AMLFPB.js

An AutomationML Editor plugin that embeds the FPB.js modeller for editing VDI 3682 Formalised Process Descriptions (FPD) directly in the editor — without switching tools and without losing custom AML attributes along the way.

This is research-quality software. APIs are not yet stable.

What it does

• Native FPD authoring inside the editor. Open any AML document that carries FPD content and edit it visually — process operators, states, flows, decomposition, the full VDI 3682 vocabulary.
• Lossless round-trip. Custom attributes, InternalLinks, and other CAEX content that lives next to the FPD elements survive every edit. The classic standalone mapper rewrites the document on each conversion; the plugin updates in place.
• Two-way live sync with the AML tree. Edits made in the AML tree show up in the diagram within a few seconds. Edits in the diagram land in the tree when you click Update InstanceHierarchy.
• Modeling rule validation. Connections that violate VDI 3682 Part 2 (e.g. a state directly connected to another state, missing system limit) raise a warning at update time.
• Multi-IH support. One viewer sub-tab per FPD InstanceHierarchy in the active document.
• Decomposition. Decompose a process operator into a sub-process, edit it on its own layer, compose it back. Boundary states stay synchronised across layers.

Requirements

• AutomationML Editor 6.4.0 or newer
• Windows with WebView2 runtime installed
• For building from source: .NET 8 SDK and Node.js 18+

Installation

1. Download the latest Aml.Editor.Plugin.FPB.<version>.nupkg from the releases page.
2. In the AutomationML Editor, open the Plug-In Manager, add a local source pointing at the folder that contains the .nupkg, and install the package.
3. Restart the editor. The plugin appears as the "AMLFPBjs" tab.

Usage

After installation, open any AML document with FPD content, or use + New Process in the editor toolbar to start an empty one.

Editing flow

• Changes in the FPB.js viewer are buffered until you click Update InstanceHierarchy in the tab's toolbar. That writes the buffered changes into the CAEX document. Ctrl+S then persists them to disk.
• Changes in the AML tree are picked up by the viewer automatically after a few seconds. Refresh from AML forces an immediate refresh.

Decomposition

Right-click a process operator and choose Decompose. The plugin creates a sub-process layer and links its boundary states back to the parent. Switch between layers via the layer panel and edit each in isolation — edits to boundary states propagate to the other layer because they represent the same logical element.

New processes and JSON exchange

• + New Process (editor toolbar) — creates an empty FPD InstanceHierarchy.
• Import FPB.js (editor toolbar) — adds a new IH from a .json file produced by fpbjs.net or any other FPB.js-based application.
• Export JSON (per IH tab) — writes the current IH content to a .json file.

Architecture

AutomationML Editor                AMLFPB.js                          FPB.js
                                   ─────────                          ──────
DocumentLoaded         ─►  FpbPlugin
ChangeSelectedObject   ─►  ├── IhView (one per IH)
                           │   ├── WebView2  ◄── importJSON ◄────────  Diagram
                           │   ├── Bridge                              + UI
                           │   ├── pending snapshot
                           │   └── hash-poll live sync
                           │
                           └── calls the mapper:
                               ├── FpbJsonToCaex.UpdateInPlace     ──► CAEX
                               ├── FpbJsonToCaex.ImportInto
                               ├── CaexToFpbJson.Convert            ◄── CAEX
                               └── Vdi3682Validator

The plugin itself handles tab lifecycle, the host-to-JavaScript bridge, diagnostics, and editor integration. CAEX conversion and VDI 3682 validation live in fpb-aml-mapper. The diagram surface, palette, layer panel, and properties panel come from FPB.js.

Build from source

The plugin needs both sibling repositories cloned next to it:

<parent>/
├── fpb-aml-editor-plugin/
├── fpb-aml-mapper/
└── FPB.JS/

Build:

cd FPB.JS
npm install
npm run build

cd ..\fpb-aml-editor-plugin
dotnet build Aml.Editor.Plugin.FPB.sln -c Release

The resulting .nupkg lands in build\Plugins\Aml.Editor.Plugin.FPB\Release\.

Known limitations

Two pieces of functionality use reflection or polling because the editor's plugin API does not expose them:

• The auto-save trigger looks up SaveAMLCommand on Application.Current.MainWindow.DataContext. If the editor renames or restructures it, the plugin falls back to manual Ctrl+S.
• The AML-tree to viewer synchronisation polls a SHA-256 of the IH XML every two seconds, because Aml.Engine has no public change event.

Both paths are monitored at startup by a compatibility check; any drift shows up as a banner in the plugin's Diagnostics tab. Verbose log output lives under %TEMP%\fpb-plugin\fpb-plugin-debug.log.

Configuration

Settings are persisted in %APPDATA%\AutomationMLEditor\FpbPlugin\settings.json:

Key	Default	Effect
debug_logging	false	Forwards the JavaScript console to the log file.
auto_save_after_update	false	Triggers the editor's save command after each Update InstanceHierarchy.
run_vdi_validation	true	Runs VDI 3682 structural checks automatically.
confirm_large_updates	true	Shows a confirmation dialog when an update would touch many elements or connections.
update_safety_threshold	5	Threshold for the confirmation dialog.
pending_age_warning_minutes	30	Warns before applying a pending edit older than this.
disabled_validation_rules	[]	List of VDI 3682 rule IDs to skip during validation.

The boolean toggles are exposed in the plugin's Diagnostics tab. The numeric values are edited in the JSON file directly.

License

MIT.