Is this cool or what???
Wow! SAP has today released the next (compatible, of course) version of SAPUI5, our HTML5 controls library, that SAP is using as the standard User Interface Control library in all their future applications that need a “consumer grade” User Experience, whether it is on desktop, tablet or smartphone! It’s the basis for SAP’s User Experience strategy. Now we have released version 1.12 officially and it is ready for download on the SAP Community Network Development Center. If you want a copy, here we go:
Now why am I so excited about this new version? Well, that’s easy:
First, SAPUI5 per se is an absolutely cool and great UI framework. It’s based on open source and open standards like JQuery, HTML5, JavaScript, CSS, LESS and others, it’s extensible (“if we don’t have something in stock, add an open source or 3rd party control) as a core framework and has been built from ground up to best support modern browsers like Google Chrome, Apple Safari, Firefox and Microsoft IE 9 and 10 (for details, check this out). It is independent of the backend system, whether it is SAP Application Server ABAP, or SAP Application Server Java, or HANA Cloud Platform — it just doesn’t matter. We’ve effectively decoupled the lifecycle of the UI, which changes often, from the backend system release, which changes more seldom. It is optimized to consume REST/OData services as exposed by e.g. SAP Netweaver Gateway, SAP HANA Cloud Gateway or SAP HANA itself. So you can connect it basically to any SAP system!
But with the newest version we’ve done the next major step: We are no providing two “flavors” of SAPUI5 based on the same programming model and tools:
- The full-blown desktop version with a vast set of UI controls to easily and quickly build state-of-the-art Web UIs
- The tailor-made mobile version that supports not only Apple iOS, Google Android, RIM BlackBerry and Microsoft Windows Phone 8 for both tablet and smartphone form factors, but also supports to run the tablet versions on desktop browsers (even for “old” IE8 with a few degradations) — a capability that is absolutely unique in the market!
If you want to see SAPUI5 v.1.12 in action and what SAP has built with it, check out SAP Fiori, a collection of consumer-grade productivity applications for tablet, smartphone and desktop as announced at SapphireNow 2013 in Orlando.
The more detailed list of new features added with V1.12 reads nicely as well:
- Components: One can bundle UI5 related objects like modules, views, controllers, etc. in components
- New view type: Declarative HTML, this is also included in SAPUI5 Eclipse tools
- New desktop controls like
- Form, ResponsiveLayout, Autocomplete, Collection Inspector, FormattedTextView
- Notetaker, DateRangeSlider, SplitButton
- Best practices mobile demo application
- All mobile (sap.m) controls which are not experimental support Blackberry 10
- New mobile controls like
- SplitApp, PullToRefresh, MessageToast, MessageBox, ActionSheet, InputDateTime
- New experimental mobile controls like
- TileContainer, TabularList, Shell, Accept/Reject Switch, GrowingList, IconTabBar, ActionSheet
- DateTimeInput, Link, ObjectHeader, TextArea, URLHelper
- Calendar, ProgressIndicator, TabContainer
- New mobile features
- Configurable/themable background images for App, SplitApp, Shell (experimental)
- Swipe-for-action in Lists
- Mobile library comes with new experimental Blue Crystal theme
- Mobile library with Blue Crystal theme runs on smart phones, tablets and desktops. This is only an experimental feature
- Charts in sap.viz library
- Basic touch support
- New charts: Dual Bar, Dual Line, Dual Combination, Dual Column, Dual Stacked Bar
- New Icon fonts / pool
- sap.ui.Device: API for device and feature detection and media query support
- Calculated fields in databinding, i.e. bind control properties to more than one data property
And our new WYSIWYG, browser-based UI creation tool with dozens of pre-designed templates to start with, SAP AppDesigner, is soon to be released as well…
I can only recommend you to download this latest release as a free trial from SCN Developer Center and check it out! There’s tons of documentation, tutorials, sample code snippets and demo applications
Dear SAPUI5 team! You really rock! Thanks! 🙂
Thanks Björn, great news...
Does is now free for standalone usage or we still need a license (which one then)?
Hi Konstantin,
the trial download is for free but not for productive use. For productive use, any SAP dev license will suffice (e.g. NetWeaver Developer License or SAP HANA Cloud License).
Enjoy.
-Björn
Thanks Bjoern.
Is the APP Designer specific for developing Ui5 Mobile Apps only? or it can be used for Desktop based UI5 apps as well?
Will SAP continue to provide 2 different sets of Libraries - one each for desktop and Mobile?
Best regards
Sandip
Hi Sandip,
SAP will continue to provide two SAPUI5 "libraries":
1. The full-blown desktop version: This is a bigger set of controls that are covering just desktop UI scenarios.
2. The "streamlined for mobile" version: This library is specifically designed to live within the boundaries of mobile devices (e.g. further bandwidth and size optimized, which puts some restrictions on certain more complex controls). BUT: If you build with this library for e.g. tablets, you can run these apps also on the desktop (within the supported browser matrix).
The first version of AppDesigner will focus on supporting SAPUI5 for Mobile. So with the constrains mentioned above, one can also build desktop capable UIs with this. Support for the full-blown SAPUI5 library is left to the future roadmap for now.
We plan to also provide a WYSIWYG screen editor for SAPUI5 as Eclipse Plugin in the future.
-Björn
Hi Bjoern,
I am really glad that sapui team added ListAsTable to sap.m as i had to use table element from sap.ui 🙂 I am investigating other elements as well.
Also i am really interested in AppDesigner for sapui5 and looking forward to, has it been decided when to release it ?
Thanks for the news,
Kind Regards,
Yasin
Yes, it has been decided 😉 Announcement of shipment will be done when we ship ;-). But be assured, it'll be very soon!
Any news on the date for AppDesigner ... Maybe I am not search properly but it does not appear in PAM yet
A Beta version will be released within the next few weeks... Official RTC later this year...
Thanks Bjoern,
You're welcome 😉
Hi Björn,
I agree with you, the SAPUI5 team really rocks! The declarative HTML Templates and data-* attributes are a big step forward, as are some of the demos like the "Approve All" looking mobile inbox app, which looks very cool!
I saw a comment of yours lately on twitter:
Short of asking what it would take to make SAPUI5 opensource and when it could happen, why not offer something to the developers now, for example make the internal SAPUI5 Code Snippet Exchange - SNIPPIX publicly available, and or the Theme Editor?
Cheers
John P
For those interested in the Inbox app, look here
http://<host>/<sapui5>/test-resources/sap/m/demokit/inbox/index.html
There are a few broken links in the documentation, looks like the folder
http://<host>/<sapui5>/content/apps is missing.
Cheers
John P
Hi John,
thanks for the hint... Will be fixed...
Björn
Nice application looks great
Hi,
Nice Themes
Regards
Manoj
Hi,
I am new to mobile Apps and trying to get as much contents on SAP mobile Apps available on SCN. My heartiest thanks to you and to others contribution on SCN.
I need to know that Hybrid apps are still on the verge of development, how the new versions on hybrid apps can effect existing developed apps on older versions. Are they needed to be upgraded with the advancement in the hybrid Apps.
What if we needed to do some modification in the Apps with older version.
Thanks and regards,
Rahul Singh
Dear SAPUI5 team! You really rock! Thanks! 🙂 +10000000000.....
on the AppDesigner , hope its something like flex builder where we can drag and drop controls and will have full freedom of scripting.
Raja
Why is the newest sapui5 not availabe for NW 7.40 ? For me it is a little bit strange that for "older" release NW7.31 it is ...
No, SAPUI5 v1.12 will be shipped with NW 7.4 SP03 by default as well (you can already take the download version and use it with NW 7.4 today). Reason: Timing issue when validating the two products didn't allow to include v1.12 in the initial shipment of NW 7.4.
-Björn
Hi Björn,
thx for the info. For me is the integration from scratch no problem , have you some starting points for this ?
I have 7.40 ABAP system.
Regards
Daniel
😉 Try the SAPUI5 SCN site. For ABAP dev, here's some link: https://sapui5.netweaver.ondemand.com/sdk/#docs/guide/UI5BSPRepository.html
-Björn
Ok .
On the ui5 site I found no solution to update the sapui5 by hand.
I have a requirement for mobile 'inbox' so I must wait for the 1.12 Release for 7.4 . In the past I had the opportunity to update my system with notes to the newest releases without any patches …
😥
Thx
Hi Daniel,
my mistake. Sorry. Checked back with the dev team. In fact, we have a problem with using patching procedures to update SAPUI5 in AS ABAP 7.40 right now. SNOTE and tools work for patching older NW releases, but unfortunately this procedure doesn't work for SAPUI5 with 7.4 yet. So you have to wait for NW 7.4 SP3 (July timeframe) to get to the latest v1.12 version and then patching with newer versions will work again afterwards (and don't ask me why, I am not a techy 😉
Sorry for the hassle and inconvenience.
Björn
Hi Björn ,
ok thanks for the info. no problem
But I think for the future SAP must find a technology to update the SAPUI5 Runtime without patches. Because I think this technology (html5 and devices) are changed so fast that you need a update technology without full Patch Stacks.
Agreed. But as I wrote: After SP03 you will be able to use SNOTE again with NW 7.4. It's just a temporary problem due to the release change.
Plus, we are thinking about a more general approach to the problem as neither Support Package (too big) nor SNOTE (not really optimal) are a perfect fit.
-Björn
Hi Bjoern!
1) Thanks for sharing!
2) I was trying to test "mobile" flavour from my iPad. Opened Demo applications from sapui5.netweaver.ondemand.com in separate tab (that's the full link I was using https://sapui5.netweaver.ondemand.com/sdk/test-resources/sap/m/demokit/explored/index.html).
But it some pages it is not working as I hope it should.
E.g. In Portrait mode Open Navigation -> Container -> Dialog. Now try return to container with Container (aka Back) navigation button. It is not working for me. Faced the same with several other test screens.
3) At the same time, Cart demo application navigates just fine.
Could you check this?
Regards,
Petr
Hi.
For me is new and I'm going to try it. Thanks for posting.
AC
See SAPUI5 in action and read about SAPUI5 and Identity Management - a perfect combination! ... a blog written by Jannis Rondorf.
Saw the AppDesigner in a video and since the original announcement was almost three months ago: When will AppDesigner be available to us 3rd party developers?
Hi,
Is there any way to customize this theme according to our requirement ?
Regards
Manoj
Hi Bjoern Goerke
Thank you very much for sharing the info. I am really excited about the new UI technology UI5 from SAP and I am developing some sample applications as a starting point.
Meanwhile I was wondering whether we can incorporate Adobe Forms or such print forms with UI5. For example if we have developed a webshop in UI5, then once the customer completes the purchase, a invoice will be generated. For generating documents like Invoice/Packing List we would need to develop forms. Could you please throw some light on Forms in UI5?
Regards
Rahul MB
Hi Bjoern Goerke
I want ask a question, when i use the version 1.12.5 of sapui5 plugins on developing web application using the IE8, the html aways told me that there is a parentheses has missed in sap-ui-core.js at somewhere, what shoud i do to solve this? thanks!!
Hi Wenlong Wang,
can you provide some more details? Can you share the error message? In IE8 or IE9 trailing commas could be very often a problem which finally causes the framework to fail when creating the controls. Most probably this will cause an error which is reported in the sap-ui-core.js but the reason is something else. It would be great to get more context on this.
Thanks and best regards,
Peter
Hi Bjoern Goerke,
thanks for sharing 🙂
We are already heavily developing mobile apps with SAP UI5. I am just wondering where I can find the latest roadmap and device compatibility information of the SAP UI5 library.
In your blog you mention that SAP UI5 mobile supports also the Windows Phone 8.
The tailor-made mobile version that supports not only Apple iOS, Google Android, RIM BlackBerry and Microsoft Windows Phone 8 for both tablet and smartphone form factors, but also supports to run the tablet versions on desktop browsers (even for "old" IE8 with a few degradations) -- a capability that is absolutely unique in the market!
Unfortunately the following SAP Note about the browser compatibility the Windows Phone is not metioned?
https://service.sap.com/sap/support/notes/1716423
So my question is, are Windows Phones officially supported for the SAP UI5 library?
Thanks and best regards,
Michael
Hi Michael,
SAP supports Safari on iOS, Android Browser,Google Chrome for Android, Blackberry 10 Browser and Microsoft Internet Explorer Modern Design, for SAPUI5 Mobile
Now since Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 IE10 implementations use the same rendering engine on both platforms (with very very few differences), it is safe to say that your sap.m apps should work on IE10/11 in windows 8 aswell as windows phone 8 and onwards.
regards,
Robin
Hi Robin
what the "Microsoft Internet Explorer Modern Design" mean? 🙂 I can't find any clear definition of this term on the web? Which versions of the IE are covered by this term?
I think that SAP note should provide more clearly definition of the IE versions supported by SAPUI5, otherwise it will lead to misunderstanding between customers and SAP.
Best regards,
Artem
Hi Artem,
SAP UI5 Mobile Browser Support:
IOS: at least IOS5 => Safari & WebView
MacOS (Desktop): no specific OS Requirement => Safari 5.1+
Android: at least Android 2.3 => Stock Browser, Chrome, WebView
BB: at least Blackberry 10 => BB Browser & WebView
Windows (Desktop): no specific OS Requirement => IE9+, latest Firefox(&ESR) & latest Chrome
Windows Phone: no official support yet, but like I said IE10&11 are using almost the same rendering engine on Windows 8 & Windows Phone 8, so you may still be able to deploy on Windows Phone 8 onwards, official support may come with windows phone 9, where microsoft promised to bind their OS platforms even tighter together.
General degradations in IE right now:
please note: all of my statements refer to the bluecrystal theme, the old mvi theme will probably be removed in 1.20 and is outdated, so there's no reason to go into detail for it.
Best regards,
Robin