Am I missing something !

[Former Member]

I've been playing around with Web Dynpro for ABAP for about 4 months now.

I've come to the conclusion that it's hard to build a case for using it. It's slower than the standard SAP Windows GUI Controls and isn't as feature rich.

The ALV grid which as most ABAP'ers know is the most used control is crap on Web Dynpro. Where have all the wonderful toolbar controls gone with the in-built functionality.

I've used the component SALV_WD_TABLE which is better than the table control, but it's not good.

Are there any better components out there or does someone have an example of a feature rich component.

At the moment it's hard to build a case for ABAP Web Dynpro ?

When microsoft brought out ASP.NET the controls were miles better than the windows XP gui. Has SAP taken a step backwards ?

What do you guys think....

[OttoGold]

Dear sirs,

I wonder what is the progress. I have got here when searching for ALV Excel in-place. Can anybody refresh the status/ current state of development? I hope any progress has been achieved since this thread has been created.

By the way: I cannot imagine what would happen if I would offer my users to use Crysta Reports instead of Excel (government project:))))). By luck, does anybody has any experience with ALV Excel in-place in dypro through ITS? Of course I understand that is not that WD related, but I would appreciate any information about it.

Thank you all for your time and effort, especially Mr. Jung:)) Thank you Mr. ABAP,

regards Otto

[thomas_jung]

>The ALV grid which as most ABAP'ers know is the most used control is crap on Web Dynpro. Where have all the wonderful toolbar controls gone with the in-built functionality.

Although moved from the toolbar most of the standard ALV in-built functionality is there in the WDA version of the ALV. Some of it has to be enabled from code first. Here are some of the standard functions that you might want to activate if you want more of the things from the dynpro ALV:

data l_salv_wd_table type ref to iwci_salv_wd_table.
  l_salv_wd_table = wd_this->wd_cpifc_alv( ).
  data l_table type ref to cl_salv_wd_config_table.
  l_table = l_salv_wd_table->get_model( ).
  l_table->if_salv_wd_table_settings~set_scrollable_col_count( 8 ).

  l_table->if_salv_wd_table_settings~set_fixed_table_layout( abap_true ).
  l_table->if_salv_wd_std_functions~set_display_as_allowed( abap_true ).
  l_table->if_salv_wd_std_functions~set_count_records_allowed( abap_true ).
  l_table->if_salv_wd_std_functions~set_excel_inplace_allowed( abap_true ).
  l_table->if_salv_wd_std_functions~set_graphic_allowed( abap_true ).
  l_table->if_salv_wd_std_functions~set_hierarchy_allowed( abap_true ).
  l_table->if_salv_wd_std_functions~set_aggregation_allowed( abap_true ).

The options to activate these features are then within the settings dialog:

Here are some screenshots:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tjung/3368362901/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tjung/3368362917/

We are always looking to improve the feature parity between the classic dynpro ALV and the Web Dynpro ALV (like with the recent addition of resizable columns and drag and drop rearrangement) - were there some features in particular that you would like to see. Going back to development and telling them that their control is crap probably isn't going to be enough detail to get a project started.

I'm obviously biased but I tend to thing of the SALV_WD_TABLE as pretty feature rich. It does a pretty broad range of things. Maybe others on the forum will chime in agreement with either you or me - but still specific feedback is most helpful. What features would you need it to have?

>At the moment it's hard to build a case for ABAP Web Dynpro ?

Of course there are limitations to running in browser, but that is part of the price you pay for a zero client installation experience. Of course interpreted HTML running a web browser over HTTP is going to be slower than a highly optimized, dedicated desktop client running a propriatery communication protocol directly on TCP/IP.

However lets talk about some of the things that Web Dynpro can do that Classic Dynpro can't. First of all the programming model is much more modern (MVC) and the design tools are better than the old screen painter. Much more modeling. Sure there is a learning curve and some people are still resistant to OO, but in the long run our own internal studies have shown that developers are more efficient with WD.

You say that Web Dynpro isn't as feature rich. It is true that it may not have every feature that was in the SAPGUI (often due to browser sandboxing or architecture) - but it actually has a much larger UI element set than Classic Dynpro. It also supports a level of runtime personalization and customization that was never built into classic dynpro. Now we are even able to extend Web Dynpro by using Adobe Flex (Flash Islands) and Microsoft Silverlight (Silverlight Islands).

Web Dynpro also has an abstracted rendering engine. This means that SAP can change the HTML rendering engine over time and it not need individual applications to be rewritten. This was seen recently when we rewrote the rendering engine to include more AJAX, to have inline CSS and load on demand Javascript - all with NetWeaver 7.0 EnhP1 (called the Lightspeed rendering engine).

But abstraction also means that you can run Web Dynpro in other envinronments than just the browser. With NetWeaver 7.02 we will have the NetWeaver Business Client 3.0 and the Smart Client Renderer for Web Dynpro. Web Dynpro will output XML instead of HTML and JavaScript. This XML will be interpreted on the client by a dedicated desktop application (written in .Net 3.0 and WPF). This provides a desktop user experience from a speed and network bandwidth standpoint (much like that of the old SAPGUI classic dynpro) - yet without having to change anything in your application.

Another reason is that SAP has choosen Web Dynpro as the primary UI technology moving forward. Of course we won't force customers to use it if they don't want to. But this is where SAP is going to be putting its investment dollars. If you want to take advantage of those dollars, you should consider using Web Dynpro.

There are lots of other items as well - like Floorplan Manager, Help Center, POWL, Adobe Interactive Forms Integration, etc - but I don't have time to detail out everything.

> When microsoft brought out ASP.NET the controls were miles better than the windows XP gui. Has SAP taken a step backwards ?

Its been a few years, but I was a VB programmer in those days as well. I seem to have a different memory of what it was like when ASP.Net first came out. But thats a debate for a different day/website.

[Former Member]

Hi Thomas,

I tried your suggestion ....

We are running SAP ECC 6.0 (Rel. 700 Level 0015) and have the requirement to export the ALV table to Excel. The ALV table contains also column color formatting which would be important to also see in the the Excel. The result is that only the data is transferred with a grey header. The ALV column colors are lost.

According to the SAP documentation, if I set the following:

l_table->if_salv_wd_std_functions~set_excel_inplace_allowed( abap_true ).

l_table->if_salv_wd_std_functions~set_graphic_allowed( abap_true ).

then the 'Display As' dropdown should show a couple of extra options like: Table, Graphic, Table and Graphic. I expected to see the option for 'Excel InPlace' as well but it does not appear.

I was hopeful that Web Dynpro for ABAP would offer Excel InPlace as this is a really nice functionality which SAP GUI users enjoy.

Is this a support package issue?

Best regards,

Jodie

[thomas_jung]

Excel in-place within the HTML rendering of Web Dynpro is not yet supported. It is something that we can hopefully support in the NWBC Smart Client rendering in the future. The technical challenges of running Excel in-place within the web browser as a control are quite high - especially if the funtionality must be replicated in all supported browsers; not just IE.

[thomas_jung]

Just a note - that in NetWeaver 7.0 Enhancement Package 2 we offer the option to display ALV in-place using Crystal Reports. The Crystal Reports output allows for much greater control over the report formatting and will likely be the main way of displaying and printing formatted reporting out of ALV moving forward. We will of course continue to support the PDF print option and the Export to Excel, but Crystal is easier to apply complex formatting to the output and we have the ability to allow customers to use their own custom Crystal report templates when displaying the ALV data.

[Former Member]

Hi Thomas,

Thanks for the fast reply - at least now I know it doesn't work (yet). I guess I will continue to look at other options for getting the colors in Excel eg. building XML-Excel.

Cheers,

Jodie