Managing SAPUI5 Dependencies in SAP Screen Personas – new guide available

SAP Screen Personas relies heavily on SAPUI5 during both design- and runtime. The flavor, script, and theme editors all use SAPUI5 controls. When you open the flavor manager in SAP Screen Personas at runtime, this too uses SAPUI5 libraries. Slipstream Engine employs SAPUI5 extensively to render simplified SAP GUI transactions (SAP Screen Personas flavors) on phones, tablets, or desktops.

Usually, everything works seamlessly and you don’t need to worry about what version of SAPUI5 is running. Sometimes, different solutions load their own version of SAPUI5 (SAP Fiori launchpad, for example) and you need to know when and how to configure the versions to ensure compatibility.

The SAP Screen Personas client and Slipstream Engine components can be loaded either independently or in conjunction with each other. The two components have different SAPUI5 version dependency requirements. Here some examples of different scenarios:

• SAP Screen Personas standalone: SAP Screen Personas is loaded with SAP GUI for HTML. Slipstream Engine components are not loaded.
• Slipstream Engine standalone: Slipstream Engine is loaded in SAP Fiori launchpad. SAP Screen Personas client components are not loaded
• Used together: The SAP Screen Personas flavor editor can be used to personalize Slipstream Engine screens. Both SAP Screen Personas client and Slipstream Engine components are loaded in a single page application sharing the same SAPUI5 instance

Each SAP Screen Personas service pack comes with a slightly customized SAPUI5 version that is used for:

• Rendering the SAP Screen Personas client interface when personalizing SAP GUI for HTML screens
• Rendering the Slipstream Engine and SAP Screen Personas client interface when personalizing Slipstream Engine screens and the sap-ui-version URL parameter value is set to personas
• The optional loading of SAPUI5 dependencies for custom SAP Screen Personas Slipstream Engine or SAP GUI for HTML scripts

The SAPUI5 version that is loaded with SAP Screen Personas in SAP GUI for HTML is not changeable by end-users and is not required for flavor rendering. So, if you are using Web GUI, everything is taken care of and there is no action you need to take.

For Slipstream Engine, you might need to perform some additional configuration to ensure SAPUI5 compatibility if the SAPUI5 version installed on the front-end server is different than the SAPUI5 version loaded when creating SAP Screen Personas Slipstream Engine flavors that you deploy on the SAP Fiori launchpad as SAPUI5 Fiori apps. There are also some other situations that might create a need for manual configuration to ensure SAPUI5 compatibility across different SAP solutions you are running together.

To learn more, read our new “Mastering SAPUI5 Dependencies for SAP Screen Personas Applications” documentation for a complete guide on how to address SAPUI5 versioning with SAP Screen Personas and Slipstream Engine. It includes details on:

• The general SAPUI5 version and theme requirements for SAP Screen Personas and Slipstream Engine
• How to determine and configure relevant SAPUI5 versions and themes for Slipstream Engine flavor development, testing, and deployment
• Best practices when building Slipstream Engine flavors that are compatible with different SAPUI5 versions and themes

Thanks to Krists Magons, Tamas Hoznek, and Conrad Bernal for contributing to the guide and blog.

For SAP UX Engineering, Peter Spielvogel.