topic Re: Description of elements (methods, parameters, types,...) in Application Development and Automation Discussions

Description of elements (methods, parameters, types,...)

michaelvk — Fri, 06 Dec 2013 09:58:46 GMT

Hello,

I would like to open this discussion as a feature request to SAP.

It´s about the possibility to create/determine descriptions for all kind of development elements.

For in example, in SE24 for every element there is the column "description". (Attributes, Methods, method parameters, Class Types,..).

For dictionary objects (for example the dictionary type of an attribute or a method parameter) the description is automatically determined from dictionary, and you can also overwrite it manually.

For other elements like methods, you can of course also create your own descriptions.

It would be very helpful to have the same possibilities in general also in Eclipse.

Because now, if I for example create a new method, I don´t do it in Eclipse because then the descriptions are missing. So, I have to jump to SE80, create the method there, descriptions are determined or manually set, and then jump back to Eclipse.

That´s just one example, and it would much more convenient to do everything consistently in Eclipse without jumping to other tools.

I hope this can be considered to be added as a new feature.

Thanks!

Regards,

Michael

Re: Description of elements (methods, parameters, types,...)

ThFiedler — Fri, 06 Dec 2013 11:36:46 GMT

Hi Michael,

in Eclipse we provide a more powerful concept to document your objects. It is called ABAP Doc similar to Java Doc. See the blog from Michael Schneider where you find the details:

http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-40872

Kind Regards,

Thomas.

Re: Description of elements (methods, parameters, types,...)

Former Member — Fri, 11 Jul 2014 13:57:17 GMT

Hello Thomas,

what about selection-screen parameters:

REPORT zapbc400tss_compute.

PARAMETERS:
   pa_int1 TYPE i, " Number
   pa_op(1) TYPE c, " Operator
   pa_int2 TYPE i. " Number

How can I achieve in Eclipse that text/name of parameter f.e. in this case Number is displayed?

I have search in all documentation, withouth success.

In SE80: GoTo->Text Element->Selection Texts

Bye,

Peter

Re: Description of elements (methods, parameters, types,...)

ThFiedler — Mon, 14 Jul 2014 11:00:48 GMT

Hi Peter,

actually this is not possible in eclipse. You have to use the SAP GUI transaction to maintain the text elements and selection texts . There is a shortcut available in Eclipse editor:

Short Outlook: We are already working on text elements support in eclipse. Will be available with one of the next versions.

Kind Regards,

Thomas.

Re: Description of elements (methods, parameters, types,...)

Former Member — Mon, 14 Jul 2014 13:05:11 GMT

Hello Thomas,

thank you for your fast response. OK, this is positive news. I visited on April 30, 2014 the CodeJam in Muenster. Now we write the evaluation report, about the future possibility of using eclipse for ABAP developing, in our company. We count on this, that using of eclipse for ABAP will be always better and better.

Bye,

Peter

Re: Description of elements (methods, parameters, types,...)

ThFiedler — Mon, 14 Jul 2014 14:03:39 GMT

Hi Peter,

we are developing ABAP in Eclipse in a very agile development model. We ship the tools in a very incremental way. That means every quarter you will get a new version with new features and new bugfixes. Sometimes the features need ABAP backend parts so that these features are not usable for you until you upgrade your ABAP server release.

Customer feedback is very important in such a development model so that we can prioritize our backlog for the next development cycle.

Kind Regards,

Thomas.

Re: Description of elements (methods, parameters, types,...)

Former Member — Mon, 14 Jul 2014 15:01:08 GMT

Hello Thomas,

our evaluation report seems to be very positive, but still we have listed some disadvantages, but with notice, that SAP AG is updating frequently (every quarter) its ADT.

Disadvantages I have found at first here in SCN Now I follow up this site to find up if everything is so as written in feedback from Olga. In this way I have found also selection-screen parameters. Of course some informations are pretty old.

Have you some tips/instructions where are listed the newest advantages/disadvantages. It would be great if you could provide them!

I could now use text elements in eclipse. Thank you for your help.

Hope to hear soon from you,

Bye

Peter

Re: Description of elements (methods, parameters, types,...)

joao_sousa2 — Mon, 14 Jul 2014 16:57:02 GMT

Short Outlook: We are already working on text elements support in eclipse. Will be available with one of the next versions.

Great stuff. In the beginning ADT was a bit limited, but now I think I has come to a point where it is more powerful then SE80, especially for people who are used to another languages like Java and C#, and program mainly in OO.

ABAP docs is great for example, I just need the @TODO tag. Pretty pleaseeee!

Re: Description of elements (methods, parameters, types,...)

ThFiedler — Tue, 15 Jul 2014 07:10:06 GMT

Hi Peter,

you can also check our FAQs document for help:

http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-29113

Drawbacks from my perspective are:

- Modificactions and Enhancements cannot be edited with eclipse editor

- Minimum ABAP Release is 7.31 SP04

Regards,

Thomas.

Re: Description of elements (methods, parameters, types,...)

Former Member — Tue, 15 Jul 2014 15:26:44 GMT

Hi Thomas,

I will check your information tomorrow, as I am whole day in the training.

Thank you.

Bye,

Peter

Re: Description of elements (methods, parameters, types,...)

Former Member — Wed, 16 Jul 2014 15:58:46 GMT

Hello Thomas,

thank you for your help.

Bye,

Peter

Re: Description of elements (methods, parameters, types,...)

daniel_ruiz2 — Mon, 21 Jul 2014 22:51:15 GMT

Agreed.. //TODO is a must, ADT team please implement such as it should be very straight forward!!

Re: Description of elements (methods, parameters, types,...)

ThFiedler — Tue, 22 Jul 2014 06:20:14 GMT

Hi Daniel,

why don't you use the Task Markers from Eclipse to mark Todo in your code:

For me this works perfectly fine.

Regards,

Thomas.

Re: Description of elements (methods, parameters, types,...)

joao_sousa2 — Tue, 22 Jul 2014 06:55:58 GMT

Because we are used to TODO in other languages

Re: Description of elements (methods, parameters, types,...)

Former Member — Tue, 22 Jul 2014 17:48:29 GMT

Hi Thomas,

Do you know of a way to look at Exception class Exception ID Texts in Eclipse? Is this even possible or does one need to go to SAP GUI to see these texts?

Cheers,

-Andy

Re: Description of elements (methods, parameters, types,...)

daniel_ruiz2 — Tue, 22 Jul 2014 22:39:28 GMT

Hi Thomas,

it works 'just fine' because you 'probably' came from ABAP.. and in that case, Eclipse no matter what will 'work fine' because the bar is set too low.

as Joao Sousa mentioned, we're used with the // TODO as a Task (Compiler) - the main reason for such is, it's a lot faster to deal with them this way -- creating a Marker as you mentioned could also work but it defeats the purpose a little bit.. in fact, I've never saw in my life (15 years, and I use Eclipse since before it was part of the Eclipse Project) people using the TODO the way you mentioned, and I reckon it's due the additional few seconds it takes to create a Task Marker and perhaps the 'non-standard' nature implied by it - as a Task Marker has no 'real standard', we could use the same ones as we do for Tasks but then again, it's still not a 'standard'.

bottom line is, SAP is already copying a lot of good stuff from other languages (we know which one), so just add a bit more stuff in the copy list and we will be fine.. it's just funny, ABAPDoc has been 'implemented', but the main reason to have it (to spit out documentation) is not there.

Re: Description of elements (methods, parameters, types,...)

joao_sousa2 — Tue, 22 Jul 2014 22:49:56 GMT

Just to add something, the TODO is inserted in the source code, so it is available independently of the editor. It has been used for so long and it is so simple, why make up an alternative for ABAP?

As for ABAPDoc, I'm sure HTML ABAPDoc generation is in the works.

Re: Description of elements (methods, parameters, types,...)

ThFiedler — Wed, 23 Jul 2014 06:48:49 GMT

Hi Andy,

unfortunately this is not supported in Eclipse up to now.

We actually implemented the support for text elements so that you can display the text with is defined with a text element in the editor using F2 (Elementinfo). I see the same solution for Exception IDs. I will put this in our backlog.

Also the creation of new exceptions ID is not possible. Maybe a Quick Assist would help to create new Exception IDs.

Thanks for the feedback,

Kind Regards,

Thomas.

Re: Description of elements (methods, parameters, types,...)

ThFiedler — Wed, 23 Jul 2014 06:58:43 GMT

Hi Daniel, Joao,

both things are in our backlog:

1.) We already started the ABAP Doc generation to offline HTML documents. This is very high ranked in our backlog.

2.) TODO Markers: Would be fine to hear more from you about your concrete expectations.

Kind Regards,

Thomas.

Re: Description of elements (methods, parameters, types,...)

joao_sousa2 — Wed, 23 Jul 2014 07:02:27 GMT

Regarding the todo markers i think we just want it to work like in Java. More consistency with other languages is good.