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Author's profile photo Martin Grasshoff

AppBuilder – Finally there

Hi there.

Just want to express my enthusiasm for the new AppBuilder released today. Many of you have probably seen it already on TechEd or even had the chance to play around with it in a TechEd Hands-On session. But now it is available for everyone!!

Available under https://tools.hana.ondemand.com/#sapui5 you can easily download, install and start coding cool HTML5 Apps. Just give it a try and use it for quick prototyping with real data and as a starting point for your own projects.

AppBuilder.jpg

Go, Try and Share your impressions!!

Have Fun,

Martin

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      17 Comments
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      Author's profile photo Midhun VP
      Midhun VP

      Wow! that's a great news. Thanks Martin.

      Author's profile photo Virinchy Panangipalli
      Virinchy Panangipalli

      This is a great tool to work on....Thanks for an update...

      Author's profile photo Shen Peng
      Shen Peng

      great!

      You should share it at the scn SAPUI5 space, not just mobile!

      Author's profile photo Martin Grasshoff
      Martin Grasshoff
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Sheng.

      You are right. So here's the post:

      Have you ever heard of AppBuilder?

      Author's profile photo Rainer Hübenthal
      Rainer Hübenthal

      Hi, how can i download the appbuilder.? When i click on the link above, a popup opens but this is only a picture with non-clickable links. Tried with IE and FF. Or is Chrome mandatory?

      Author's profile photo Martin Grasshoff
      Martin Grasshoff
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Rainer.

      You can access it here: https://tools.hana.ondemand.com/#sapui5

      Have Fun

      -Martin

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      After clicking on download link, terms and conditions are shown in popup.

      https://tools.hana.ondemand.com/additional/appbuilder-1.0.1245.zip

      If you click I have read and agree on bottom right, file gets downloaded.

      Tested on Firefox.

      Author's profile photo Andre Van Staden
      Andre Van Staden

      Nice - is there a template for Fiori Style applications ?

      Author's profile photo Martin Grasshoff
      Martin Grasshoff
      Blog Post Author

      Well, it's a challenge: build one.

      Seriously: no. But it is "blue crystal" the underlying Fiori theme. Isn't that enough?

      Author's profile photo Remco Rooijen
      Remco Rooijen

      I downloaded it and followed the installation instructions carefully. But when I double-click the run.bat file to launch AppBuilder I get the error message “The system cannot find the file node.exe”. And next Chrome is opened with message “Chrome could not connect to 127.0.0.1:9009 Try reloading: 127.0.0.1:9009/ide/ares/index.html”. Any idea what could solve these problems?

      Author's profile photo Martin Grasshoff
      Martin Grasshoff
      Blog Post Author

      Hi.

      I think you missed to make sure that the prerequisites are met. In this case install node js from nodejs.org.

      For your reference:

      Prerequisites

      • Windows OS (XP, Vista, or 7) 32- or 64-Bit or Apple OS X
      • NodeJS
      • Latest major web browser (Google Chrome or Apple Safari)

      Procedure

      AppBuilder prerequisites and setup instructions are included under Launching AppBuilder in the documentation.

      1. Download AppBuilder: appbuilder-1.0.1245.zip
      2. Extract the zip file to the directory of your choice.
      3. Launch AppBuilder as described in the documentation.

      Have Fun,

      Martin

      Author's profile photo Remco Rooijen
      Remco Rooijen

      Thanks Martin. I got it working now. I thought I only needed to install NodeJS as prerequisite but now I notice that I actually have to start it first (NodeJS node.exe) and then start the appbuilder run.bat file.

      Author's profile photo Andre Van Staden
      Andre Van Staden

      Alternatively you can add the path to nodejs.exe to your PATH variable - then you just need to run the bat file to get it to load.

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      For Window 7, the machine needs to be restarted in order to recognize node.exe. Otherwise it'll keep prompting node.exe cannot be found even the path variable has been set and cmd window recognizes node command.

      I have changed "server.bat" with absolutely path of node.exe, but somehow, the browser still showed me "Backend file server cannot be found.".

      After restarted my machine, AppBuilder has started successfully. But a cmd window was still showing up following message:

      d:\applications\appbuilder>call server.bat

      ERROR: The system was unable to find the specified registry key or value.

      Any idea?

      Author's profile photo Poltera Anthony
      Poltera Anthony

      Martin this is a fantastic tool, thank you for all the head scratching and hard work! It does beg the question where SAP want developers to start developing mobile apps? Eclipse or AppBuilder?

      I have just completed Craig Haworth's openSap Intro to Mobile Development where Eclipse, Cordova, SAPUI5, and android-sdk were all tools used to develop for different mobile paradigms. I suppose the AppBuilder fits into the hybrid web container\cordova paradigm but for simple but fast application development.

      Please schedule an AppBuilder course on openSap where we can get some applications working that are integrated into the SAP back-end. Alternatively point perhaps there are blogs out there similar to the ESPM blog written by Ankur Kumar?

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      I've written a series of blog posts called "AppBuilder for PowerBuilder Developers".  Targeted at people (like me) that are proficient in Sybase PowerBuilder, since many of the concepts in AppBuilder are borrowed from PB.

      AppBuilder tips for PowerBuilder Developers

      AppBuilder Tips for PowerBuilder Developers #2

      AppBuilder tips for PowerBuilder Developers #3

      -Paul Horan-

      Author's profile photo Jan Schober
      Jan Schober