Bulk Morph

[falko]

After creating a model with dozens of tasks, I would like to select many tasks and morph all of them into Service Tasks or User Tasks in a bulk operation.

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Depends on https://github.com/bpmn-io/bpmn-js/issues/2046

[nikku]

Sounds like a legitimate power user feature.

Any idea how that could look like from the users perspective?

[falko]

Simply show the context pad on the last selected task and show all options that make sense for all the selected nodes.

[nikku]

I guess a better way would be to provide a context pad that applies to a selection of elements (https://github.com/bpmn-io/diagram-js/issues/278).

[falko]

I still encounter this situation frequently and it looks really boring to watch during live modeling sessions with prospects/customers. My only real workaround is either doing it on the side, while other topics are being discussed in the workshop, or take it offline as a homework to do after work. But that doesn't help if the goal is to demonstrate live how a model is made executable. Bulk property editing is equally in high demand, e.g. for setting the same job type on all service tasks in a model.

[nikku]

@falko In both cases (bulk replace / bulk property edit) we have to solve the problem of incompatibility:

• start event and task selected, trying to set job type
• sequence flow and task selected, where to shall we replace?

Do you have any expectations as a user how that could / should be handled?

[falko]

Let's start simple: As user, I must select elements of the same type, otherwise the bulk operation doesn't show up. Next level for properties, could be to only show/allow to edit the properties that the selected element have in common. Similarly, the morph could only show morph targets that would work for all selected elements.

There is no need to solve it for all possible combinations of selected elements as the problematic ones are unlikely in practice.

[nikku]

Similarly, the morph could only show morph targets that would work for all selected elements.

You'd only show properties that currently have the same value (i.e. different names => not shown, same job type => shown)?

[falko]

For level 2 Bulk Morph, I'd expect that I can select a User Task and a Service Task and morph them both into a Decision Task. Level 3 might be selecting a Message Start Event and a Message Intermediate Event and morph them both into Signal Events, i.e. changing their Message trigger into a Signal trigger.

Let's continue discussing Bulk Property change in #893