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Author's profile photo Martin Bachmann

New Gateway Tool – SAP NetWeaver Gateway productivity accelerator

Hello,

following up on my blog from last week (http://scn.sap.com/community/netweaver-gateway/blog/2013/05/02/sap-netweaver-gateway–some-thoughts-on-the-future) I am happy to provide you more details on the SAP NetWeaver Gateway productivity accelerator, which is available from today on. This Eclipse-based tool provides an OData modeler and toolkits for various service consumption technologies.

OData Modeler

Bringing the OData modeler to Eclipse is making it much easier for roles who are not too familiar with the ABAP programming language or the Gateway Service Builder to provide their input for the end-to-end development process.

This modeler allows an easy and convenient way to model an OData Service in Eclipse. Once the service is modeled it can be exported to be used at the development environment, where the content is coming from – for example the Gateway Service Builder from SAP NetWeaver Gateway.

GWPA_OData.JPG

Service Consumption

In order to accelerate and simplify the development process for consuming user-interface technologies we are introducing toolkits for popular environments. The toolkits generate the source-code for proxies based on existing OData Services and also starter user interfaces. This reduces the development effort and the required knowledge to connect to the SAP system via SAP NetWeaver Gateway. Depending on the technology the starter user-interface will have a list/ detail pattern, a workflow pattern or be just the proxies. As we are assuming that every customer / partner will have own requirements towards the user interface we assume that the generated proxies can be used as-is, but the user-interface will be changed by our customers / partners.

The following toolkits are available:

  • Toolkit for Android
  • Toolkit for HTML5 (SAPUI5 and JQuery)
  • Toolkit for iOS
  • Toolkit for Java Platform, Standard Edition
  • Toolkit for PHP

The toolkits for Android and iOS are generating apps in a way that allow either direct connectivity to an OData-Server like SAP NetWeaver Gateway or to a SUP server. Typically the switch from one connectivity to another requires only few changes in the source-code of the app.

GWPA_UI5.JPG

Download / Test System

The software is available from this site: https://tools.hana.ondemand.com/#gateway

I would also like to mention the new SAP NetWeaver Gateway demo system for OData Services inside the SAP Developer Center. Via these services you can easily test the new tool: http://scn.sap.com/community/developer-center/netweaver-gateway

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      42 Comments
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      Author's profile photo Paul Aschmann
      Paul Aschmann

      Hi Martin,

      I am excited to try this new tool out - Thanks for sharing!

      Cheers,

      Paul

      Author's profile photo Syambabu Allu
      Syambabu Allu

      Hi Martin,

      Excellent ......

      Thanks,

      Syam

      Author's profile photo Uri Nizan
      Uri Nizan

      Great news.

      Thanks for sharing!

      Author's profile photo Robert Eijpe
      Robert Eijpe

      Great Blog,

      SAP NetWeaver Gateway productivity accelerator will certainly speed up our developments

      Author's profile photo Matthias Bucher
      Matthias Bucher

      Thanx, we'll check it within our gateway environment

      Author's profile photo Carlos Roggan
      Carlos Roggan

      Looks good!

      Thanks for sharing the information.

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hello,

      thank you very much for the overview. I allready tried the HTML (UI5) generation. It is great fun to see how fast you can build a simple UI5 application from a Gateway service (and deploy it to an NW Web AS).

      But I noticed, that it is only possible to build linear navigation. I.e. You have a List of Sales orders and a list of line items. It is easy to go from the Sales order view to the line items. But if you additionally want - lets say - to navigate to a table of partner roles of this sales order (from the header) you are not able to enter this application flow in the wizard.

      Is it planned, that the tools also support such scenarios? Or is it maybe allready possible, and I just did something wrong?

      But as a starting point, the generated code is allready great!

      Thank you very much

      Daniel Schön

      Author's profile photo Richard Hirsch
      Richard Hirsch

      Hi,

      Can you use this tool with any OData Source URL (like HANA XS) or is it somehow restricted to Gateway. I was looking at one of the tutorials recently created and I saw the screen "Location of OData Service" where you could probably add a different URL.

      D.

      Author's profile photo Boris Tsirulnik
      Boris Tsirulnik

      Yes, you can use this tool with any OData service.

      Author's profile photo Boris Tsirulnik
      Boris Tsirulnik

      Excellent blog Martin!

      Author's profile photo Jason Scott
      Jason Scott

      Is this the same as the "SAP NetWeaver Gateway Plug-in for Eclipse": http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/downloads?rid=/webcontent/uuid/b09d414f-f227-2f10-bdbf-ba31c844b432..?

      Different names. The Toolkits make it looks the same but the doco for the plug-in does not mention the OData modeller.

      Author's profile photo Uri Nizan
      Uri Nizan

      Hi Jason,

      This is a new tool.

      It is similar to the SAP NetWeaver Gateway plugin for Eclipse, but better.

      See the new documentation here:

      https://help.hana.ondemand.com/gateway_gwpa/frameset.htm

      Author's profile photo Jason Scott
      Jason Scott

      Thanks Uri. Good news.

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Can the tool be used from NWDS?

      Author's profile photo Carlos Roggan
      Carlos Roggan

      Hi Jan,

      the tools are eclipse plugins and as such can be installed on any eclipse environment, as long as it is based on eclipse 4.2

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hi Carlos,

      Thanks for your reply. The latest version of NWDS I think is only based on eclipse 3.5 so that'll be why the intallation fails. I've installed clean Eclipse with the tool and then after creating the project in Eclipse (taking advantage of the productivity gains this tool gives) I open the project in NWDS so that it will work in our setup (NWDI, deployment etc).

      That seems to work ok but of course it would be nice if a tool like this supplied by SAP would work with their version of Eclipse (nwds).....

      Br Jan

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hi,

      I have a problem and question: After installing the GWPA plug-in I tried to create within eclipse the SAP NW GW connection to an SAP System (via Preferences) which I can reach with a HTML GUI with http connection (no proxy used), but it does not work. I tried server host name and port exactly from the URL from HTML GUI access, but I always get a "Network connection error".

      Do you have any ideas for a solution?

      Thanks and regards, Patrick.

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hi Patrick, I don't know if it could be the port number that troubles you. You need to enter the port that is in the URL when you execute a service from your gateway. Is that the port you use?

      Br Jan

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hi Jan,

      I use the same port number which is used by the HTML GUI browser access; moreover, it is the same http port number which is also specified in transaction SMICM.

      Regards, Patrick.

      Author's profile photo Boris Tsirulnik
      Boris Tsirulnik

      Hi Patrick,

      Try to access the URL of catalog service the with the port in the browser:

      http://<HOST>:<PORT>/sap/opu/odata/iwfnd/CATALOGSERVICE/$metadata

      It might be that the server is configured to use SSL only and when you use the http port, it redirects to https.

      Anyway the best way to verify that you are using the correct port is to try it from the browser.

      Regards,

      Boris

      Author's profile photo Aliaksandr Shchurko
      Aliaksandr Shchurko

      Big Thanks!

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Good blog,

      Thanks for Sharing..

      Author's profile photo Syambabu Allu
      Syambabu Allu

      Hi,

      when i am creating the Odata Model in my Eclipse Kepler getting error Java Null-point Exception.

      Thanks,

      Syam

      Author's profile photo Boris Tsirulnik
      Boris Tsirulnik

      Hi,

      Kepler support will be added in GWPA SP1 which will be released in less than a month.

      Regards,

      Boris

      Author's profile photo Joao Sousa
      Joao Sousa

      Please support Eclipse Kepler (released in June). If this plug-in doesn't support the same Eclipse as the ABAP Development Tools it will get messy really quick since ADT will only support two version (current, and previous)

      If this doesn't support Kepler by the time the next comes out, we will have to use two separate (and unsupported) Eclipse installations just for SAP (plus NWDS....).

      This doesn't support Kepler you get the Java Null exception mentioned by Syambabu.

      PS: Not to mention the fact that I had to delete my Kepler installation with ADT to get this to work.

      Author's profile photo Boris Tsirulnik
      Boris Tsirulnik

      Hi,

      Kepler support will be added in GWPA SP1 which will be released in less than a month.

      Regards,

      Boris

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Dear Friends,

      Can we implement OData services in SAP Netweaver Gateway using the SAP NetWeaver Gateway Productivity Accelerator ??

      Regards,

      Niladri

      Author's profile photo Syambabu Allu
      Syambabu Allu

      Hi Niladri,

      We are not implemeteing oData Services from SAP NW GWPA.

      We are modeling the oData Services from SAP NW GWPA.

      Download / Test System

      The software is available from this site: https://tools.hana.ondemand.com/#gateway

      I would also like to mention the new SAP NetWeaver Gateway demo system for OData Services inside the SAP Developer Center. Via these services you can easily test the new tool: http://scn.sap.com/community/developer-center/netweaver-gateway

      Thanks,

      Syam

      Author's profile photo Martin Steinberg
      Martin Steinberg

      Hi Martin,

      I just wanted to ask for the GWPA SP1 which was mentioned above. Is the date of release foreseeable already?

      Thanks a lot,

      best regards

      Martin

      Author's profile photo Uri Nizan
      Uri Nizan

      Hi Martin,

      GWPA SP01 is already available.

      Check the update site for the new release:

      https://tools.hana.ondemand.com/juno

      For more info see this page:

      https://tools.hana.ondemand.com/#gateway

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      I'm trying to create an application based on SAP Workflow. I was using tutorial from the link below.

      http://scn.sap.com/community/netweaver-gateway/blog/2013/06/12/how-to-create-sap-workflow-based-android-application-consuming-odata-workflow-service-with-help-of-gateway-productivity-accelerator-gwpa

      Everything was going smooth till I uploaded my app to emulator. when i try to logon logcat in eclipse returns the following error:

      01-08 13:56:52.539: E/Connectivity(758): Delta handling is disabled. Please add Persistence & Cache libraries to enable it.

      Both libraries are included in the project. Do you have any idea what could I do wrong?

      Author's profile photo Bernard Fricaud
      Bernard Fricaud

      Hi All,

      i get the same error in eclipse:   Delta handling is disabled. Please add Persistence & Cache libraries to enable it.


      The app in the emulator can't login. I try with the example service RMTSAMPLEFLIGHT.


      Thanks a lot,

      best regards

      Bernard

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      The problem with Delta handling was not relevant. I'm not sure what was the soultion to the problem but I know that it had something to do with configuration in SAP.

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hi Martin,

      Thanks for sharing....

      Author's profile photo Peter Murphy
      Peter Murphy

      Hi Martin, looks like an excellent tool.

      I've been trying to modify one of the existing templates, specifically "Toolkit for HTML5 (SAPUI5 and JQuery)". So I imported the com.sap.odata.dt.cons.toolket.html5 plugin, then in the Extensions tab of plugin.xml I modified the SAPUI5 List/Details extension changing the ID and the display name. I didn't change anything else in the plugin.

      When I test the new template I can see the new Starter Application template in the wizard. On the next screen I enter the odata service URL and on the next screens select the page and fields as normal. However when I click the Finish button I get error "Template Generation Wizard error, see error log for details.".

      In the logs I can see the following:

      !ENTRY com.sap.odata.dt.framework 4 0 2014-02-16 12:04:56.305

      !MESSAGE Template Generation Wizard error, see error log for details.

      !STACK 0

      java.lang.ClassCastException: com.sap.iw.gw.oc.eclipse.html5.environment.impl.HTML5Environment cannot be cast to com.sap.iw.gw.oc.eclipse.html5.environment.IHTML5Environment

        at com.sap.iw.gw.oc.eclipse.html5.templates.AbstractHTML5Template.onFinish(AbstractHTML5Template.java:55)

        at com.sap.iw.gw.oc.eclipse.framework.wizard.TemplateGenerationWizard$1.run(TemplateGenerationWizard.java:109)

        at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Synchronizer.syncExec(Synchronizer.java:180)

        at org.eclipse.ui.internal.UISynchronizer.syncExec(UISynchronizer.java:150)

        at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Display.syncExec(Display.java:4687)

        at com.sap.iw.gw.oc.eclipse.framework.wizard.TemplateGenerationWizard.doFinish(TemplateGenerationWizard.java:103)

        at com.sap.iw.gw.oc.eclipse.framework.wizard.TemplateGenerationWizard.access$2(TemplateGenerationWizard.java:101)

        at com.sap.iw.gw.oc.eclipse.framework.wizard.TemplateGenerationWizard$2.run(TemplateGenerationWizard.java:171)

      Is this something you have seen before? Please advise.

      Thanks

      Peter

      Author's profile photo Boris Tsirulnik
      Boris Tsirulnik

      Hi Peter,

      If you are trying to extend GWPA by providing new templates, I suggest not to create your own copy of the HTML5Environment class.

      It looks like you have 2 instances of HTML5Environment class and IHTML5Environment interface.


      So you can remove the package com.sap.iw.gw.oc.eclipse.html5.environment from the imported project.

      Regards,

      Boris

      Author's profile photo Peter Murphy
      Peter Murphy

      Hi Boris, so basically I'm trying to modify an existing template as per the instructions here - SAP NetWeaver Gateway Productivity Accelerator

      I haven't modified the environment ID as per the instructions so not quite sure how there are 2 instances?

      Have you been able to modify a template?

      Thanks

      Peter

      Author's profile photo Boris Tsirulnik
      Boris Tsirulnik

      Did you uninstall the original HTML5 toolkit before installing your customized version?

      Author's profile photo Peter Murphy
      Peter Murphy

      I tried uninstalling the Toolkit but then when I test my plugin the "OData Development" wizards are not available. The wizard dependencies are all part of the Toolkit install.

      Author's profile photo Boris Tsirulnik
      Boris Tsirulnik

      I meant to uninstall only the HTML5 toolkit.

      Do not uninstall the other GWPA features. (like OData development)

      Author's profile photo Peter Murphy
      Peter Murphy

      Boris, you are the man, that worked! Thanks for your help on this, much appreciated.

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hi all,

      anyone had a problem with GWPA service redeployment? First deployment to SMP always works, and the service works as expected. Then when I make a change and try to redeploy it (whether unchanged details, or with different version or even different name of the service) the change is not reflected in SMP. No errors are captured in the server logs.

      The only thing that works is to create a new GWPA project from scratch... :/

      Cheers,

      Frank