Developing Web Dynpro ABAP Applications using ABAP development tools (for Eclipse)

ABAP development tools (for Eclipse) 2.7 brings to you more convenient and faster environment to develop Web Dynpro ABAP Applications. This document will take you on a tour, answering some basic beginners questions about the new development environment. I will highlight major features of development environment and the reason to implement these major features first.

If you are in Web Dynpro ABAP application development arena, you must have the question “Why should I use the new development environment to develop Web Dynpro ABAP applications ?”. Quite valid one and of-course there should be some valid reasons to do so.

Our answer is: In this new development environment, you do everything faster (lots of productivity gains) and many things which were not possible earlier in old development environment, are available now. Apart from list of features below, please refer to the blog “ How developing Web Dynpro ABAP Applications using ABAP deveopment tools (for Eclipse) is more fun !” will emphasize more on them.

Moreover in coming releases you will see more and more features made available for Web Dynpro ABAP developent in ABAP deveopment tools for Eclipse.

Back-end Version Requirements

All these features for Web Dynpro ABAP development works with SAP NetWeaver AS ABAP 7.03/7.31 SP07 onwards, except for Floor Plan Manager Integration which works with backend version SAP NetWeaver AS ABAP 7.4 onwards

Major Features

Here is list of major features of  development environment for Web Dynpro ABAP Applications.

• Project Explorer displays all Web Dynpro ABAP artifacts like View, Component etc.

Project Explorer displays content from a specific backend system. Now, it also displays Web Dynpro ABAP entities categorized and with respective icons. To
open any entity, you need to just double click on it in Project Explorer

• Create new Web Dynpro Component, Window, View and Application

The options to create new Objects are integrated well in eclipse. You can use guided dialogs to create them

• A real WYSIWYG View Editor

You can open the View Editor by double clicking on View in Project Explorer. You can edit view’s layout using the View Editor. Following snapshot displays
the SAP GUI version and ABAP in Eclipse version. The preview of View now is much closer to the real running application and gives you more WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) representation.

• Editing Controller

You can edit View, Custom Controller and Component Controller using eclipse based editors. These editors are fast and only connect to backend when required e.g. saving the object, reading the object details etc. Since, the backend intetraction are less, you get more responsive editing experience.

• More visual Context Editing

The editor for Context is more visual with mapping between Context of Controller and used Controller are displayed graphically. A connection to backend is not made when you create and edit Context and hence you can edit the Context much faster now.

• Source Code Editing

Implementation for any Controller can be edited from the implementation tab in the editor. The source editor is equipped with many features like

• Code templates,
• Syntax highlight,
• Code completion,
• Quick forward navigation,
• Quick Outline integrations etc.

The Implementation tab displays all the methods together in one page to eliminate switching for coding in different methods in same controller.

• Code Templates

The code templates to read, write and append context are available in implementation tab. You can press Ctrl+Space to get the list of options in code completion list. You can select and press enter to trigger them.

• Run and Debug Web Dynpro ABAP Application

You can launch Web Dynpro Application from eclipse itself. Right click on the application node and select Run As -> Web Dynpro ABAP Application to launch the application

To debug Web Dynpro ABAP code, you just need to set breakpoint and run the Web Dynpro Application to start the debug session. The breakpoint will hit
and you will be asked to switch to Debug perspective.  In Debug perspective you can see all your break points in Breakpoint view and runtime values of all the variables in Variables View.

• Floor Plan Manager Integration

You can double-click on the FPM objects in the Project Explorer to open corresponding editors. The same browser based editors are integrated inside eclipse. You can work with many objects open side by side in eclipse. You can also open editors for Application Configuration and Component Configuration is same way. For more information about refer to the document: Develop UIs using Floor Plan Manager using ABAP development tools (for Eclipse)

This integration works with backend version SAP NetWeaver AS ABAP 7.4 onwards.

• Help Documentation

Apart from the online help documentation, the documentation is also available in ABAP in Eclipse itself. You can access the help from Help->Help Contents-> SAP – Web Dynpro ABAP Development User Guide

If you are on some Editor, View or Wizard in eclipse you can press F1 to get linked help documentation displayed instantly. Following snapshots will give you glimpse of the help documentation and how help gets integrated with different screen via F1 shortcut.