Layout Properties
These properties are related to the location and size of the activity. Using these properties, you can configure the layout of activities. These properties include:
Location
Location property allows you to configure the axes of the activities to define their position in the Graph area.
Size
Size property allows you to set the height and width of the activities.
These properties are auto-configured in XPDL Designer because we manage the layout of the workflow shapes graphically. But, these properties can also be configured manually as shown below:
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Figure: Layout properties of the activities
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Post Conditions Properties
There are two properties related to Post Conditions as follows:
- Split Type
- Target Transitions
These two Post Conditions properties are shown below in the figure:
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Figure: Post Conditions properties of the activities
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Split Type
Using Split Type, we can define the reverse join of the outgoing transitions in two modes as follows:
- AND, represents concurrent outgoing transitions
- XOR, represents alternatively executed transitions
Target Transitions
When we join activities together, we may also need to define transitions between activities. In XPDL Designer, transitions are based on the lines that connect activities with wach other.
When you join one activity with itself or the other one then Double Click on the activity (from which you started joining with the other activity). Under Post Conditions section of the Property Editor, you will see Target Transitions property as shown below:
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Figure: Target Transitions property after a transition is added
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Click on the small browse button in the adjacent cell of Target Transitions property. And a Target Transitions Dialog will be opened that will show you all properties of the transitions including its Id, Name, From, To, Description, Condition, Expression, Extended Attributes etc. as shown below:
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Figure: Target Transitions Dialog
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In the Target Transitions Dialog, you can see that it's General properties are already configured by XPDL Designer. If you click the Condition tab page of the dialog, you will see that there are four types of conditions as follows:
- Condition, specifies that the transition will be based on a conditional Expression
- Otherwise, specifies that the transition will be makred as otherwise
- Exception, specifies that the content of the Expression property would be the name of an exception
- Default Exception, specifies that if the specified exception is not found then default exception will be followed
We have created two types of transitions based on two different condition types as follows:
Setting Transition Based on Condition Type
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Figure: Transition where Type is set to Condition
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Setting Transition Based on Exception Type
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Figure: Transition where Type is set to Exception
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