Suggestion to simulate BPMN-diagrams with Activity Diagrams
Bert de Brock
E.O.de.Brock@rug.nl
BPMN-diagrams look a lot like Activity Diagrams.
With the Activity Diagrams which are possible in Plantuml, we can simulate BPMN-diagrams to a great extent.
Important differences are in the BPMN-gateways that contain special symbols,
e.g., the large Ë, the large Ò, ⨁ ⨂ ◄◄ ▤ ▲ etc.
But by using similar symbols from particular fonts (e.g., Times New Roman, Arial Black, Cambria Math),
we can simulate those gateways.
See the diagrams and corresponding Plantuml-code below.
In the first diagram, we have put all those symbols together, but you can adapt that, of course.
And of course you can play with the size (now 30).
Those special symbols in the ‘split-gateway’ do not appear in the corresponding ‘join-gateway’ (which should not lead to confusion, however).
If Plantuml would be extended with the option to add text (and such symbols) in ‘join-gateways’ as well
(e.g., by endif (<text>) and endswitch (<text>) ), we would be ready.
if (<size:30><b>+ x ⨁ ⨂ ▲ ▤ ◄◄</b></size>) then
:D1;
else
:D2;
endif
if (<size:30><b>x</b></size>) then (yes )
:D1;
else (C?\nno)
:D2;
endif
