F4 help for fields in maintenance view resp. generated maintenance screen

[fabian_hammann]

Hello,

I’m new to ABAP and I have to deal with the following requirement:

I have a maintenance view V1 what from a maintenance screen was generated automatically by the maintenance screen generator.

Now I have to add a search help for one field F1 of the maintenance screen. The values for the search help of F1 depend on a specific value of a second field F2 of the maintenance screen. So I need value of F2 as import parameter for f4-help. F1 and F2 come from different tables.

As I’m new to ABAP I have several questions or thoughts:

- I’m not able to easily add a search help to F1 because I’m using the maintenance view V1 and that’s why it is not possible to assign the import parameter F2 to the search help – right?

- In general, its not that easy to add search help to views than tables or structures - why?

- I’m not able to just modify the generated objects because further automatic generation of the maintenance screen will delete it – right?

- The generated function module provides user includes to add user specific coding. Is there any chance to add a f4-help to field F1 and assign value of F2 to that search help as import parameter with coding in user include?

- any other ideas? I did not expect this topic to be so complicated as the requirement to change f4-help in a maintenance view resp. screen isn't very special.

can anyone help me?

Thank You!

Regards

Fabian

[Former Member]

Hi Fabian,

Phew! Thats quite a few questions in one... I'll try to answer them to best of my knowledge..

You can definitely have an external Search Help for a field of a Maintenance View, by calling it directly in the Screen Action Flow, using a PROCESS ON VALUE-REQUEST (like PAI or PBO). While defining such custom code on a generated screen, always make sure you do not write the coding inside the generated includes (SVIM* or <FUGR>TOP, <FUGR>DAT, etc..). Define new includes, or use those which are not generated by View Maintenance. This way, even if the dialogue is regenerated, your custom code will not vanish.

This will answer your questions 1 and 2 generally, and your question 3 also.

A Maintenance View, is something where values are read and populated purely at run-time. It does not have an Entry Help or such options, as it depends on the underlying tables. I hope this further helps with questions 1 and 2.

Coming to your question 4 and 5, which form the main question - pre-filling value of F2 while calling search-help for F1 - yes, it is possible. On the view maintenance screen, there are standard structure variables (like EXTRACT TOTAL etc), which will give you the field values of the current record. But, it can no way assure that when you call the help for F1, the field F2 is already filled!

For this, I can suggest that you programmatically implement a check to see if F2 value is filled, and read if it is. Or, if it is not filled, maybe you can shoot a Pop-up for F2, take the value at run-time, find help for F1 and get value, and also fill the F2 value (from your implementation) into the currect screen F2 value! (Phew...it is complex...)

But am sorry, there is no other way, wherein you can gaurentee that F2 value is pre-filled always, when you can help for F1. (You could try making F2 as obligatory on screen, but it still doesnt necessarily solve this purpose..!).

Hope it helps. Get back to me by e-mail if you need more help, or simple post a reply.

Regards,

Rekha