Debugging your code efficiently on SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio

[former_member187102]

Learning to debug efficiently is as important as learning to code efficiently to become a coding master. If you are looking to become a coding master for SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio applications, you must know about the hidden gems in SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio. And what’s more interesting, these gems are getting upgraded too!

Let’s take a look at these hidden gems:

Gem 1:

Most of us know that Debug mode gets enabled, if we press Ctrl+Alt+Shift+'D'. From SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio 1.5 onwards, we can debug a component using the Javascript Scripting tab.

In the example below, have played around with one of our Visual BI Extensions for SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio to get the “text” value from the Scripting tab.

By calling the keyword “this”  from Javascript Scripting tab, it provides JSON representation of your dashboard.

In the below screenshot, it showcases how the variable of the component is accessed by calling "this.aDebugJsonLogger[0].component.content.control.content[0].component”

Iterating the component structure enables us to debug all component properties (both main properties and additional properties)

Gem 2:

The same Javascript Console from SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio 1.5 now displays the output for the console.log(“Hello world from Design Studio”) called from your component.js, very similar to the browser debugging experience.

This is an interesting addition to the SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio 1.5.

Gem 3:

As an extension developer the issue we often face is some specific issues related only to the Design mode of DesignStudio, if you’re encountering a similar problem add the below parameters as part of your url.

&DESIGN_MODE=TRUE&DESIGN_MODE_OPTIMIZATION=X&DESIGN_MODE_MAX_MEMBERS=1000

Example: If your URL is something like, http://localhost:52821/aad/zen?APPLICATION=LOC&designersessionid=78

Just add the parameters as below:

http://localhost:52821/aad/zen?APPLICATION=LOC&DESIGN_MODE=TRUE&DESIGN_MODE_OPTIMIZATION=X&DESIGN_MO...

Now by running the same in IE, it should be recreating the same Design Mode scenario.

Gem 4:

This last gem is a popular demand from all SDK extension developers. Need for debugging the additional properties’ JS code!

Blindly by calling this hidden SDK function “eclipse_logJavaScriptMessage“ in your additional property javascript instead of console.log().

Example : eclipse_logJavaScriptMessage("Hello from APS - log","log");

The first argument of eclipse_logJavaScriptMessage  should be the message string within double quotes (“ “) and the second argument is about the severity, which can be either "error", “warn", "info" or “log”.

Got the above log, by adding these below lines as part of my Additional properties Javascript code block:

        eclipse_logJavaScriptMessage("Hello from APS - error","error");

        eclipse_logJavaScriptMessage("Hello from APS - warn","warn");

        eclipse_logJavaScriptMessage("Hello from APS - info","info");

        eclipse_logJavaScriptMessage("Hello from APS - log","log");

The best part of this feature is that you can modify the additional property code and test the console by pressing Ctrl+'F5' without restarting the SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio application.

This feature solves most of the issues faced by Extension developers for debugging the Additional property code.

Hope these gems come handy while you are in dire need to debug your code efficiently, share your feedback and other gems which can help the SDK extension developer community.