Get more out of ABAP in Eclipse with the Feature Explorer
ABAP in Eclipse offers lots of features which help you get things done faster. But whenever we talk with customers we noticed that lots of features are not widely known. To help you to get more out of ABAP in Eclipse we decided to build a new learning tool, called: Feature Explorer. It is available starting with ADT version 2.24. You can see it in the screenshot below. It’s the view on the right side.
The Feature Explorer offers an interactive learning experience. It gives you a set of challenges which you have to solve. You complete each challenge by using one or more ABAP in Eclipse features in a particular way. The screenshot below gives you an example. In this example the user solved the first challenge by opening the “Open ABAP Development Object” pop up and searching for an ABAP class.
The first version of the Feature Explorer ships with one tour, the beginners tour. It teaches you basic ABAP in Eclipse features every user should know. In the future we plan to ship more tours covering more advanced topics…
Where can I find the Feature Explorer?
When you do a fresh install of ABAP in Eclipse the Feature Explorer view automatically appears in the ABAP perspective. If you are doing an update you can open the view by using the menu “Window > Show View > Other…”.
This is a really good starting point and a very decent way of justify why to switch to Eclipse, easy, clear and fun. I would like to see this improved with more stuff (quick fix to create methods is a very cool)
Cheers!
Luis
Thanks, I am glad you like it 🙂
Concerning your request. As mentioned in the blog post our plan is to provide more tours in future releases e.g. one tour might solely focus on covering refactoring topics.
cheers
Thomas
Hi Thomas,
yesterday I updated my ADT installation to the latest release. I really like the new feature explorer (up till now I am not through all stages) because it's a good opportunity especially for the ones who are new to ADT to exercise and practice.
Maybe a good visible link can be placed on the Welcome page.
Maybe a nice thing would be to achive a SCN badge when all stages are finished ("ADT challenger" or something like this).
Best regards
Martin
I hoped get a free drink once I finished, but no luck for me 🙂
Cheers!
Luis
Hi Martin,
the ABAP in Eclipse Fan badge this week was only for warm-up.
Let's see what comes next. 😎
Regards,
Thomas.
Hi Martin,
A few minutes ago we just launched the Feature Explorer Mission in SCN.
I can't wait to read your feedback blog and hand over the badge to you.
Regards,
Thomas.
Hi Thomas,
I am just trying out how AiE can be used on a Mac.
For Mac-Users at least the short cut for opening a development object is different from what is told in the feature explorer. The combination Ctrl + Shift + A has to be replaced by cmd (apple key) + Shift + A. Probably there are more shortcuts (at least those coming from core eclipse) where the keys Ctrl and cmd have to be replaced.
Now I am stuck in opening the transaction SE11 because opening the SAPgui for java within AiE fails requesting a newer version (I am running with latest version 7.30Rev.8). But that will be worth opening a message in SMP.
Regards,
Kai
The Java Gui failure continues.
good to see
good one
Great starting (Y)
I Like it.
Good!!!!
Hi Thomas,
Very well explained. Thanks for the information. 🙂
Thank you.
Feature Explorer is missing in my help menu. I have Eclipse Neon and ADT 2.68.4. What can I do to restore it?
Hi Pavel,
just follow those steps:
1) In the top menubar select the menu "window"
2) Select menu entry "Show view"
3) A list of views appears the feature explorer might already be part of the list
4) If it is not in the list pick the last entry "Other..." and you should find it here
regards
Thomas
Well, I was able to add Feature Explorer view but it shows only white blank page and nothing more. What could be the reason?