Displaying Only the Relevant Objects in the Project Explorer

Did you ever want to arrange the objects in the Project Explorer in accordance to your current work? If so, we have here the solution for you with the new ABAP repository trees!

An ABAP repository tree is a container that represents a predefined structure of development objects in the Project Browser. In addition, it displays further information such as the number of containing objects (displayed in brackets on folder level) and the short description of the objects (displayed in italic after the corresponding object).

The only prerequisite is that you work on the latest SAP NetWeaver 7.51 back end version which is connected with an SAP HANA database.

To get a fast and an easy overview, just see here our video:

Features

The ABAP repository trees are provided by default for the Local Objects and System Library trees as well as the Favorite Packages. But you can also:

• Create your client-specific own tree
• Adapt and redefine trees at every time again
• Duplicate trees in order to create a new tree on base of another one

You can predefine the behavior of the ABAP repository trees in the preferences to display additional information or manage objects:

• Display or hide short descriptions
• Display or hide the number of containing objects containing in a tree
• Collect directly assigned objects in an extra package

You want to adopt the default behavior? No problem, you can preconfigure the behavior of the trees on the ABAP Development > Project Explorer Preferences page at any time.

How to Define ABAP Repository Trees

You can create such trees easily from the context menu on project level.
Just select the relevant tree and choose New > ABAP Repository Tree… from the context menu from the context menu.

In the dialog to be opened, you configure the content to be displayed in an ABAP repository. To make it easy for you, you can use templates for the most relevant use cases.

To define the structure of your new tree level, drag & drop the properties step-by-step from the left to right in the preview structure of the selected tree levels.

In the following example, a developer only wants to see the classes assigned to the “SRIS_ADT” ABAP package.

Enter here the name of the tree to be created. When defining the criteria from the Object Selection area, you can benefit from the content assist. Start typing your filter criteria and press Ctrl+Space to get support. Then, ADT proposes the relevant entries directly. In addition, you can also use the wildcards like ‘*’.

After pressing Finish, the corresponding tree is added in the Project Explorer.

When you exit ADT and open it again, the Project Explorer will display the same content. To display all objects of a folder, press F5 on the corresponding one.

I think that’s very helpful when you work on a specific tasks where you only want to see specific objects.

Setting the Tree Preferences

You want to adapt the default tree behavior? Just open the ABAP Development > Project Explorer Preferences page.

Here you have the following possibilities to set:

• Hiding or displaying short descriptions
• Collecting objects that are not assigned to a package in a temporary extra package
• Hiding or displaying the number of objects and defining the display color
• Hiding or displaying the default text “<party loaded>” on folder levels that contain more than the displayed objects
• Defining the number of folder levels to be opened when using the link with editor functionality

For more information, see Working with ABAP Repository Trees