Properties panel roadmap

Hello! I saw that it’s in project to release properties panel to version 1.0.0. I was very curious and I read a bit about the new example in bpmn-js-examples project. Can I ask when are you going to release it?
How much will change the code?

Hi @Ichigo85,

cool you already stumbled over our new properties panel project, although it’s far away from being “actively consumed”. :slightly_smiling_face:

It’s true that we are currently investigating a new properties panel library. In the past, we had lots of difficulties when creating new features with the existing bpmn-js-properties-panel library (and siblings for dmn, cmmn, …). We recently added a lot of stuff, e.g. for element templates. The way the properties panel was built makes it difficult to deliver more features than the original architecture was built for - a 1:1 connection to its data schema, the BPMN 2.0 XML. Some things were simply not possible (or at least it was very hard to implement it).

In the last quarters, we started to rewrite the properties panel from scratch. We already made a lot of improvements in terms of developer experience (how to provide properties / how to commit updates / how to provide the data for certain groups & properties / ) but also usability (more context what did I select / what properties are already configured / open sections in parallel / ).

We are still in the development face and are currently see how to consume the new properties panel internally. Still a lot of things to learn and improve.

So far there is nothing really that is ready to use. The existing bpmn-js-properties-panel is still the library to choose when working with bpmn-js.

When there is something ready to use, we will properly announce it and also give advice, how to consume it… and what cool is stuff is possible then :wink:

How much will change the code?

We have in mind to make the way how to consume the properties panel alongside bpmn-js- and how to provide extensions - as similar as possible with the existing way. There will be of course things that will need updates in existing extensions - but we will

a) make sure the migration need is as small as possible
b) provide examples how to do it

Stay tuned :+1:

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Because I’m curious, how did you learn about the initiative?

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Well, I keep in ‘watch’ a bunch of your github projects, and I read an issue in the project bpmn-js-examples which states it :slight_smile:

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Anyway, this is really interesting because I created a lot of camunda modeler plugins which incrementally extend the properties panel, tipically adding properties to the BPMN model but sometimes, as you said, doing something different (in my case, for example, I had to create an internal data structure without editing BPMN model).
I’ll try to keep track of this, it’s really interesting!
Thank you very much!

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To manage expectations here: The new properties panel is going to be a major rewrite. Any existing extensions won’t likely work, UI wise but need some sort of adjustment to work with the new properties panel.

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