Customising existing iView by deleting fields/columns

[Former Member]

Hi,

I wanted to know the tools/procedure require to customise existing iViews (in a MSS implementation).

If we want to say delete/add a particular field or column in an existing iView, what tools do we need? Visual Composer or Web Dynpro? Is there a step-by-step guide available for this?

Your input is greatly appreciated!

Thanks,

Aniruddh

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

If the iView was not created with visual composer, you would not be able to change it with visual composer.

Visual Composer is a modeling tool that enables to model applications and then generate iViews from them. You cannot reverse engineer an existing code and load it in Visual Composer.

AFAIK, you'll need the WD metadata in order to open it in WD, so the answer is the same for WD.

Hope this helps,

Lior

[Former Member]

Under the assumption that this iView was built with VC and rendered as WebDynpro, then you need the VC-model to change the fields/attributes. In the running application you do not have the WD-model to change it with WD.

Mario

[Former Member]

Hi Mario,

Thanks for getting back so quickly. However, I am sorry it is not very clear to me.

This is basically an iView available out-of-the box from MSS business package and not built with VC by me. Is there any way I can import it into VC or WD and play around with it?

Any guides available online on customising the business package iViews?

Thanks a lot!

Aniruddh

[Former Member]

As Lior already mentioned: the out of the box iView for MSS that you have comes probably only as compiled object. That means, there is no model or metadata available that can be changed in VC or WD. If it was not built with VC, there is no way of changing it with VC.

Mario

[Former Member]

Thanks Mario and Lior!

What is the difference between using Visual Composer and Web Dynpro? When should we use which modelling tool?

Thanks,

Aniruddh

[Former Member]

That is a question which requires a long answer. basically both tools were created as UI-Tools, VC as generating tool for UIs (the old name GUIMachine pays some respect to that) and WD as metadata-driven UI tool (which also generates the UI-code).

While VC originally was supposed to be something like the Rolls-Royce under the "iView-Wizards", WD was to be supposed to be the new SAP UI for the ABAP and Java-world and be a successor of ABAP Dynpro and HTML-B.

As it turns out, UI alone without access to the BAPIs, WebServices etc. is not enough, so both were enhanced far beyond their original intentions.

VC is now a browser based tool (thin IDE) that allows you to build applications, without ever touching coding.

WD is a tool included in the NetWeaver DevStudio (based on Eclipse) and therefor more of a "fat IDE".

In the coming NetWeaver-release out of VC-model UIs as WebDynpros (or other UI-technologies like Macromedia Flex) will be generated, so both worlds will be integrated.

For quick applications without writing code (e.g. done by business experts), VC is a good tool.

For applications that need to be pimped, i.e. code added to the generated code, WD is a good tool.

And if I start now talking about CAF or ESI then it will be a very long night...

Mario