BSP island in WD4A possible?

[Former Member]

Hello,

I currently attending a WD4A training.

I know that it is poosible to integrate Sliverlight and Flash Island in WD4A.

Is it also possible to integrate a BSP island in WD4A in order to add flexiblity to WD4A?

Which things on architecture and programming have to be considered for the integration?

How to transfer data between BSP and WD4A application?

All the best,

Guido Brune

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hello,

it the IFrame not a kind of HTML island already?

BSP will add flexibity to Web Dynpro programming model.

All the best,

Guido

[ChrisPaine · Accepted solution]

>it the IFrame not a kind of HTML island already?

not really - it only allows one way communication - whereas Islands all allow 2 way communication.

You can use it happily to visualise data - as longs as you can pass a reference to your data in the URL parameter - but have to be aware that it may get called multiple times (always have it in its own view) and you have no standard methods to get data out of it.

A BSP with a parameter to read a shared memory area for data sharing and some sort of polling mechanism on both sides to update the data... but then again - if having a non-standard (pretty/pixel perfect layout) UI is your concern - just learn how to code in Flex!

[Former Member]

Chris,

thanks for insights!

I have no times to learn Flex.

I want to use WebDynpro for ABAP on IPhone, Flex is no best option.

Thanks,

Guido

[thomas_jung]

>I want to use WebDynpro for ABAP on IPhone, Flex is no best option.

I wouldn't say that WDA is perfect for the iPhone anyway. First you need to be aware that there is no support for Web Dynpro running in Safari on the iPhone. In 7.02 we did add a rendering path for Safari which does improve the rendering quality for Safari (and webkit based browsers) but this is only offically supported for Safari on MacOS.

In general, I though you should be rather careful about how you intermix BSP and WDA. It can lead to confusing interface for the end users if you start mixing very different user interface concepts and designs. I would use this approach only sparringly for reuse of legacy pieces that you can't afford to re-write of if you have some external content you want to integrate (Mapping application or 3d visualization or Open Source HTML Editor for example). Same rule as FlashIslands - never recreate any UI element or construct that already exists in Web Dynpro.

[Former Member]

Hello Thomas,

you qouted:

There is no HTML Island yet (it wouldn't be BSP specific anyway).

Why it would not BSP spefic?

BSP offers the abiltiy to build custom render items and it is ABAP based.

Can you give us more information on this quote?

Regards,

Guido Brune

[ChrisPaine]

An HTML island would be far more useful (in my opinion) than a BSP island. The Best Built Apps guide doesn't recommend using BSP any more - and surprisingly doesn't even caveat this with points about where BSP may be better than WDA (apart from CRM).

UI-TECH-6. SAP does not encourage use of the following user interface technologies:
u2022 Business Server Pages (BSP)

I'd read this as a clear direction statement from SAP that the days of BSP being actively improved/developed for are numbered. HTML5 support for BSP - I'd not hold my breath - but that's possibly just me being overly cynical.

As a an aside there is a quote tag that you can use in the forums - look on the right hand side of the editor screen under "Further Markup Possibilities" it is possibly good to use this, or even the humble ">" at the start of a line to indicate that you are quoting someone rather than just using italics.

Cheers,

Chris

[thomas_jung]

>Why it would not BSP spefic?

Why would you want something BSP specific? If we were to do some sort of HTML Island, it would be open so that any HTML based content could run in it. We would use JavaScript as the communication mechanism for events and data into and out of the Island. This would work fine with BSP as well.

>Is BSP supporting HTML5?

Absolutely. Since you can write your own custom HTML and JavaScript in BSP you can write HTML5 content today. I wrote some HTML5 prototypes using BSP over the summer.

Don't expect an HTML5 version of the SAP BSP Extension Elements (HTMLB) anytime soon - if ever. I'm sure our focus will be on an HTML5 version of the Web Dynpro renderer first.

>How to transfer data between WD4A and BSP island?

Considering these Islands don't exist (yet), it would just be sepeculation on how to transfer data. If you come to TechEd and attend the What's New in Web Dynpro ABAP session, you might see more on this topic.

Of the approaches we mentioned that you could do today, you could communicate in a variety of ways. For example if you use the two iViews appraoch you could use Portal Eventing between BSP<->WDA in either direction.

[Former Member]

Thomas,

if you invited me to Teched it might be an option.

Otherwise I have to do better things with my time and money.

Guido

[Former Member]

Helllo,

thanks for answers!

With BSP embeed island you can come to more pixeloriented and customized layout.

Is BSP supporting HTML5?

How to transfer data between WD4A and BSP island?

In the direction WDA4 -> BSP island a object GUID can be handled over. In BSP application over the GUID a object can be instanced. But how to do the comunication BSP -> WD4A? Shared objects? Can I call a WD4A application via URL parameter.

Regards & Thanks,

Guido Brune

[thomas_jung]

There is no HTML Island yet (it wouldn't be BSP specific anyway). You can use the iFrame or the URL based CHIP (in 7.02) to integrate non Web Dynpro HTML content (like BSP) into Web Dynpro ABAP. The only interface with the iFrame however is via URL parameters - unlike the eventing and complex data interfaces available via Islands.

With the Portal or NWBC you can integrate two iViews within a page - one Web Dynpro and one BSP. They can exchange data and events using Portal Eventing.

[ChrisPaine]

>There is no HTML Island yet

oh I like the way this is heading - yet

Also, perhaps you could consider communicating between the WDA and the BSP using long-polling type techniques and SMA's using a remote listener type model if you absolutely had to embed the component in the middle of your WDA app in an IFrame (not an Apple product yet iFrame or perhaps they do have a desktop e-photoframe