Activiti (i)--installation configuration detailed

There has been a period of time did not update the article, although there has been writing articles, but has not been updated to the blog, this period of time to write articles mostly still technology-based. The next series of articles will discuss the development of enterprise workflows, mainly to explore the use of open source workflow Activiti.

This article to learn more about the installation of the next Activiti 5.15 configuration of the whole process, in fact, the installation process is quite simple, because with Activiti version of the upgrade installation becomes a lot simpler, but its configuration method is not as simple as imagined, in the configuration need to pay attention to a lot of problems,         Here is a detailed understanding of the next Activiti 5.15 configuration of the entire process. Note: The article is the reader after practice summed up the installation method, may not apply to all computers, if there is a problem can be a message to discuss learning.


First, Activiti download and introduction

1.1, Activiti download
Website Download Address: http://activiti.org/download.html
Note: Download does not necessarily use the latest version, the latest version will lack of Chinese materials in use will be slightly cumbersome points, so the promotion of the download slightly stable point or from the latest version of the more recent version.

1.2, Activiti
Extracting the downloaded Activiti package will get the following documentation, the most important of which is libs and wars, as shown below:



1.2.1 Database

The folder contains all the database scripts for the Activiti sample, including the MSSQL, MySQL, and H2 databases, encapsulating the database table creation and data writing, database table modification and deletion scripts, full-featured.1.2.2 DocsActiviti's use Help document, which contains the Javadoc APIs, user manuals, XML scheme
1.2.3 LibsPlaced is the development of the pointer library, each jar file represents the development of a reference item, the specific use of each jar used to say, you can view the notice document in the directory.
1.2.4 WarsThis folder is quite important, There are two files Activiti-explorer.war and Activiti-rest.war in the folder that represent the browser framework for the process and the startup engine for the process, which need to be deployed to Tomcat's WebApps folder at development time, and these two files are automatically invoked when the process is started.
Activiti-explorer.war, browser framework, the framework contains the process node view, approval, flow and other basic operations, when the framework is opened to initialize the user as the following table:
Activiti-rest.war, the process engine, the process is really processing the process is implemented in the engine, it encapsulates the process of processing process.


second, the installation configuration detailed

Although Activiti's download is simple, its installation configuration is rather cumbersome because it has more dependencies. First, Activiti needs a servlet server as a container to provide the Activiti-explorer.war framework to run, so you need to configure a Java server where Apache-tomcat is used as the installation item, and then a Java-run environment is required. Ctiviti in the installation of the demo must be the operating environment, so need to install Java EE and configure the environment variable Java_home.
Note: Install J2SE before installing the first need to install, be sure to pay attention to the version of J2SE must be consistent with the version of Java, also need to note that the version of the environment and Tomcat version of the same, that is, download the installation of the number of digits must be consistent, If you are 32-bit, you will need to download and install the 32-bit version, or you may have an error installing Activiti.


2.1, Apache-tomcat installation
Tomcat's download Address: http://tomcat.apache.org/download-70.cgi
Advice: The 6.0 version of Tomcat is advocated here because of its high stability and good compatibility.

After the download completes, you need to configure the environment variables to set up the directory of the installed binary folder Binery, as follows:

2.1.1 Add Tomcat's system variable Catalina_homeUnzip the downloaded Tomcat and then create the system variable Catalina_home, which specifies the parent directory of Tomcat's Binery folder (Tomcat's directory), which is automatically found and started when Tomcat is run, as shown in the following figure:



2.1.2 Add System variables path pathAdd the directory where Tomcat Binery resides, you can use the method of system variables in path%catalina_home%\bin\ or you can use the complete installation path instead of the system variable to set the path of the variable installation.

Now that the Tomcat configuration is complete, the next step is to install the Java Runtime environment.
2.2. Java EE installation and configurationThe installation of Java EE will be simpler, the developers who have studied it know that it is necessary to install the first version of J2SE in the development, and then install Java EE, the two kinds of development applications have a big difference.
J2SE installation and configuration is consistent with the original installation configuration, after the installation of the corresponding Java_home variables and path paths can be installed after the completion of the verification function.


third, Activiti installation

3.1. Frame and engine installationAfter the above steps are configured, the Activiti-explorer.war and Activiti-rest.war in the Activiti Wars folder are then copied to the Tomcat WebApps folder, and then the active run Startup.bat files start Tomcat, and so on Pending installation complete. During this process, the system is instrumented and the H2 memory database is installed, and the corresponding demo model is installed.
After installation, open the URL http://localhost:8080/activiti-explorer, use the Kermit user login, see the following figure represents installation success:



3.2. Installing in Eclipse

The previous steps proved that the Activiti framework has been built, but you want to use the attempt designer to install the Activiti design plug-in in Eclipse, and the specific configuration installation method is as follows:

      3.2.1 Open Installation Interface         turn on Help-->install New Sof Tware, as shown below:

      3.2.2 Installation         Enter HTTP://AC at the input URL after opening the installation interface tiviti.org/designer/update/URL, then select the first option to install the appropriate designer plug-in.
        After the above steps, the Activiti installation and configuration process has been completed,

      will then be able to develop the corresponding process according to the API documentation, Here is a 5.15-translated version of the user manual: http://download.csdn.net/detail/zhang_xinxiu/7697351, you need to download it now.


Epilogue
        after a week's time, finally put the Activiti development environment completely configured, in fact, many things often difficult is the beginning, Because there is no clue, there is no right direction, so only a little bit of groping, but this process is quite exercise people, experienced will have a great promotion, in addition to the process of careful, record the steps, after the completion of the steps to think about their own experience, the final thinking summary, Ensure that the same problem can be resolved quickly.