Technical Articles
Introducing the easy-ui5 generator
Bootstrapping OpenUI5 projects can be very tedious and repetitive and involve tasks such as copying & pasting files/folders from one existing project to another. Many times you probably forget to update the best practices and dependencies to the most recent version, and then you need to edit all files manually… I say: NO MORE
In this blog post, I would like to introduce you to a new scaffolding tool I built during the last couple of months.
Updates:
29th Jan 2021: Rebranding to SAP BTP
8th Apr 2021: Released version 3 of easy-ui5. Please note that some commands changed. You’ll always be able to find the latest commands and instructions on the GitHub page of the default plugin.
What is easy-ui5?
The aim of this (yeoman-based) generator is to simplify the creation of OpenUI5 prototypes. The tool helps you to scaffold simple UI5 projects from the shell/terminal of your choice. The current best practices (such as async) are already baked into our templates, so you don’t have to worry about the definition of metadata files.
Update: 30th October: I just published the latest version of this tool. Now you can deploy your web apps to XSA and the Cloud Foundry HTML5 Application Repository as well.
Update: 11th March: I updated the post according to the latest version (1.3) and the new target platforms and sub generators that come with it. And a special thanks goes out to Jakob Marius Kjær for this pull request and sub-generators!
Check out how easy it is
Feature list
- Create a simple OpenUI5 project within seconds
- Leverages the new UI5 tooling
- Supports the new Fiori 3 themes Quartz Light and Quartz Dark
- Use the built-in scripts
- To minify the Javascript code
- To build a .mtar archive
- Pre-build configurations for many target platforms
Target platforms
Static webserver
This is the most basic option. Choose this option if you want to deploy the web app in your custom environment or host it on an arbitrary server.
Application Router @ Cloud Foundry
This is the most basic way to deploy the web app in Cloud Foundry-based environments. Besides the basic UI5 project, the generator will add an Approuter node.js-module that serves the web app.
Application Router @ SAP HANA XS Advanced
This is the standard way to deploy the web app in SAP HANA XSA-based environments. Besides the basic UI5 project, the generator will add an Approuter node.js-module that serves the web app.
SAP HTML5 Application Repository service for SAP BTP
This option is a more sophisticate way to serve the web app from Cloud Foundry-based environments. The generator will include all modules that are included in the Application Router @ Cloud Foundry and, additionally, install a module to upload the web app to the HTML5 application repository during deploy-time. You can watch this presentation to learn more about the benefits of using the HTML5 application repository.
SAP Launchpad service
Use this option if you would like to develop a Fiori Launchpad application that should run on Cloud Foundry. The generator will include all modules that are included in the SAP HTML5 Application Repository service for SAP BTP and, additionally, install a module that adds Fiori Launchpad resources to the HTML5 application repository.
SAP NetWeaver
Use this option if you want to deploy your application(s) to the SAP NetWeaver ABAP Repository.
How to install it
You can install the generator via pm. Download Node.js first if you haven’t done this before, or even better: Set up your local dev environment.
- Install Yeoman and the generator plugin
npm install -g yo generator-easy-ui5
- Verify your installation
yo
Additionally, I would recommend the following steps if you want to deploy the application to SAP BTP, Cloud Foundry environment:
- Create a free SAP BTP Trial account
- Set your environment up and connect to your Cloud Foundry endpoint
cf login
- Install the MultiApps CF CLI Plugin
How to use it
Bootstrapping a new UI5 project
- Scaffold your OpenUI5 project
yo easy-ui5
- Answer the prompts to create your OpenUI5 project
- Run it locally
cd <your project name> npm start
- Deploy it to SAP BTP, Cloud Foundry runtime (Make sure you set up your environment correctly)
npm run deploy
Sub-generators to avoid recurring tasks
Add a new view
This sub-generator will create a new view (of the same type you specified during the creating of your project) and a new controller and route. If you have OPA5 tests, you can add a corresponding page object now or later with another sub-generator.
yo easy-ui5:newview
Create a custom control
Run the following command from your project’s root to scaffold a custom control.
yo easy-ui5:newcontrol
Add a new model
This sub-generator will create a new model in your manifest. Currently, JSON and OData v2 models are supported with various configuration options.
yo easy-ui5:newmodel
Add a new component usage
This sub-generator will add a new component usage for component reuse to your manifest.
yo easy-ui5:newcomponentusage
UIVeri5 tests
This sub-generator will add a basic UIVeri5 test. It will ask you for test configuration and names of the suite and spec. You can add page objects now or later with another sub-generator.
yo easy-ui5:uiveri5
This sub-generator will create a UIVeri5 page object and a new test that shows how to use the page object:
yo easy-ui5:newuiveri5po
This sub-generator will create a UIVeri5 spec file:
yo easy-ui5:newuiveri5spec
OPA5 tests
This sub-generator will add a basic OPA5 test setup. You can add page objects now or later with another sub-generator.
yo easy-ui5:opa5
This sub-generator will create an OPA5 page object and add it to your journeys:
yo easy-ui5:newopa5po
This sub-generator will create an OPA5 journey and add it to your test page:
yo easy-ui5:newopa5journey
wdi5
test framework
There’s a sub-generator available to add
wdi5
as the test framework- a basic
wdi5
config and - a sample test file
to the UI5 application by easy-ui5
.
cd yourEasyUI5-project
yo easy-ui5:wdi5
I hope this tool will save you some time and make your life easier!
I’d be more than happy if you could provide feedback about this generator (either here or on GitHub).
Disclaimer: This is NOT a replacement for the Web IDE of any kind. The generator should be seen as a complementary offer for developers who prefer working from the command line and their own editors/IDEs.
The purpose of this generator is to guide you on your first steps with SAPUI5 and SAP BTP deployments. Once you are familiar with those technologies, you might want to tweak the projects to adapt them for productive use-cases (such as continuous deployment pipelines and full i18n).
Very nice, much needed. Similar kind of CLI based tooling work with Angular, Ionic etc. seamlessly.
Nice! Thank you for the blog and the tool to add to my tool belt.
Hi, Marius.
Thanks a lot for easy-ui5 generator, he is very suitable.
I made my own(more simple and smaller) generator based on yours, but i don't understand how to debug generators?
Hi Aleksandr,
that sounds great! I'm happy that I could inspire you. Have a look at this guide to learn generator debugging.
Thanks, Marius.
I found the command below earlier:
In case you run your generator with
You need to execute
Thanks Marius
Thank you for the great post. Working on CAP application, trying to add UI5 app, FLP Launchpad to it, went through various ways to add UI5 code from your post . Have trouble accessing portal site , getting " unauthorized or 500 " error accessing UI . ( tried with assigning all roles required, still getting same error)
"GET request to /cp.portal/site completed with status 500 401 - {\"error\":\"unauthorized\",\"error_description\":\"Bad credentials\"}"
But it works fine with ui5 code embedded in standalone approuter .
Am I missing anything for multitenant apps?
Easy-ui5 is no longer using the redirect via "cp.portal". I assume the problem you are facing is not related to the generator - sorry.
Hello Marius and thanks for this.
Is there anyway I could just create a project by providing a folder path in my pc?
Thanks alot