Use Portal Data Viewer (PDV) in EP 6.0 ?
Which role should the quite popular PDV play in your decisions regarding development for Enterprise Portal 6.0 ?
To answer have a closer look at PDV:
PDV is a Portal Component, which imeplements the HMLB for JAVA TableView Control.
PDV adds 2 nice features. One is the enduser personalization of tablecolums. The price you have to pay for this feature is, that you do not implement just a control in your page, but that you reference a readymade Portal Componenet. So you gain speed in implementing but you loose flexiblity. And you can achieve everything known from PDV also with HTMLB.
The other feature is the cause why it was invented. It offers a ready to run Java implementation for the SAP R/3 Query. But notably, exactly this one has never been implemented in remarkable numbers by content projects.
Unfortenately this is maybe the cause , why PDV was often missunderstood and misapplied as a connection tool. This was never what it was intended to do. So if you dont use SAP Query or extensive enduser column personalization, consider not to use PDV and "native" HTMLB instead for content development in EP 6.0.
The future is Webdynpro:
With Webdynpro, EP will offer a complete architecture and toolset for developing user interfaces for any needs , also without coding one single line. This will be the successor for most business cases of PDV.
Best Regards,
Oliver
