ABAP Development Tools version 2.41 available now on our Updatesite
Today we released a new version of the ABAP Development Tools for Eclipse. ADT Version 2.41 is now general available on the SAP Tools Updatesite: SAP Development Tools for Eclipse
In this version we mainly focused on bug fixes, smaller round-offs and preparation work for the upcoming Eclipse Mars release.
We added two cool new features to the client version 2.41:
Editing in the Source Comparision Editor
The first feature might be very helpful when working with the same development object in several systems. There are already a few features available for you when working with several ABAP projects connected to different systems. For example you can open a development object very quickly in the other system just by using the context menu in the editor:
Open in Project -> <project-name>
The editor is opened and displays the object from the chosen system.
Very often you not only want to open the object but you also want to compare the code with each other.
Here we go. Just choose the following context menu item in the editor.
Compare With-><project-name>
The comparision view for the object is opened and explains you what the differences between the two versions. This is the same comparision view that we provide for the local history of objects and the revision history.
So far nothing new.But now to the new stuff:
With ADT 2.41 it is possible to edit both versions in the comparision view !
This is very helpful in case you want to bring some source code from one system to the other. So just start typing in one of the pages and do your job. Lock Handling and transport handling is the same as in the standard editor.
In addition to the standard editing capabilities the view also provides these buttons here that helps you to take over complete code sections from left to right or vice versa.
This feature is not only working for the classic ABAP development source code objects like classes, reports and function modules. It also works for ther new members of the ABAP family like CDS sources and AMDPs. Here for example you see a screenshots of a CDS view which is editable in two systems in parallel:
Outline View for CDS Views
The outline view is a very helpful feature in eclipse in general as it gives you a good overview and summary about a development object. For example for classes it shows you the methods, attributes, local classses and so on. The outline view is now also available for CDS views. Because of the rich feature set within the definition of these new views they can get very complex. Therefore we think that the outline can help the developers to get a quick overview about the defined view.
Here you see a screenshot of the new outline view for a typical CDS view:
You can very easily see the different sections of the definition like the FROM clause, the SELECT list, GROUP_BY sections and WHERE clauses. The outline view also gives you nice navigation capabilities as the view is linked with the corresponding editor. That means you can position your cursor on an element in the outline view and the corresponding element in the source code editor is marked and vice versa.
The outline view is also available as inline version in the editor called Quick Outline. Just press CTRL-O in the editor tab of the CDS view and you see the outline view as a small popup directly in the editor. In that case you have an additional filter line to restrict the displayed content:
This feature (which is also available for all other source code objects) might help in case you are working in the full screen mode where you don’t have the outline view opened.
So that’s it for today. Hope you like the new version of ABAP in Eclipse.
Feedback as usual very welcome !
Kind Regards,
Thomas.
Hi Thomas,
i just did the update, but unfortunately i'm no longer able to open any ABAP-project and it seems that the ABAP perspective is entirely missing.
Version Information
What can i do?
Regards Christian
Hi Christian,
that looks really strange. All plug-ins are there (updated version), but the perspective is missing. Can you please send me the support information about you Eclipse instance?
You can create them via Help=>Collect Support Information.
If this is missing, plesae check if the emergency .bat file exists next to the eclipse.exe.
Just send the archive via mail to me (felix.otto@sap.com).
Regards, Felix
Solved the issue with help of Felix Otto.
I had to adjust memory setting in eclipse.ini (replaced -Xmx512m with -Xmx2g) and restarted eclipse with -clean option.
Cool. Thanks for sharing this info.
There is an Eclipse bug report, which asks to increase the default memory setting at least to 1g (which would have been sufficient for Christian, but seeing that it's a Java EE distribution, I thought 2g will be helpful).
https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=314790
Hi Thomas,
Thanks for the update.
I like especially these new CDS features. However I still hope that there will be some improved graphical interface for CDS (and other DDIC view) editing in the future.
Cheers,
Peter
Hi Peter,
yes, we have a graphical tool under construction.
Regards,
Thomas.
Hi Thomas,
As far as I remember you already mentioned this earlier in one of the blogs comment.
It's a great news, I'm looking forward to it.
Peter
Thank you for the update:
Unfortunately pressing F1 in ABAP code doesn't lead me to the ABAP Help any more, but the eclipse help. Any Idea what to do?
Peter
looks like an issue with the eclipse key bindings.
Please press two times CTRL-SHIFT-L and you will see the keybindings preferences.
Please check on the screen whether there is a binding for F1:
Regards,
Thomas.
Hi Thomas,
yes, there is a binding:
But it brings me to the wrong help... What to do?
Peter
P.S. I am using Eclipse Kepler
Hi Peter,
please mark the item and press "Unbind Command".
Regards,
Thomas.
Thank you Thomas,
now it works again.
Peter
Did anyone try to include and use patterns from table TSE05 in Eclipse? It seems that ADT does not get the patterns defined there, and defining those patterns manually and locally for every single developer in Eclipse seems a little bit outdated.
Hi Benjamin,
the eclipse templates are stored on the local client that is correct. We are not reusing the ABAP templates. TRhere is the possibility to export the templates from eclipse in order to share the templates with your colleagues. There are ideas to use the ABAP server as central storage for templates but nothing is implemented so far.
Regards,
Thomas.
Thanks for your answer.
Tbh, I am a little confused about the fact, that the defined custom code template is not inserted automatically when I use Eclipse, because the object is still created and managed in the backend system, isn't it? So, from a very basic point of view, it should trigger the same procedures when I do "new report" in se80 or Eclipse.
It's not so important for myself but it can become important when such templates or program headers are recommended or required by conventions or guidelines
Regards,
Benjamin
Hello Thomas,
I noticed a difference in the search results of the ABAP where-used functionality. I don´t know if it came with the ADT version 2.41, or the recent upgrade of our SAP systems.
However, in the search result, I only see the line where the searched object occurs. Before, at least the whole statement containing the searched object was displayed, like in in the normal SAPGui.
I think this is an essential functionality, in order to quickly get an overview of the context. For example, if I search for a function module or a method, you directly saw the interface. Or if you search for a variable, you directly saw the context, how the variable is used. All this is lost with the new search result display.
Is this just a setting, that I can adjust, or is it a general change?
Regards,
Michael
Hi Michael,
just hover over the code snippet in the search result and you will get the details inside the tooltip.
Hope this helps...
Regards,
Michael
ok this helps a little bit, but it´s still not optimal. Is there no way to display the context for all search results? Only like this it´s easy to get a good overview. With the tooltip, you would be hovering back and forth between multiple results all the time. Especially for cases with many results this is really a step backwards...
Currently there is no other way...
We will think about your requirement.
What do you think about the new features of the where-used result list like
Ok thanks, this would be very nice, if the full display would be available at least as an optional setting.
The other features sound also interesting, can be quite useful I think. Only two remarks:
The counters for individual matches are not displayed directly for all objects. For some there is a "?" (even for cases where only 1 match is in) and it´s only displayed when you open the node.
For the filter by object type, when I press CTRL+space, I only get function groups, modules and programs. Is this currently all types or are there more available?
Well, the "?" is a tribute to performance. It is expensive to count the matches exactly, so you get the number only if all subnodes are already expanded. You can partly expand the tree by using the expand item in the context menu on each node.
The content assist provides only those object types of the found objects. So if you have hits in other object types you can use them as filter as well. (same for packages and users)
Hello Michael,
now I tested the filtering of the search result. It´s already helpful to go through the list of filter criterias. But it would be even better, if we could use wildcards there. This can be very useful in the filter by package. We have a structured package naming convention and if wildcards were possible, we could easily filter results by team/area,...
Or a more simple usecase would be to just filter for Z*.
Regards,
Michael
Yes sure, the wildcards would be an additional useful feature.
But concerning the package hierarchy... if you use a package as filter all subpackages will be considered as well... you don't need an elaborated naming convention for this!
Regards,
Michael
Hello Michael,
I forgot another point regarding the search results. Before, the line number of the calling position was displayed in the result. This is now not available anymore.
Can you consider adding the line number again? It is quite useful to also get more context of the calling positions, especially when there are multiple results in one object.
Thanks,
Michael
Hi!
I'm getting an error:
"Could not find https://tools.hana.ondemand.com/luna"
However, http://download.eclipse.org/releases/luna is working fine.
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Bruno
hi Bruno,
very often this is an issue with the proxy settings (Window=>Preferences, General=>Network Connections). Did you configure a proxy for HTTP but not for HTTPS?
Did you try out a direct connection ()?
Regards, Felix
Hi Felix,
Thanks so much for your reply.
Indeed, I tried the direct connection and it worked fine, that's why I thought it wasn't a problem with the proxy, but I tried from an unrestricted internet connection later and it worked fine.
Thanks again.
Kind regards,
Bruno
Hi Bruno,
try these settings 😉
~Florian
Hi Florian 🙂
Still doesn't work :/
But don't worry about it, I have everything installed now anyway 🙂
We should talk about those CDS views 😀
Cheers,
Bruno
PS: Let me take the opportunity to ask a completely unrelated question 🙂
Is it possible to deactivate auto-completion when you are typing variable names, and only have it manually when you press CTRL+SPACE?
Thanks 😀
Hi Bruno,
yes, there is a setting in the eclipse preferences: Suggest keywords-> Also suggest non-keywords.
Regards,
Thomas.
Perfect, thanks!
I don't know how it is for you, but to me it's quite slow sometimes when it's fetching the list of a structure with many variables, and it's much faster if you type a few letters before triggering the code completion, so NOT having it automatically triggered works best for me 🙂
Kind regards,
Bruno
sapjco3 version 721.416
I want to develop abap in eclipse, but, when i config it ,it show a error message. I had post a question. is there anybody can give me answer. Thanks. 🙂
Please use the dedicated discussion for answers/more detailed questions.
http://scn.sap.com/thread/3722464
Hi, Thomas,
Editing in Comparison View is very conveniently,
but I faced with few difficulties when working with it
1) Cyrillic symbols on the left side displayed correctly, but after saving they turn into ������� ���������
Nevertheless, instead of saving in Comparison View, it is possible to save changes (which were made in Comparison View) in separate editor tab without such problem.
2) there is no familiar editor functions:
- code completion (Ctrl + Space)
- drill down function via F3 or Ctrl+Click
- Tooltip description via F2
- line deletion via Ctrl+D
and so on
Thanks,
Vitaliy
Hi Vitali,
Thank you for your feedback.
This seems to be a bug. We will take care of this issue.
These are known limitations. We have not added these features due to other priorities. I hope you understand this.
Regards,
Michael
Thank you, Michael