User interface overview

ActiveVOS Designer is built on Eclipse, an open-source software platform for creating Rich Client Platform (RCP) applications and application development tools in the same integrated development environment (IDE).

The ActiveVOS business process modeling interface is composed of menus, toolbars, views, and editors, as well as the Palette. You can use the simulation model editor, Artifacts view, Properties view, and Outline view to edit the model. Available properties vary by object; the Properties view changes as you select different objects.

Changes to a diagram can be “reverted” using the Undo/Redo commands. In addition, the appearance of the interface is affected by Perspectives.

Objects are added to a diagram using the Palette (by default, it appears on the right side of the screen). You can drag and drop an object to place it on the diagram, or click on it and then click on the spot in the diagram where you would like to place the object.

You can right-click on any object to open a context menu for that object. The commands in the menu change; they are specific to each object. Anything that affects the visual diagram can be accessed through the associated context menu.

To define the default characteristics of new diagram objects, define the characteristics of an existing object (color, font, font size, shape, etc.), right-click on it to bring up the context menu, and select Set appearance default. After that, newly created objects of the same type will have the characteristics of the existing object.

Holding down the spacebar while moving the mouse allows you to move (reposition) the diagram.

See also:

Simulation model editor The BPD editor is a graphic editor in which you edit the process model using BPMN notation.

Outline view. The Outline view displays an outline of the process model that is currently active in the editor area. It lists modeling elements in either tree or graphic format. When viewing the tree format, you can also use the context menu to add child objects that are not visible in the process model editor. (For example, you can add a goal to the business process).

Properties view. The Properties view is used for displaying and editing the properties of the currently selected element.

Artifacts view. The Artifacts view is used for managing and browsing external artifacts such as Web Services artifacts (WSDL), XML schema, or BPEL process models.