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.
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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