Version dependency of a custom Adobe Flash Island with the ABAP back-end?

[Former Member]

Since custom Adobe Flash Islands include SAP standard library WDIslandLibrary30.swc, I'm wondering to know which rules applies to grant that a custom Island is compatible with its ABAP back-end (runtime) and so also supported from OSS.

Indeed, after applying a new SAP_BASIS Support Package (e.g. from SAPKB70104 to SAPKB70106) it's quite normal that a new version of the library is available in the mime repository and it would be nice to know if a re-build of the flex project is always required (with the new version of the library) or there is kind of granted backward compatibility.

And in the future, what about bigger steps like upgrading to SAP Web AS 7.02 or going to 7.2, 7.3 ?

Should we plan to re-compile all the flex island projects during future Upgrades?

Sergio

[thomas_jung · Accepted solution]

>is kind of granted backward compatibility

There is a measure of backward compatibility. The WDIslandLibrary30.swc is actually, mostly an empty implementation. It is sort of a proxy if you will. The actual functionality of the FlashIslands interface is contained in the library FlashIslandLibImpl30.swf. This file is loaded from the MIME repostory (or the local browser cache) upon initialization. The WDIslandsLibrary30.swc is only responsible for this loading.

That way, SAP can patch the FlashIslandLibImp30.swf on the server and the next time your application runs it will request this updated version of the runtime - no rebuild of the Flex Component necessary.

Now this works up to a point. As we extend the interface of the FlashIslands library we will add new methods and attributes. In order to have this new functionality available in your FlashIsland, you need to link in a new version of the WDIslandLibary30.swc into the project. Of course you would have to rebuild the component anyway to take advantage of new functionality.

So I can tell you my experience with the upgrade from 7.01 to 7.02. We have many new features in FlashIslands in 7.02 - like Drag and Drop and Theme Support. However my Flex Components that were built against the 7.01 version of the SWF Implementation still work perfectly fine even when loading the 7.02 version. I didn't have to rebuild any Flex Components to run against the new version. I did download the new version of the SWC to my local machine that new projects would be built with the newer framework. I also rebuilt some Flex Components that I wanted to take advantage of new features.

We will strive to maintain this approach with the Islands Framework. That said in the future there could be a bug so serious that we have to update the SWC as well. Or there could be some incompatible change to the interface in a future upgrade - however these things would be avoided unless absolutely necessary.

[SergioFerrari · Accepted solution]

I like it !