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What are you getting for the Holidays: WebDynpro ABAP!

December 19, 2005 | 25 Views |
 thomas jung
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Introduction
What a great Holiday Gift. I wouldn’t have believed if I hadn’t heard it myself during the SDN: Community Update – Week 50. At the very end Craig sneaks in the mention that you could try out ABAP WebDynpro now. Sure enough I went to the SDN Downloads page and listed right there is the download of NetWeaver04S (WebAS 7.00) for ABAP.
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With this little gem, you can finally try out all the goodness that is ABAP WebDynpro yourself. I have been lucky enough to be able to play with WDA for a small time now and I can tell you that if you download this sneak preview, you too can have a very happy holiday.

Where to get Started
If you just got this new Sneak Preview installed, you are probably looking for some resources to help you get started with WebDynpro ABAP Development. I will list a few that I have found to be useful so far.

First of all, there were some excellent hands-on session for WebDynpro ABAP given by Dirk Feeken at TechED this year. We just got our TechED DVDs last week. These would be an excellent starting point for anyone. I was lucky enough to be able to attend both the intro and advanced hands-on sessions. The first thing I did once I had a NetWeaver04S system to play with was to recreate all the great examples from these sessions.

Next you might look to the on-line help. The NetWeaver04S help is already post over on the Help Portal. Not only is the on-line help for ABAP WebDynpro really good, but it is filled with lots of simple example exercises. I would really suggest that everyone have a look at the following link:
http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw04s/helpdata/en/f6/501b42b5815133e10000000a155106/frameset.htm

You can quickly get started with the GO and Create section, but the Development in Detail is filled the really good stuff that you need to be able to create real applications.

There are also lots of really good examples WDA Components already in the system. Many of them begin with the name WDR_TEST*. My favorite is WDR_TEST_UI_ELEMENTS. This is very similar to the SBSPEXT* programs in the BSP environment. They allow you to quickly explore all the different UI elements. But there are plenty of other examples that cover all different aspects of WebDynpro Development (Component Usage, Configuration, Search Helps, Dynamic Elements, Events, Mapping, Navigation, OVS, Popups, Portal Integration, Tables, Trees, ALV Grid, Select-Options, etc).

The final place to look will of course be SDN. As more and more people begin to play with WDA, I am sure we will see plenty of weblogs on the subject. I posted one the other day on Portal Eventing; A Solution for Global Peace and Harmony?. I tried to make the WebDynpro aspects really detailed with lots of screen shots. Personally I have been holding off writing too much on WDA until it was available to everyone. Now that it is, there is plenty I would like to write about!

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15 Comments

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  1. Marilyn Pratt
    And while Thomas was holding himself back :-), the SDN team was busy populating the library with Tutorials and other instructional information introducing Web Dynpro for ABAP.
    Keep your eyes glued to the ABAP and WebDynpro pages for more links to demos, guides, and community conversation around this exclusive on SDN preview!
    cheers,
    Marilyn
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    1. Durairaj Athavan Raja
      Thanks for the blog Thomas.

      I just checked out the sample ALV grid application and its really cool and looking great.

      With all the cool things ABAP webdynpro is offering i am wondering whats going to happend to java webdynpro.

      Regards
      Raja

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      1. Thomas Jung
        The ALV grid functionality is INCREDIBLE!  I was blown away by how robust the functionality was when I first saw it at TechED.  If I had to name the single most important new Feature of WDA – it would be the ALV Grid.

        I have a weblog 90% done on the subject that I am hoping to post before I head out for the Christmas Holidays. 

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        1. Thomas Jung
          Since I am listing my favorite features, I would remiss if I didn’t say that Select-Options and the Extremely easy to use Built in Value Help Selection tie for a very close second place. 
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          1. Durairaj Athavan Raja
            There are too many great features in ABAP webdynpro.

            I cant stop saying WOW!

            In fact i was writing a blog on ALV in ABAP webdynpro(this is a very important thing on our project, where earlier we did it using BSP, but it was lot of coding and we couldnt provide some features) and saw yours, thanks for this great weblog and it will be really helpful for starters.

            Probably you should think of coming up with something you did for BSP : BSP Developers journal.

            Regards
            Raja

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        2. Thomas Jung
          You got me all excited now talking about WebDynpro ABAP and I just can’t stop.  You checked out the ALV Grid, but have you tried the download functionality yet.  Unlike previous approaches to downloading that use plain text, SAP is using XSLT Transformations to convert the internal ALV Grid Format to external formats like Excel XML. This preserves much of the formatting of the ALV Grid during the download process.  A very interesting approach to the problem!
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  2. Abdul Hakim
    Hi Thomas,
    Nice letting us know about it!!
    I am already having 4.6c in my system.
    Is it possible to install Webdynpro for ABAP without affecting my 4.6c.

    Cheers,
    Abdul

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    1. Thomas Jung
      I have never tried to run a 46C and 700 system on the same box/os.  You could also create another OS installation.  I have done this in the past on my laptop.  I use WinXP Pro for my day to day work.  However I have two different copies of windows 2K3 Server installations on my laptop that I can reboot into.

      I have ran 640 and 700 on the same boot. However be careful with running two Netweaver Sneak Preview editions.  Early on they had the same System SID (I assume that they still do), this would make installation from the Sneak Preview very difficult if not impossible.  I know that some people just uninstalled the 640 version before installing 700 to be safe.

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  3. Renald Wittwer
    Hi Thomas,
    I was afraid to have boring Christmas Holidays. Web Dynpro for ABAP will save me 🙂

    Looking forward to read your Weblogs and all other stuff about WDA.

    Best regards
    Renald

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      1. Thomas Jung Post author
        There is a SDN Forum for asking questions about the sneak preview installations.
        SAP NetWeaver Application Server

        Your question might be better asked there.

        You should also provide more details about where the error occured and exactly what was given in the error message.

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    1. Thomas Jung Post author
      The path has changed since this weblog was written a year ago, but it is still fairly easy to find.  Go to the downloads section.  Actualy the first section displayed in downloads is what you want.  It is Section NW and the only item listed under NW – SAP NetWeaver Trials and Previews.  This opens a separate page with all the NetWeaver Trial and Preview edition downloads.  The last column on the right is the one you want – Full ABAP Edition – Trial (with Web Dynrpo for ABAP!)
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