How to make editor "extensions"?

[martin-grofcik]

I would like to extend the editor with custom service tasks. e.g. to call AI.
Can I create some kind of "plugin"? How?

Thank you in advance for answer,
Regards
Martin

[valb3r]

@martin-grofcik:
In general:
At this moment it is not possible. IMHO, It should be implemented as separate functionality that allows to define arbitrary element with custom XML mapping.

However, if one uses IntelliJ plugin dependencies (https://plugins.jetbrains.com/docs/intellij/plugin-dependencies.html) then it is possible to define abstract Java interface in core plugin and inject all elements there inside child plugin.
Core plugin APIs are abstract enough, what is needed is:
Defining this dynamic element class that can do:

1. Parsing it from XML
2. Making BpmnObjectFactory implementation that is aware of such element
3. Doing any necessary adaptations to CurrentState (though possibly not needed)
4. Storing it to XML
5. Optionally defining resource (icon) for the element

So something like:

class ElementExtension {
   fun parseFromXml(???? this one complicated, because Jackson is used and it is hard to define dynamically the element position in schema, so maybe some parsing listener needed to be defined or fallback to Xpath (easies))
   fun extendBpmnFactory(factory: BpmnObjectFactory // implies we add some extension point there that says what functional element it is, should be relatively simple)
   fun storeToXml(element: SomeElement // this should be easier to implement as this part is uses update - like semantics)
}

is minimal stuff required

[valb3r]

Key pain point is parseFromXml as current XML parser is not extensible and uses hardcoded schema, everything else should be relatively easy to implement. Though, if the extension element is based on 'extensionElement' section of BPMN XML - then it should be easy to implement as current parser reads it and then Mapstruct is used to produce actual element

[valb3r]

If you want to use 'static' extension, by depending on a plugin-core and implementing your own xml-parser and xml-sink then it is quite easy to achieve using https://plugins.jetbrains.com/docs/intellij/plugin-dependencies.html) and creating your own xml-parser and intellij-plugin modules