1894.1	1867.7	100	100
1924.4	1931.2	10	10
1909.7	1920.4	100	400
5070.0	5133.3	5	400

The tests look OK! Here is a 3d graph of the results (lower values are better):

Explaining the results would require more analysis of the library implementation but for end-users like myself, it makes the decision very simple: maxBufferedDocs should be set to 100, mergeFactor to 10 (default value). As you can see on the graph, once you set maxBufferedDocs to 100, both settings don’t really make too much of a difference (the surface is flat). Setting both higher will only increase the memory usage.
With those settings, on the commodity hardware, the indexing speed was 71kB text per second (7 big labels per second). The indexing process is clearly cpu bound, further optimization would require optimizing the Zend_Search_Lucene code.

Testing performance degradation

The next thing to check is does the indexing speed degrade over the time. The speed of 71 kB/sec may be OK but if it degrades much over the time, then it may slow down to unacceptable values. To test it I’ve created ~100k labels of the total size 1,049,020,746 (1GB) and run the indexer again. The graph below shows the times it took to add each 1000 documents.

The time to add a single document is initially 0.05 sec and it keeps growing up to 0.15 at the end (100k documents). There is a spike every 100 documents, related to the value of maxBufferedDocs. But there are also bigger spikes in processing time 1,000 documents, then even bigger every 10,000. I think that this is caused by Zend_Lucene merging documents into single segment but I didn’t study the code deeply enough to be 100% sure.
It took in total 5.5h to index 1GB of data. The average throughput dropped from 73,356 bytes/sec (when indexing 100MB) to 53,903 bytes/sec (indexing 1GB of text).

The bottomline is that the speed of indexing keeps decreasing as the index grows but not significantly.

The last thing to check is the memory consumption. I checked the memory consumption after every document indexed then for each group of 1000 document I graphed the maximum memory used (the current memory used will keep jumping).

The maximum peak memory usage does increase but very slowly (1MB after indexing 100k documents).

Creation of workflow in Alfresco using Activiti step by step

Joanna Muras — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 11:26:36 +0000

Introduction

I am currently available for hire. See more on about me page.

This post describes how to configure workflow in Alfresco framework using Activiti engine. Instructions on how to set up the development environment can be found here. More information about workflows in Alfresco can be found on Alfresco wiki page. I also found the following very useful:

Before you start make sure that you have Activiti BPMN 2.0 designer, which is an Eclipse plugin. This makes edition of workflow models easier.

Workflow description

We are going to create the following workflow:

In a software development company there are 3 teams: sales, management, and developers. Sales team has to have information about work estimates, e.g., number of development days. When development work is required, sales person contacts management and requests estimate for the work. More accurate description of the work (say scope document) is stored in external (to Alfresco) Project Management systems. One of the managers sends the request to developer to do the estimate for the work. The estimate comes back to the manager and after approval is returned to the sales person. If there is no approval for the estimate it comes back do the developer to make some changes. This workflow is presented in the following picture created in Activiti BPMN 2.0 designer.

Workflow is started by a sales person.
‘Assign Estimate Task’ is done by a manager.
‘Estimate Task’ is done by a developer.
‘Review Estimate’ is done by the manager requesting estimate.
‘Estimate Approved’ is done by the sales person requesting estimate.

The following XML file is associated with the workflow above:

 version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
 xmlns="http://www.omg.org/spec/BPMN/20100524/MODEL" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:activiti="http://activiti.org/bpmn" xmlns:bpmndi="http://www.omg.org/spec/BPMN/20100524/DI" xmlns:omgdc="http://www.omg.org/spec/DD/20100524/DC" xmlns:omgdi="http://www.omg.org/spec/DD/20100524/DI" typeLanguage="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" expressionLanguage="http://www.w3.org/1999/XPath" targetNamespace="http://www.activiti.org/test">
   id="estimate" name="estimate">
 
     id="start" name="Start">>
     id="assignEstimateTask" name="Assign Estimate Task">
    >
     id="estimateTask" name="Estimate Task">
    >
     id="reviewEstimate" name="Review Estimate">
    >
     id="reviewDecision" name="Review Decision">>
     id="estimateApproved" name="Estimate Approved">
    >
     id="end" name="End">>
     id="flow1" name="" sourceRef="start" targetRef="assignEstimateTask">>
     id="flow3" name="" sourceRef="assignEstimateTask" targetRef="estimateTask">>
     id="flow4" name="" sourceRef="estimateTask" targetRef="reviewEstimate">>
     id="flow5" name="" sourceRef="reviewEstimate" targetRef="reviewDecision">>
     id="flow6" name="" sourceRef="reviewDecision" targetRef="estimateApproved">
    >
     id="flow7" name="" sourceRef="estimateApproved" targetRef="end">>
     id="flow8" name="" sourceRef="reviewDecision" targetRef="estimateTask">>
  >
   id="BPMNDiagram_estimate">
     bpmnElement="estimate" id="BPMNPlane_estimate">
       bpmnElement="start" id="BPMNShape_start">
         height="35" width="35" x="30" y="200">>
      >
       bpmnElement="assignEstimateTask" id="BPMNShape_assignEstimateTask">
         height="55" width="105" x="105" y="190">>
      >
       bpmnElement="estimateTask" id="BPMNShape_estimateTask">
         height="55" width="105" x="250" y="190">>
      >
       bpmnElement="reviewEstimate" id="BPMNShape_reviewEstimate">
         height="55" width="105" x="395" y="190">>
      >
       bpmnElement="reviewDecision" id="BPMNShape_reviewDecision">
         height="40" width="40" x="540" y="197">>
      >
       bpmnElement="estimateApproved" id="BPMNShape_estimateApproved">
         height="55" width="105" x="620" y="137">>
      >
       bpmnElement="end" id="BPMNShape_end">
         height="35" width="35" x="765" y="147">>
      >
       bpmnElement="flow1" id="BPMNEdge_flow1">
         x="65" y="217">>
         x="105" y="217">>
      >
       bpmnElement="flow3" id="BPMNEdge_flow3">
         x="210" y="217">>
         x="250" y="217">>
      >
       bpmnElement="flow4" id="BPMNEdge_flow4">
         x="355" y="217">>
         x="395" y="217">>
      >
       bpmnElement="flow5" id="BPMNEdge_flow5">
         x="500" y="217">>
         x="540" y="217">>
      >
       bpmnElement="flow6" id="BPMNEdge_flow6">
         x="560" y="197">>
         x="560" y="164">>
         x="620" y="164">>
      >
       bpmnElement="flow7" id="BPMNEdge_flow7">
         x="725" y="164">>
         x="765" y="164">>
      >
       bpmnElement="flow8" id="BPMNEdge_flow8">
         x="560" y="237">>
         x="447" y="327">>
         x="302" y="245">>
      >
    >
  >
>

Let’s name this XML file estimate.bpmn20.xml.

Integration of Activiti workflows in Alfresco

There are several points of integration Activiti framework with Alfresco. They are described below.

Script execution listeners

When workflow is started then the script execution starts. There is common execution object accessible through all the script execution (from start to end) to share information between script tasks. Execution object has org.alfresco.repo.workflow.activiti.listener.ScriptExecutionListener defined. There are 3 events defined for the listener: start, end, and take. The events can be used to execute some code within the workflow. In the workflow model (estimate.bpmn20.xml) it is possible to define script execution listeners in extensionElements tags and use JavaScript API and JavaScript Services API within the code to be run.

When workflow starts we want to obtain full name of ‘Management’ group and save it in script variable wf_managementGroup to be accessible in all the tasks within the workflow. The following piece of code shows how to do it. groups.getGroup is defined in JavaScript Services API and is used to get names of all the groups.

   id="estimate" name="estimate">
 
    >
       event="start" class="org.alfresco.repo.workflow.activiti.listener.ScriptExecutionListener">
         name="script">
          >execution.setVariable('wf_managementGroup', groups.getGroup('Management').getFullName());>
        >
      >
    >
 
     id="start" name="Start">>

Script task listeners

For each task in the workflow, where user action is required (userTask tag), except script execution listener it is possible to use script task listener. When the task starts new task object is created for each task and this object is accessible during the task execution. There are 3 events defined for org.alfresco.repo.workflow.activiti.tasklistener.ScriptTaskListener: create, assignment, and complete.

Let’s say that on the task start we want to assign some script execution variables to task variables. The following piece of code shows how to do it. In the example below script execution variable bpm_workflowDueDate, which corresponds to due date of the workflow is assigned to dueDate property of the task. Note that due date for workflow can be different from due date of task.

  id="assignEstimateTask" name="Assign Estimate Task">
      >
         event="create" class="org.alfresco.repo.workflow.activiti.tasklistener.ScriptTaskListener">
           name="script">
            >
              if (typeof bpm_workflowDueDate != 'undefined') task.dueDate = bpm_workflowDueDate;
            >
          >
        >
      >
    >

Connection between task in the flow and appropriate form in Alfresco share

To display each task in Alfresco share workflow forms are used. They are configured in share-workflow-form-config.xml file. In the workflow model (estimate.bpmn20.xml) it is possible to put attribute activiti:formKey in userTask tag, which is points to appropriate form defined in Alfresco share. To connect user tasks with forms it is necessary to define new type and use its name in workflow model and corresponding form configuration.

Let’s say that we defined wf:assignEstimateTask type. The type overrides bpm:packageActionGroup property of bpm:workflowTask type and has 2 mandatory aspects: bpm:assignee and wf:workInfo. The corresponding code is presented below.

		 name="wf:assignEstimateTask">
			>bpm:workflowTask>
 
			>
 
				 name="bpm:packageActionGroup">
					>add_package_item_actions>
				>
 
			>
 
			>
				>bpm:assignee>
				>wf:workInfo>
			>
		>

This type is linked with workflow model using activiti:formKey attribute.

 id="assignEstimateTask" name="Assign Estimate Task" activiti:formKey="wf:assignEstimateTask">

In the form configuration (share-workflow-form-config.xml) there is filter which displays form depending on the task type. The forms identify which properties of the type should be displayed and where/how to display them. The sample form configuration is presented below.

 evaluator="task-type" condition="wf:assignEstimateTask">
		>
			>
				>
					 id="message" />
					 id="bpm:dueDate" />
					 id="bpm:priority" />
					 id="wf:workDescription" />
					 id="packageItems" />
					 id="bpm:assignee" />
					 id="bpm:comment" />
					 id="transitions" />
				>
				>
					 id="" appearance="title" label-id="workflow.set.general" />
					 id="info" appearance=""
						template="/org/alfresco/components/form/2-column-set.ftl" />
					 id="items" appearance="title" label-id="workflow.set.items" />
					 id="assignee" appearance="title" label-id="workflow.set.assignee" />
					 id="work" appearance="title" label-id="workflow.set.work" />
					 id="other" appearance="title" label-id="workflow.set.other" />
					 id="response" appearance="title" label-id="workflow.set.response" />
 
 
					 id="message" label-id="workflow.field.message">
						 template="/org/alfresco/components/form/controls/info.ftl" />
					>
 
					 id="bpm:dueDate" label-id="workflow.field.due" set="info" />
					 id="bpm:priority" label-id="workflow.field.priority"
						set="info">
						
							template="/org/alfresco/components/form/controls/workflow/priority.ftl" />
					>
 
					 id="packageItems" set="items" />
 
					 id="wf:workDescription" set="work">
						 template="/org/alfresco/components/form/controls/info.ftl" />
					>
 
					 id="bpm:assignee" label-id="workflow.field.assign_to"
						set="assignee" />
 
					 id="bpm:comment" label-id="workflow.field.comment"
						set="response">
						 template="/org/alfresco/components/form/controls/textarea.ftl" />
					>
					 id="transitions" set="response" />
 
				>
			>
		>
	>

This form is displayed as presented below:

Please note that wf:workDescription is property of wf:workInfo aspect, which is defined as follows.

		 name="wf:workInfo">
			>
				 name="wf:workDescription">
					>d:text>
					>true>
				>
			>
		>

Assignment to the task

There are 2 attributes that describe person/group that is responsible for the task. Both of them are set when task is being created and indicate, for each users it should be displayed. activiti:assignee identifies single user that is assigned to the task. activiti:candidateGroups identifies groups of users that claim the task.

Sample definitions of user/group assignment are presented below.

  id="assignEstimateTask" name="Assign Estimate Task" activiti:candidateGroups="${wf_managementGroup}" activiti:formKey="wf:assignEstimateTask">

  id="estimateTask" name="Estimate Task" activiti:assignee="${bpm_assignee.properties.userName}" activiti:formKey="wf:estimateTask">

Decision in the workflow

In the workflow presented it is possible to make decision in ‘Review Estimate’ task whether estimate should be accepted or rejected. It is important to know that when sequenceFlow tags from workflow model (estimate.bpmn20.xml) are evaluated first matching one is executed. There are 2 flows (flow6 and flow8) from ‘Review Estimate’ task that either point to ‘Estimate Task’ or to ‘Estimate Approved’ task. To follow appropriate route there should be condition set on the first of them. In that way when condition is true first sequence will fire. If not, the second one will be executed. That condition can depend on some script execution variable, e.g., wf_reviewOutcome that was set in task execution listener on complete event. The code below presents part of workflow model which sets and uses variable responsible for workflow path choice.

     id="reviewEstimate" name="Review Estimate" activiti:assignee="${wf_manager.properties.userName}" activiti:formKey="wf:reviewEstimate">
      >
         event="complete" class="org.alfresco.repo.workflow.activiti.tasklistener.ScriptTaskListener">
           name="script">
            >execution.setVariable('wf_reviewOutcome', task.getVariable('wf_reviewOutcome'));
          >
        >
      >
    >

     id="flow6" name="" sourceRef="reviewDecision" targetRef="estimateApproved">
       xsi:type="tFormalExpression">
				== 'Approve'}]]>>
    >
     id="flow8" name="" sourceRef="reviewDecision" targetRef="estimateTask">>

After all the introduction let’s go through all the steps necessary to define the workflow.

Step 1 Define workflow model and customize it

Define workflow model in Activiti BPMN 2.0 designer and save it as alfresco/WebContent/WEB-INF/classes/alfresco/workflow/estimate.bpmn20.xml or as WEB-INF/classes/alfresco/workflow/estimate.bpmn20.xml in your Alfresco deployment directory on Tomcat server. Update the model to set necessary variables and point to appropriate types. Full listing of the file estimate.bpmn20.xmlused in this example is presented below.

 version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
 xmlns="http://www.omg.org/spec/BPMN/20100524/MODEL" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:activiti="http://activiti.org/bpmn" xmlns:bpmndi="http://www.omg.org/spec/BPMN/20100524/DI" xmlns:omgdc="http://www.omg.org/spec/DD/20100524/DC" xmlns:omgdi="http://www.omg.org/spec/DD/20100524/DI" typeLanguage="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" expressionLanguage="http://www.w3.org/1999/XPath" targetNamespace="http://www.activiti.org/test">
   id="estimate" name="estimate">
    >
       event="start" class="org.alfresco.repo.workflow.activiti.listener.ScriptExecutionListener">
         name="script">
          >execution.setVariable('wf_managementGroup', groups.getGroup('Management').getFullName());>
        >
      >
    >
     id="start" name="Start" activiti:formKey="wf:estimate">>
     id="assignEstimateTask" name="Assign Estimate Task" activiti:candidateGroups="${wf_managementGroup}" activiti:formKey="wf:assignEstimateTask">
      >
         event="create" class="org.alfresco.repo.workflow.activiti.tasklistener.ScriptTaskListener">
           name="script">
            >if (typeof bpm_workflowDueDate != 'undefined') task.dueDate = bpm_workflowDueDate;
if (typeof bpm_workflowPriority != 'undefined') task.priority = bpm_workflowPriority;
if (typeof bpm_comment != 'undefined') task.setVariable('bpm_comment', bpm_comment);
>
          >
        >
         event="complete" class="org.alfresco.repo.workflow.activiti.tasklistener.ScriptTaskListener">
           name="script">
            >execution.setVariable('bpm_assignee', task.getVariable('bpm_assignee'));
execution.setVariable('bpm_comment', task.getVariable('bpm_comment'));
execution.setVariable('wf_manager', person);
execution.setVariable('bpm_dueDate', task.dueDate);
execution.setVariable('bpm_priority', task.priority);>
          >
        >
      >
    >
     id="estimateTask" name="Estimate Task" activiti:assignee="${bpm_assignee.properties.userName}" activiti:formKey="wf:estimateTask">
      >
         event="create" class="org.alfresco.repo.workflow.activiti.tasklistener.ScriptTaskListener">
           name="script">
            >if (typeof bpm_workflowDueDate != 'undefined') task.dueDate = bpm_dueDate;
if (typeof bpm_workflowPriority != 'undefined') task.priority = bpm_priority;
if (typeof bpm_comment != 'undefined') task.setVariable('bpm_comment', bpm_comment);>
          >
        >
         event="complete" class="org.alfresco.repo.workflow.activiti.tasklistener.ScriptTaskListener">
           name="script">
            >execution.setVariable('bpm_comment', task.getVariable('bpm_comment'));>
          >
        >
      >
    >
     id="reviewEstimate" name="Review Estimate" activiti:assignee="${wf_manager.properties.userName}" activiti:formKey="wf:reviewEstimate">
      >
         event="create" class="org.alfresco.repo.workflow.activiti.tasklistener.ScriptTaskListener">
           name="script">
            >if (typeof bpm_workflowDueDate != 'undefined') task.dueDate = bpm_workflowDueDate;
if (typeof bpm_workflowPriority != 'undefined') task.priority = bpm_workflowPriority;
if (typeof bpm_comment != 'undefined') task.setVariable('bpm_comment', bpm_comment);>
          >
        >
         event="complete" class="org.alfresco.repo.workflow.activiti.tasklistener.ScriptTaskListener">
           name="script">
            >execution.setVariable('wf_reviewOutcome', task.getVariable('wf_reviewOutcome'));
execution.setVariable('bpm_comment', task.getVariable('bpm_comment'));>
          >
        >
      >
    >
     id="reviewDecision" name="Review Decision">>
     id="estimateApproved" name="Estimate Approved" activiti:assignee="${initiator.exists() ? initiator.properties.userName : 'admin'}" activiti:formKey="wf:estimateApproved">
      >
         event="create" class="org.alfresco.repo.workflow.activiti.tasklistener.ScriptTaskListener">
           name="script">
            >if (typeof bpm_workflowDueDate != 'undefined') task.dueDate = bpm_workflowDueDate;
if (typeof bpm_workflowPriority != 'undefined') task.priority = bpm_workflowPriority;
if (typeof bpm_comment != 'undefined') task.setVariable('bpm_comment', bpm_comment);>
          >
        >
      >
    >
     id="end" name="End">>
     id="flow1" name="" sourceRef="start" targetRef="assignEstimateTask">>
     id="flow3" name="" sourceRef="assignEstimateTask" targetRef="estimateTask">>
     id="flow4" name="" sourceRef="estimateTask" targetRef="reviewEstimate">>
     id="flow5" name="" sourceRef="reviewEstimate" targetRef="reviewDecision">>
     id="flow6" name="" sourceRef="reviewDecision" targetRef="estimateApproved">
       xsi:type="tFormalExpression">
				== 'Approve'}]]>>
    >
     id="flow7" name="" sourceRef="estimateApproved" targetRef="end">>
     id="flow8" name="" sourceRef="reviewDecision" targetRef="estimateTask">>
  >
   id="BPMNDiagram_estimate">
     bpmnElement="estimate" id="BPMNPlane_estimate">
       bpmnElement="start" id="BPMNShape_start">
         height="35" width="35" x="30" y="200">>
      >
       bpmnElement="assignEstimateTask" id="BPMNShape_assignEstimateTask">
         height="55" width="105" x="105" y="190">>
      >
       bpmnElement="estimateTask" id="BPMNShape_estimateTask">
         height="55" width="105" x="250" y="190">>
      >
       bpmnElement="reviewEstimate" id="BPMNShape_reviewEstimate">
         height="55" width="105" x="395" y="190">>
      >
       bpmnElement="reviewDecision" id="BPMNShape_reviewDecision">
         height="40" width="40" x="540" y="197">>
      >
       bpmnElement="estimateApproved" id="BPMNShape_estimateApproved">
         height="55" width="105" x="620" y="137">>
      >
       bpmnElement="end" id="BPMNShape_end">
         height="35" width="35" x="765" y="147">>
      >
       bpmnElement="flow1" id="BPMNEdge_flow1">
         x="65" y="217">>
         x="105" y="217">>
      >
       bpmnElement="flow3" id="BPMNEdge_flow3">
         x="210" y="217">>
         x="250" y="217">>
      >
       bpmnElement="flow4" id="BPMNEdge_flow4">
         x="355" y="217">>
         x="395" y="217">>
      >
       bpmnElement="flow5" id="BPMNEdge_flow5">
         x="500" y="217">>
         x="540" y="217">>
      >
       bpmnElement="flow6" id="BPMNEdge_flow6">
         x="560" y="197">>
         x="560" y="164">>
         x="620" y="164">>
      >
       bpmnElement="flow7" id="BPMNEdge_flow7">
         x="725" y="164">>
         x="765" y="164">>
      >
       bpmnElement="flow8" id="BPMNEdge_flow8">
         x="560" y="237">>
         x="447" y="327">>
         x="302" y="245">>
      >
    >
  >
>

Step 2 Define types

Next step is to define types used in the model in activiti:formKey attribute. The types can:

inherit properties from other types (parent tag)
override inherited properties (overrides tag)
define new properties (properties tag)
add aspects to the types (mandatory-aspects tag)

To note, the task properties have to be set at the beginning of each task, because new task object is created each time new task starts. Therefore the following line is present in example above if (typeof bpm_workflowDueDate != 'undefined') task.dueDate = bpm_workflowDueDate;. Aspect objects once created are not destroyed until the end of script execution. This is good way to keep some variables that once set are applicable to all the tasks like in our case ‘link to the document’. The properties from aspects can be used in the form configuration. Definition of all the types used in the example is presented below. They were saved in the following location: /alfresco/WebContent/WEB-INF/classes/alfresco/workflow/workflowModel-custom.xml

 version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
 
 name="wf:workflowmodel" xmlns="http://www.alfresco.org/model/dictionary/1.0">
 
	>
		
		 uri="http://www.alfresco.org/model/dictionary/1.0"
			prefix="d" />
		
		 uri="http://www.alfresco.org/model/system/1.0" prefix="sys" />
		
		 uri="http://www.alfresco.org/model/content/1.0" prefix="cm" />
		
		 uri="http://www.alfresco.org/model/user/1.0" prefix="usr" />
		 uri="http://www.alfresco.org/model/bpm/1.0" prefix="bpm" />
	>
 
	>
		 uri="http://www.alfresco.org/model/workflow/1.0"
			prefix="wf" />
	>
 
	>
 
		 name="wf:estimate">
			>bpm:startTask>
 
			>
				>wf:workInfo>
			>
 
		>
 
		 name="wf:assignEstimateTask">
			>bpm:workflowTask>
 
			>
 
				 name="bpm:packageActionGroup">
					>add_package_item_actions>
				>
 
			>
 
			>
				>bpm:assignee>
				>wf:workInfo>
			>
		>
 
		 name="wf:estimateTask">
			>bpm:workflowTask>
 
			>
 
				 name="bpm:packageActionGroup">
					>add_package_item_actions>
				>
 
				 name="bpm:packageItemActionGroup">
					>edit_package_item_actions>
				>
 
			>
 
			>
				>bpm:assignee>
				>wf:workInfo>
			>
		>
 
 
		 name="wf:reviewEstimate">
			>bpm:activitiOutcomeTask>
			>
				 name="wf:reviewOutcome">
					>d:text>
					>Reject>
					>
						 name="wf:reviewOutcomeOptions" type="LIST">
							 name="allowedValues">
								>
									>Approve>
									>Reject>
								>
							>
						>
					>
				>
			>
			>
				 name="bpm:packageItemActionGroup">
					>edit_package_item_actions>
				>
				 name="bpm:outcomePropertyName">
					>{http://www.alfresco.org/model/workflow/1.0}reviewOutcome
					>
				>
			>
			>
				>bpm:assignee>
				>wf:workInfo>
			>
		>
 
 
		 name="wf:estimateApproved">
			>bpm:workflowTask>
 
			>
				>bpm:assignee>
				>wf:workInfo>
			>
		>
 
	>
 
	>
 
		 name="wf:workInfo">
			>
				 name="wf:workDescription">
					>d:text>
					>true>
				>
			>
		>
 
	>
 
>

Step 3 Define workflow forms

For each task in the workflow it is possible to configure page to be shown. Is is done using config tag and evaluator and condition attributes. Part of /share/WebContent/WEB-INF/classes/alfresco/share-workflow-form-config.xml used in Alfresco share and responsible for rendering appropriate workflow forms is presented below. Please note, that first step of the flow does not have type defined therefore instead of task-type eveluator string-compare eveluator should be used evaluator="string-compare" condition="activiti$estimate", where ‘estimate’ is process id (id="estimate" name="estimate") defined in estimate.bpmn20.xml file. For all the other steps evaluator="task-type" is used and condition corresponds to type defined for particular step.

	 evaluator="string-compare" condition="activiti$estimate">
		>
			>
				>
					 id="bpm:workflowDescription" />
					 id="bpm:workflowDueDate" />
					 id="bpm:workflowPriority" />
					 id="wf:workDescription" />
					 id="packageItems" />
					 id="bpm:comment" />
					 id="bpm:sendEMailNotifications" />
				>
				>
					 id="" appearance="title" label-id="workflow.set.general" />
					 id="info" appearance=""
						template="/org/alfresco/components/form/2-column-set.ftl" />
					 id="items" appearance="title" label-id="workflow.set.items" />
					 id="work" appearance="title" label-id="workflow.set.work" />
					 id="other" appearance="title" label-id="workflow.set.other" />
					 id="response" appearance="title" label-id="workflow.set.response" />
 
					 id="bpm:workflowDescription" label-id="workflow.field.message">
						 template="/org/alfresco/components/form/controls/textarea.ftl">
							 name="style">width: 95%>
						>
					>
 
					 id="bpm:workflowDueDate" label-id="workflow.field.due"
						set="info" />
					 id="bpm:workflowPriority" label-id="workflow.field.priority"
						set="info">
						
							template="/org/alfresco/components/form/controls/workflow/priority.ftl" />
					>
 
 
					 id="packageItems" set="items" />
					 id="wf:workDescription" set="work" />
 
					 id="bpm:sendEMailNotifications" set="other">
						
							template="/org/alfresco/components/form/controls/workflow/email-notification.ftl" />
					>
 
					 id="bpm:comment" label-id="workflow.field.comment"
						set="response">
						 template="/org/alfresco/components/form/controls/textarea.ftl" />
					>
				>
			>
		>
	>
 
 
	 evaluator="task-type" condition="wf:assignEstimateTask">
		>
			>
				>
					 id="message" />
					 id="bpm:dueDate" />
					 id="bpm:priority" />
					 id="wf:workDescription" />
					 id="packageItems" />
					 id="bpm:assignee" />
					 id="bpm:comment" />
					 id="transitions" />
				>
				>
					 id="" appearance="title" label-id="workflow.set.general" />
					 id="info" appearance=""
						template="/org/alfresco/components/form/2-column-set.ftl" />
					 id="items" appearance="title" label-id="workflow.set.items" />
					 id="assignee" appearance="title" label-id="workflow.set.assignee" />
					 id="work" appearance="title" label-id="workflow.set.work" />
					 id="other" appearance="title" label-id="workflow.set.other" />
					 id="response" appearance="title" label-id="workflow.set.response" />
 
 
					 id="message" label-id="workflow.field.message">
						 template="/org/alfresco/components/form/controls/info.ftl" />
					>
 
					 id="bpm:dueDate" label-id="workflow.field.due" set="info" />
					 id="bpm:priority" label-id="workflow.field.priority"
						set="info">
						
							template="/org/alfresco/components/form/controls/workflow/priority.ftl" />
					>
 
					 id="packageItems" set="items" />
 
					 id="wf:workDescription" set="work">
						 template="/org/alfresco/components/form/controls/info.ftl" />
					>
 
					 id="bpm:assignee" label-id="workflow.field.assign_to"
						set="assignee" />
 
					 id="bpm:comment" label-id="workflow.field.comment"
						set="response">
						 template="/org/alfresco/components/form/controls/textarea.ftl" />
					>
					 id="transitions" set="response" />
 
				>
			>
		>
	>
 
	 evaluator="task-type" condition="wf:estimateTask">
		>
			>
				>
					 id="message" />
					 id="bpm:dueDate" />
					 id="bpm:priority" />
					 id="wf:workDescription" />
					 id="packageItems" />
					 id="bpm:comment" />
					 id="transitions" />
				>
				>
					 id="" appearance="title" label-id="workflow.set.general" />
					 id="info" appearance=""
						template="/org/alfresco/components/form/2-column-set.ftl" />
					 id="items" appearance="title" label-id="workflow.set.items" />
					 id="work" appearance="title" label-id="workflow.set.work" />
					 id="other" appearance="title" label-id="workflow.set.other" />
					 id="response" appearance="title" label-id="workflow.set.response" />
 
 
					 id="message" label-id="workflow.field.message">
						 template="/org/alfresco/components/form/controls/info.ftl" />
					>
 
					 id="bpm:priority" label-id="workflow.field.priority"
						set="info" read-only="true">
						
							template="/org/alfresco/components/form/controls/workflow/priority.ftl" />
					>
					 id="bpm:dueDate" set="info" label-id="workflow.field.due">
						 template="/org/alfresco/components/form/controls/info.ftl" />
					>
 
					 id="packageItems" set="items" />
 
					 id="wf:workDescription" set="work">
						 template="/org/alfresco/components/form/controls/info.ftl" />
					>
 
					 id="bpm:comment" label-id="workflow.field.comment"
						set="response">
						 template="/org/alfresco/components/form/controls/textarea.ftl" />
					>
 
					 id="transitions" set="response" />
				>
			>
		>
	>
 
 
	 evaluator="task-type" condition="wf:reviewEstimate">
		>
			>
				>
					 id="message" />
					 id="bpm:dueDate" />
					 id="bpm:priority" />
					 id="wf:workDescription" />
					 id="packageItems" />
					 id="bpm:comment" />
					 id="wf:reviewOutcome" />
					 id="transitions" />
				>
				>
					 id="" appearance="title" label-id="workflow.set.general" />
					 id="info" appearance=""
						template="/org/alfresco/components/form/2-column-set.ftl" />
					 id="items" appearance="title" label-id="workflow.set.items" />
					 id="work" appearance="title" label-id="workflow.set.work" />
					 id="other" appearance="title" label-id="workflow.set.other" />
					 id="response" appearance="title" label-id="workflow.set.response" />
 
 
					 id="message" label-id="workflow.field.message">
						 template="/org/alfresco/components/form/controls/info.ftl" />
					>
 
					 id="bpm:priority" label-id="workflow.field.priority"
						set="info" read-only="true">
						
							template="/org/alfresco/components/form/controls/workflow/priority.ftl" />
					>
					 id="bpm:dueDate" set="info" label-id="workflow.field.due">
						 template="/org/alfresco/components/form/controls/info.ftl" />
					>
 
					 id="packageItems" set="items" />
 
					 id="wf:workDescription" set="work">
						 template="/org/alfresco/components/form/controls/info.ftl" />
					>
 
					 id="bpm:comment" label-id="workflow.field.comment"
						set="response">
						 template="/org/alfresco/components/form/controls/textarea.ftl" />
					>
 
					 id="wf:reviewOutcome" set="response" />
					 id="transitions" set="response" />
 
				>
			>
		>
	>
 
 
 
	 evaluator="task-type" condition="wf:estimateApproved">
		>
			>
				>
					 id="message" />
					 id="bpm:dueDate" />
					 id="bpm:priority" />
					 id="wf:workDescription" />
					 id="packageItems" />
					 id="bpm:comment" />
					 id="transitions" />
				>
				>
					 id="" appearance="title" label-id="workflow.set.general" />
					 id="info" appearance=""
						template="/org/alfresco/components/form/2-column-set.ftl" />
					 id="items" appearance="title" label-id="workflow.set.items" />
					 id="work" appearance="title" label-id="workflow.set.work" />
					 id="other" appearance="title" label-id="workflow.set.other" />
					 id="response" appearance="title" label-id="workflow.set.response" />
 
 
					 id="message" label-id="workflow.field.message">
						 template="/org/alfresco/components/form/controls/info.ftl" />
					>
 
					 id="bpm:priority" label-id="workflow.field.priority"
						set="info" read-only="true">
						
							template="/org/alfresco/components/form/controls/workflow/priority.ftl" />
					>
					 id="bpm:dueDate" set="info" label-id="workflow.field.due">
						 template="/org/alfresco/components/form/controls/info.ftl" />
					>
 
					 id="packageItems" set="items" />
 
					 id="wf:workDescription" set="work">
						 template="/org/alfresco/components/form/controls/info.ftl" />
					>
 
					 id="bpm:comment" label-id="workflow.field.comment"
						set="response">
						 template="/org/alfresco/components/form/controls/info.ftl" />
					>
 
					 id="transitions" set="response" />
 
				>
			>
		>
	>

Step 4 Translate messages

All the translations are defined in /alfresco/WebContent/WEB-INF/classes/alfresco/workflow/workflow-messages_xx.properties

Step 5 Add new configuration files to Alfresco bootstrap sequence

Bootstrap configuration is defined in /alfresco/WebContent/WEB-INF/classes/alfresco/bootstrap-context.xml file. Please add path to workflow model file (alfresco/workflow/estimate.bpmn20.xml), path to model file with new types (alfresco/workflow/workflowModel-custom.xml ), and labels with translation if used instead of workflow-messages file.

     id="workflowBootstrap" parent="workflowDeployer">
         name="workflowDefinitions">
            >
                ...
 
                
                >
                     key="engineId">activiti>
                     key="location">alfresco/workflow/estimate.bpmn20.xml>
                     key="mimetype">text/xml>
                     key="redeploy">false>
                >
 
            >
        >
         name="models">
            >
               ...
               >alfresco/workflow/workflowModel-custom.xml>
            >
        >
         name="labels">
            >
               ...
               >alfresco/workflow/workflow-messages-custom>
            >
        >

Step 6 Start Alfresco and Alfresco Share

Step 7 Deploy type definition in Alfresco workflow console

Go to: http://localhost:8080/alfresco/faces/jsp/admin/workflow-console.jsp

To deploy estimate workflow definitions type:

deploy activiti alfresco/workflow/estimate.bpmn20.xml

If there was other version of estimate workflow definition it might be necessary to redeploy it. To do so you have to remove all the workflows that use it and then remove estimate workflow definition. This will ensure that there are no estimate workflow definition versions present in the system. Deploy estimate workflow definitions type.

delete all workflows imeanit
undeploy definition name activiti$estimate
deploy activiti alfresco/workflow/estimate.bpmn20.xml

This console might be handy for some workflow debugging.

Step 8 Enjoy the workflow

Change the location of zim notebooks

Tomasz Muras — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 13:42:41 +0000

Zim is a desktop wiki I highly recommend. Recently I’ve switched to another desktop and after copying my whole home directory, zim default notebooks did not open anymore. This was because I’ve changed my username, which has caused a change in the location of my zim notebooks. This can be easily fixed in the zim configuration file, you will find it at this location:

~/.config/zim/notebooks.list

Simply change the paths in this config file, the format is very straightforward (hint: vim command to substitute oldusername with newusername in the whole file would be: :%s/oldusername/newusername).

[NotebookList]
Default=file:///home/zabuch/zim/notebook1
file:///home/zabuch/zim/notebook1
file:///home/zabuch/zim/notebook2
file:///home/zabuch/zim/notebook3

[Notebook]
uri=file:///home/zabuch/zim/notebook1
name=Notebook1
icon=None

[Notebook]
uri=file:///home/zabuch/zim/notebook2
name=Notebook2
icon=None

[Notebook]
uri=file:///home/zabuch/zim/notebook3
name=Notebook3
icon=None

Install soapUI on Ubuntu 11.10

Joanna Muras — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 09:35:32 +0000

Introduction

This post describes how to install soapUI on Ubuntu 11.10 and solve potential issues with installation.

Installation

Download linux version (soapui-4.0.1-linux-bin.zip file) of soapUI 4.0.1
Unpack it to desired location
Add execute permission to bin/soapui.sh file: chmod +x bin/soapui.sh
Run soapUI ./soapui.sh

Troubleshooting

If you get following exception after running and your application closes:

#
# A fatal error has been detected by the Java Runtime Environment:
#
#  SIGSEGV (0xb) at pc=0x00007f6490c0a5f1, pid=28611, tid=140070162761472
#
# JRE version: 6.0_29-b11
# Java VM: Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (20.4-b02 mixed mode linux-amd64 compressed oops)
# Problematic frame:
# C  [libgconf-2.so.4+0x175f1]  __float128+0xc01
#
# If you would like to submit a bug report, please visit:
#   http://java.sun.com/webapps/bugreport/crash.jsp
# The crash happened outside the Java Virtual Machine in native code.
# See problematic frame for where to report the bug.
#

add -Dsoapui.jxbrowser.disable=true flag when executing soapUI.

In order to do so edit soapui.sh file and add the following line:

JAVA_OPTS="$JAVA_OPTS -Dsoapui.jxbrowser.disable=true"

Enjoy soapUI running.

Alfresco development environment with Tomcat and Eclipse

Joanna Muras — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 17:08:44 +0000

I am currently available for hire. See more about me .

Introduction

This post describes how to set up environment to be able to code and debug Alfresco on Tomcat in Eclipse.

To start with make sure you have downloaded and installed the following:

Eclipse Indigo – download it here
Tomcat 7.0 – download it here
Sysdeo Eclipse Tomcat Launcher plugin – download it here
Oracle Java JDK 1.6 – download it here
Alfresco source code from svn.alfresco.com – follow the instructions here
Subversive Ecplipse plugin
Ant 1.7

Also make sure that you have appropriate environment variables set up:

JAVA_HOME
JAVA_JDK
CATALINA_HOME
CATALINA_BASE
TOMCAT_HOME
APP_TOMCAT_HOME
ANT_HOME
JBOSS_HOME

Make sure that you allocate enough memory otherwise it will not run or you get various errors like ‘OutOfMemory: PermGen’. The setup certainly works with the following parameters.

JAVA_OPTS="-XX:MaxPermSize=1024m -Xms512m -Xmx4096m"

Import projects into Ecplise

In order to add alfresco projects into Eclipse import ‘root/projects’ directory that you checked out from svn.alfresco.com. In Eclipse select: File -> Import -> Existing Projects into Workspace

You should be able to see the window presented below. Select all the projects. You do not have to copy them into the work space.

If you are successful you should be able to see the projects in your package explorer as pictured below.

Now you should be able to track the changes that you do in your code using Subversive Ecplipse plugin which is very handy.

Do Alfresco build

Go to ‘root/projects’ directory and run:

ant build

When you are successful you should be able to locate alfresco.war (alfresco repository) and share.war (Slingshot web interface) files in the following locations:

root/projects/web-client/build/dist/alfresco.war
root/projects/slingshot/build/dist/share.war

Create web projects in Eclipse

To deploy alfresco.war and share.war files separate web projects should be created. I am going to describe only share.war installation. alfresco.war installation should be done analogically.

Select:

File -> New -> Dynamic Web Project

Enter war name as project name (in our case ‘share’). The project will be deployed under project name URL. If necessary it can be changed in ‘Properties’ of the project – Web Project Settings – Content root. Select Tomcat 7 ‘Target runtime’ or choose ‘New runtime…’ if you do not have Tomcat 7 added in your server list. This will enable the addition of Tomcat 7 runtime environment.

This should create Dynamic Web Project with the following structure.

Unpack your share.war file and copy its content to WebContent folder of ‘share’ project. Refresh project in Eclipse. All Alfresco jar files you will find in the following path:

WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/alfresco-*.jar

Instead of having static alfresco jar files we can generate them automatically from our projects in Eclipse. In that way when we change some code we can check the outcome in convenient way by automatic deployment of new jar files. Let’s say that we want to change some code in ‘Core’ project, which corresponds to ‘alfresco-core-x.jar’. In order to do so we remove alfresco-core-x.jar from WebContent/WEB-INF/lib, so old version will not be used. Following that we edit Properties of the project and change:

‘Project references’ to include Core project:

‘Deployment assembly’ to include source code from ‘Core’ project. Click ‘Add…’, select Project and ‘Core’ project. Node that Core.jar will be created and this jar will be added to your deployment.

‘Java build path’ to include source code from ‘Core’ project. Click ‘Add…’ and select ‘Core’ project. It might also be necessary to change order of exported libraries in some projects, e.g., Repository project, in case of compilation errors. Put system libraries first.

Run project on Tomcat

Once the project (share) is set up not we can add it to Tomcat server and run it. In order to do so go to ‘Servers’ view (Window -> Show view -> Servers). Right mouse click on Tomcat 7 server and select ‘Add and Remove…’. Add share project to be run on Tomcat. Publish data and start server.

If everything is successful you should be able to access your application via web browser: localhost:8080/share.

If you want to see all the files that were actually deployed you can find them in the following path: ‘workspace/.metadata/.plugins/org.eclipse.wst.server.core/tmp0/wtpwebapps/share’

You can change Tomcat configuration, e.g., increase memory by double clicking on appropriate server in ‘Servers’ view. Select ‘Open launch configuration’.

If there is no Tomcat 7 server you can add it by right mouse click and selecting ‘New -> Server’.