Process for Theme Editing

[Former Member]

Hi,

I'm changing the theme for our E-recruiting WDA applications. So I have installed the eclipse theme editor http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/downloads?rid=/library/uuid/b08a05ec-e24a-2d10-189e-f5c6bcbf39a5 and am able to edit the standard themes contained in zip files that comes with this tool. I can also upload these to our SAP system but the version differs. I can manually edit the version number as discussed here but not sure this is recommended? It is very important we keep the highest browser support possible.

Instead I was thinking that I would like to use the tradeshow theme available on my system as basis for my new theme. This is to make sure the version of the theme is correct. I have succesfully downloaded the theme using  BSP_UPDATE_MIMEREPOS as described here but how do I get this downloaded theme into eclipse theme editor?

My last problem is that I'm not able to see my uploaded theme using application parameters sap-ep-themeroot or sap-cssurl but if I hardcode the theme to use in WD_GLOBAL_SETTING then it works. Any idea why that is?

There is also a WIKI about the subject here SAP Community Network Wiki - Web Dynpro ABAP - Stylesheet for WDA without integrating in SAP Portal but it doesn't mention any of the above problems.

Can anyone guide me to make sure I do this theme change the recommended way?

BR Jan

[gill367 · Accepted solution]

you cannot export the theme downloaded from portal into the SAP system.

you have to generate it from eclipse theme editor and there you can get only the project files theme which you can download from sdn.

changing the version is fine. even i have used it in my project and make sure you are using the latest one.

plus eclipse theme editor doesn't give you full access to modify complex properties of the theme.

In some complex scenarios, you can directly update the style sheets in mime repository.

If your theme is uploaded correctly. Does it show in the report "wd_themes". If yes, it should be available in the f4 help of application parameter "WDTHEMEROOT".

Regards,

Sarbjeet Singh

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi and (and other WDA theme editor experts )

I really hope you can find time to help me even if my post is long

First an update...

- Seeing my application runs outside the portal I gave up using the exported theme from portal.

- Yes my theme does show in wd_themes and I have managed to get my application to use it when I change it globally for all WD apps on system using wd_global_setting. I have yet to have another look at setting using wdthemeroot or similar.

But now to a more important issue:

I have some problems with my newly developed theme. I changed the version manually as suggested before upload and at first it seems to work fine. But some UI elements have a strange behavior. As I show in the bottom of this post table captions for columns (that are not sortable) show up in large size letters. And also drop down inside a table has text that is too large and is missing the drop down arrow icon. Has anyone got an idea how to get rid of this? Bonus info is that it goes away if I turn of lightspeed rendering but then other problems start occuring and I don't think that is a very good path to explore.

I guess these are some of the problems that can occur that you are referring to in your original reply to my question ? (I hope I'm wrong and I didn't have much luck finding the posts you referred to).

As portal isn't an option for me you said maybe looking into UI5. I do know about UI5 but how can that help me solve my WDA theming problem?

Another worry is if I can expect as high a browser support using my new theme as with a SAP standard theme. Any ideas on that?

Table column caption problem:

Drop down inside a table problem:

Br Jan

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Yes, you will see all kinds of HTML and CSS problems since it isn't a supported solution.

UI5, meaning SAPUI5 which is based on HTML5, isn't really a solution unless you are working with custom applications. If you are working on standard SAP WDAs, you would have to go the supported way. That said, I think you are moving into dangerous grounds what it comes to level of support you can expect from your solution and what you will get from SAP in case you run into problems.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Samuli,

That is not what I wanted to hear but what I feared

You said you have been raising awareness for the lack of support of WDA theming - do you have any suggestion as to whether it is worth raising OSS messages etc. regarding this? Have you got some official replies etc. from SAP you can share where they state we are out of support etc.?

It's very dissapointing if I can't get this to work as business was really looking forward to a "lighter" design and I have seen examples where it works well with custom theming for WDA but that was probably on nw 7.01 where you mentioned there was still support.

Thanks again for the info you provide, it is very valuable for me.

BR Jan

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Sure it's worth creating a support message to SAP and get a confirmation. My information is based on bits and pieces which you can find yourself here on SCN if you search for WD_THEMES. The most official statement I have seen on the topic is SAP note 1613933. It's basically a chain of events which leads to the fact that there is no supported solution for standalone theming of WDA in recent releases.

https://service.sap.com/sap/support/notes/1613933

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Yes the note is pretty much the confirmation I was looking for but obviously not what I was looking for.

I will try to contact SAP to get more info regarding the midterm plans they mention in the note... Then I can post the information here.

Thanks again.

[BeGanz · Accepted solution]

Hallo Jan Thomas,

you are right, that SAP does no longer offer the unsupported Eclipse Theme Editor for download on SCN. We therefor updated the download page content with the following information

Eclipse Theme Editor version 2 plugin replaced by UI theme designer

This page formerly provided the Eclipse theme editor plugin for defining and maintaining custom themes for SAP applications. Like described in SAP Note 1613933 the Eclipse theme editor got provided via SDN as download under the terms of an evaluation license that did not imply support from SAP, and limited usage to non-productive scenarios.

Beginning with UI add-on 1.0 SP4 for SAP NetWeaver and with SAP NetWeaver 7.40 SP3 SAP offers the UI theme designer as single solution for theming and branding SAP’s key user interfaces across multiple SAP UI clients (SAP NetWeaver Portal or SAP NetWeaver Business Client), technologies (SAPUI5, Web Dynpro and Floorplan Manager) and applications (SAP Business Suite, landing pages in HCM Renewal, SAP Fiori).

Comments and questions: Please use the User Interface Technology forum to provide your feedback or to post queries.

More details: see http://help.sap.com/nw-uiaddon (UI theme designer devloper guide under section "What’s New – Release Notes - English (PDF) - Chapter 3") and SAP note 1852401

Regards, Bertram Ganz, SAP AG

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Bertram,

It is great that the new theme designer is now available. The problem is however still existant for everyone not on the very new versions you list above.

I managed to get a workaround working (with some help from SAP) on my 7.02 version but it is not an official way of doing things.

BR jan

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Can you share the details of the workaround? Never mind, I just noticed your comment in another discussion thread that you will be working on a blog to describe the process. Looking forward to it.

[lars_ruhnau2 · Accepted solution]

Hi Jan Thomas,

I have exactly the same problem that you had: changing the theme of our erecruiting system.

We patched our system to NW 7.02 (ERECRUIT 6.05-0010) and have all the UI5 addons installed. I have downloaded the NWDS 7.31 and imported the SAPUI5_TOOLS as well as the SAPUI5_TEAM_PROVIDER.

But I am an ABAP developer and new to the eclipse environment.So what were my steps? I have downloaded a customer theme with report WD_THEMES. I tried to import it in the NWDS and expected to see the theme in a WYSIWYG editor for redesigning it. But there was only a text editor.

Can you please tell me, how your workaround works and how SAP helped you?

Best regards,

Lars

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Lars,

Please go through the first steps I describe in this post http://scn.sap.com/thread/3395930 and see if it makes sense and if you can get that far.

I will then try to help you from there or try to find time to write blog which is not easy at the minute...

Br Jan

[lars_ruhnau2 · Accepted solution]

Hi Jan,

thanks for your quick reply.

I tried to follow your steps. Fortunately we have an Enterprise Portal, unfortunately it has a lower UR version than our erecruiting system. Nevertheless I had copied one of the old standard themes, changed and downloaded it.

In my eyes the most annoying thing is to adjust the images, e.g. tabstrips. You must have an appropriate image editing program to adjust the images. But it is not simple to adjust a colour gradient from e.g. blue to green. And the EP theme designer only replaces the images, no edit mode for it. Additionally our old EP does not support the sprite technology. Not even the UI5 theme designer (txn. /UI5/THEME_DESIGNER) has the capability to edit images.

Meanwhile we got a solution by copying an SAP standard theme, copy and paste the content of the ls*.nosprite.css files to the ls_*.css (which were loaded in every browser) and edited the ls_*.css files with an editor with syntax highlighting (PSPad or TopStyle). A cumbersome way but we got the result that we wanted.

Thanks for your time and your help.

BR

Lars

[former_member183915 · Accepted solution]

Hi,

Were you able to apply custom theme in webdynpro abap application for external candidate (hrrcf_a_startpage_ext_cand) ? We do have same requirement.

Could you please share solution for the same?

Regards,

Navya.

[Former Member]

Or can I use theme editor in our SAP Portal 7.3 and then export it to our SAP system to be used as WDA theme?

[Former Member]

I have been advocating and raising awareness of the lack of support for standalone WDA theming for a while now. Unless something has changed in the past couple of months, the only supported way for WDA theming is to use the portal. The standalone WDA theming used to work at least until some SP level in NetWeaver 7.01 but after several changes in the ABAP stack it no longer worked. You can search for WDA specific content to which I have taken part to in order to get a better picture on the topic.

It doesn't seem to be a priority for SAP to provide standalone WDA theming since there is a supported solution although it requires the use of portal. Even NWBC is still lacking theming capabilities. SAP will eventually get there but as always it takes a lot of time...

If portal isn't an option for you and theming is a requirement, I would suggest you start looking at UI5.

Anyone, feel free to correct anything I have written if you have better/more accurate information.

[Former Member]

Hi Samuli,

Thank you for the input. WDA theming through portal could be an option for me if I could get import it into backend system after customizing it but I guess that isn't possible as Sarbjeet says below?

Our E-recruitment solution is run outside of portal so the theme has to be directly available on the SAP system.

Br Jan

[Former Member]

In the standard solution you customize the theme in the portal, it is automatically used by the WDA application as long as the WDA application is accessed through the portal.

[former_member183915]

Hi,

Were you able to achieve the requirement of applying a custom theme to webdynpro abap application.

Could you please share the steps done to achieve it?

Regards