bp_formatting

BP graph auto formatting

If you are a SI BP developer, you may have figured out that the Graphical Process Modeler that is shipped with Sterling Integrator is not so great to manipulate the nodes of your BP graph.

If you have to insert some nodes in the middle of the BP, you will just have to move all the nodes that follow ... That is not so easy because the mouse node selecting is buggy and you have often to start over and over.

In addition is not so easy to really to align all the node to make a 'clean' graph.

That is why, because developers do not want to loose time (and maybe because they are lazy !), the BP graph is not 'pretty formatted' after a modification, producing some horrors like this one :

So, just run BPUtils against your BP file using the 'f' option :

run.bat foo.bp f

Reload your BP in the GPM and enjoy the result :

Each node is perfectly aligned and is separated by a space gap that is set in BPUtils program.
The vertical node position is increased each time a Choice node is encountered and decreased when a Choice End node is. The goal is to create an indentation to visualize clearly how the BP is structred.

IMPORTANT : The BP auto formatting feature is not handling the BP graphs that include "multiple choice activities". It will work, be the result will not be perfect.