Introduction

SAPUI5 is a client UI technology based on JavaScript, CSS and HTML5. Web apps developed with SAPUI5 run in a browser on any device like mobile, tablet or desktop PC. When users access SAPUI5 app, a request is sent to the respective server to load the application into the browser.

SAPUI5 comes with all main SAP platforms but can also be used outside the SAP ecosystem because a large part of SAPUI5 had been open sourced with OpenUI5.

When it comes to SAPUI5 – there are dependencies between SAP user interface technology(SAP_UI), SAPUI5, AS Abap and SAP Fiori front end server (FES).

For example, SAP S/4 HANA 1909 supports below

SAP Fiori front end server – 6.0
SAP Gateway – 7.51 to 7.54
SAP UI – 7.54
SAPUI5 – 1.65

More details at 2217489 – Maintenance and Update Strategy for SAP Fiori Front-End Server

Basics Of SAPUI5 vs OpenUI5

For audience like me who are new to UI5, here is the basic difference b/w SAPUI5 & OpenUI5.

• OpenUI5: It is open source i.e. it is free for use to build web applications. Its core is based on javascript, jQuerry and LESS.
• SAPUI5: It is mainly used by SAP customers with certain kind of license. It is integrated with SAP std. products like SAP Hana, SAP Cloud Platform, SAP NW 7.4 7 higher and included in SAP UI technology component (SAP_UI).

More details at What is OpenUI5 / SAPUI5 ? by Andreas Kunz and OpenUI5 vs. SAPUI5

Versioning of SAPUI5

SAPUI5 uses a 3-digit version identifier, for example 1.26.4. These digits have the following meaning:

• The first digit (1) specifies the major version number.
• The second digit (26) specifies the minor version number.
• The third digit (4) specifies the patch version number.

The version number for each new SAPUI5 release contains a major and minor version number. The patch version number is only used to identify patches within a release.

New SAPUI5 1.71

SAPUI5 1.71 is available with SAP_UI 7.54 SP02 and was released on 16th January 2020. Further release & maintenance information of SAP_UI for year 2020 is

• SAP_UI 754: SP03 – 09th April 2020
• SAP_UI 754: SP04 – 13th July 2020

More details at SAP UI_Support Packages

SAP has also announced that with the release of Fiori front end server 6.0 SP01, SAPUI5 1.71 will be included in it. SAP_UI 7.54 SP02 also possess 1 high, 55 medium & 4 low priority program corrections for better quality.

For developers What’s New In SAPUI5 1.71
One of the key enhancement is that there is visual improvement of the column separator to enhance visibility. It is applied to the SAP Quartz Light theme and both SAP Belize themes (along with the high-contrast themes) and there are no differences between the cozy mode and the compact mode.

With the release of SAPUI5 1.71, the SAPUI5 tool for Eclipse will no longer be maintained. Version 1.71 is the last SAPUI5 version for which SAP will update the SAPUI5 tools for Eclipse and going forward SAP recommend the use SAP Web IDE as the development environment for SAPUI5. There are other alternative tools which support javascript development like

Visual Studio
Code Sublime
& WebStorm

More details for alternative tools and transition from Eclipse at SAPUI5 Tools for Eclipse – Now is the Time to Look for Alternatives by Matthias Schmalz

Conclusion

In this blog post, you now have the understanding of SAPUI5, how it is different from OpenUI5 and the version comprehension of SAPUI5. Furthermore, newly introduced enhancements and obsolete tool for SAPUI5 version 1.71 are also covered.

References:

SAP Fiori Basics: SAP Fiori Overview
SAP Tools: SAP Development Tools
SAP Fiori 3:  SAP TechEd News Guide 2019, First parts of SAP Fiori 3 available for on-premise customers – SAP S/4HANA and SAP Business Suite by Thomas Reiss

Thanks to UX expert Jocelyn Dart for sharing the great knowledge with such wonderful blog posts time to time.