Intercepting Boundary Events in Coach View

Boundary Event is core concept of UI technology in IBM BPM: any visual element (coach view) of screen (coach) can fire such event moving control from current screen to some other place, crossing “screen boundary“. In fact Boundary Event is the only way to make such transition on diagram of coaches. Problem is that IBM BPM event model is trivial and does not allow virtually any interference with event in progress, one cannot change event bubbling or handle it in try-catch manner. Find how I bypassed this limitation and implemented events interceptor.

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Custom container with SPARK UI toolkit

Salientprocess acquisition by IBM will make SPARK toolkit core part of IBM BPM in future release. SPARK introduces some nice new concepts, one of it is addressing that keeps SPARK containers invisible. Its public API promises to make your own coach view a container and I needed it on my code. So I tried and it did not work. Few hours of experiments with debugging SPARK code led me to workaround and defect report. Continue reading

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WebPD JS editor hack

IBM BPM Process Designer started migration from desktop to pure web client long time ago. While lightweight tools are enablers for everything in cloud game, it is shame how productivity is ignored. For several releases IBM has not corrected even such fundamental feature like fixed-width font to give visual aid on indentation. Fortunately this was easy to fix once and for good. Continue reading

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Connecting Hermes JMS to WAS 8.5.x over SSL

Hermes JMS client documentation lacks of how to connect to Websphere Application Server (WAS) messaging. Most googled receipts with Websphere keyword refer to MQ. While it is possible to expose WAS internal service integration bus (SIB) as MQ link, I failed on that part as WAS was throwing at me 2035 error no matter what I tried. I stepped back to use CORBA for native dialog with SIB bus. Continue reading

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e-snowflake revisited

Four years ago I made microcontrolled snowflake decor using home made PCB based on toner-transfer process. I got back to this idea late in 2015 to make short batch for family and friends. Second version was about fixing design issues and adding extra features: rechargable battery, USB interface and automatic brightness regulation. Nice looking factory-made PCBs were ready in November 2015. Continue reading

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3D printed rain gauge

Water level monitoring on river basin under observation was completed mid 2015. From rainfall-rainoff modelling perspective rainfall capturing was missing. Low budget, 3d printer at home and some spare time pushed me to design my own rain gauge. Before autumn rains all required stations received tipping bucket pluviometers upgrade. Continue reading

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Outdoor device? Bundle up your PCB.

coat-wet-simWinter is coming… actually it has already come bringing constructor’s nightmare. Sudden freezing cold caused unexpected and massive restarts of all field stations. All because of the same hardware reason. Reason impossible to happen. All that because circuit boards were not suited up for real harsh outdoor conditions. Continue reading

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Bitten by dead FTDI chips

Counterfeit chips have always been on the market. Most of the time stories were told about fake high-end components like computer GPUs. I did not worry and over last couple years I bought hundreds genuine chips from China. They were always low-cost components and always worked as in specs. Until now.  Continue reading

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Toner transferred PCBs

Thanks to Chinese providers printed circuit board fabrication has never been so cheap. With PCB comparison tool it is also darn easy to choose from. Sometimes though old’ye home made PCB is what you are looking for. So I made a photostory from my one-hour creation process for newbies. Continue reading

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Kicad upgrade: push & shove and freerouting revisited

Kicad PCB toolset changed a lot over last two years. Great contribution from CERN is merged with stable release on one hand, new library format and projects migration necessity on the other. Meantime Freerouter cooperative tool disappeared and my reluctance to move was justified. Until recently when I gave migration a try. Continue reading

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