One of the nice things about jBPM is that a graphical tool is available as an Eclipse plug-in for creating and deploying process definitions, called the jBPM Graphical Process Designer (GPD). The GPD is sometimes called the jBPM jPDL Designer, but that's a relatively recent change. So you'll still see GPD on the JBoss site and that's what this book will use.

There are people in the business of marketing workflow tools who love to say things such as "Using the graphical process designer, business analysts can create advanced workflows without writing any code!" Graphical process designers are definitely useful, but be realistic. Code has to be written. The GPD is most useful for quickly designing the process, setting node properties, and connecting nodes. Once that's done, you will switch over to the XML to finish out the definition.

The GPD also includes the ability to deploy a process directly to the jBPM engine running within Alfresco without leaving...