ABAP Wish List

[Peter_Inotai]

Based on the discussion in Mark Finnern's 'Visiting SAP NetWeaver Development Nerve Center' weblog ( /people/mark.finnern/blog/2003/12/09/visiting-sap-netweaver-development-nerve-center ), I'd like open a thread to discuss ideas you most miss from ABAP.

Incho

[Peter_Inotai]

Based on the discussion in Mark Finnern's 'Visiting SAP NetWeaver Development Nerve Center' weblog ( /people/mark.finnern/blog/2003/12/09/visiting-sap-netweaver-development-nerve-center ), I'd like open a thread to discuss ideas you most miss from ABAP.

Incho

[thomas_jung]

1.  I wish that Global Classes in ABAP had better integration with screens. I wish that I could call screens directly from within classes and that PBO/PAI modules could be class methods.

2.  I wish that there was similar functionality to RFC for Global Classes.

[Former Member]

The Screen Painter could have a little bit more "developer friendly" interface...

Gabor

[Peter_Inotai]

I agree...a little bit more WYSWYG.

As fas as I know it will change a little bit...at least there was a (half) screen shot about it in one of the WebDynpro Teched session (ABAP259 - How to Convert Your ABAP Dynpro into Web Dynpro Metadata => page 6)....it seems it will be integrated to the Workbench windows and won't be in a separated window.

I hope someone from SAP can provide us some more information about it (what are the planned changes)....and might provide us some good screen shots about it.

Incho

[dirk_feeken]

You gave already a hint in the right direction.

First, there won't be big improvements in the classical screen programming model. The long term plan (beyond Web AS6.40) is do make a shift towards the Web Dynpro programming model. The "ABAP Dynpro into Web Dynpro Metadata" session gave a first glimpse.  The goal is to have a migration mechanism that converts the existing screens (= Dynpros) during development into Web Dynpros to allow the further development in the Web Dynpro model.

The other part of the picture, the development of new Web Dynpros in ABAP has been shown in workshop ABAP258. The devlopment is completely integrated into the ABAP workbench.

Dirk

[Former Member]

A little but yet -- to me -- very annoying thing is the missing support of (boolean) expressions. In a more concise programming language I'd be able to write something like

    IF segnum = max_segnum - 1.

Similarly assume I want to fill the flag "is_second_last"; in principle I'd like to define it as a boolean and use a simple assignment:

    is_second_last = ( segnum == max_segnum - 1);

In ABAP the usage of the same symbol for assignment and comparison is in that case of course a hindrance (so I guess it's out of question).

There are similar small things along those lines, which would help to improve the readability of the code (by making it more concise and avoid the definition of all those temp vars).

harald

[Former Member]

To further Harold's ideas on boolean logic.

Can we intergrate the case statement with the radio button group concept. So we have;

CASE RadioButton_GroupX.

  WHEN Button_1.

    ...

  WHEN Button_2.

    etc.

ENDCASE.

But with the syntax check giving a error/warning if one of the WHEN conditions is not part of that radiobutton group. The first part is easy, as when the group is first declared a constant is also declared, value 'X' with the name of the group.

Also I'd like to be able to use, IF  vwxyz = ( 'abc' OR 'def'' ). Instead of

IF vwxyz  = 'abc' OR vwxyz = 'def''. More chance of a typo in the latter.

Can we have a way of turning the windows preemptive suggestions off for some fields. It was a total hinderance on the old command line editor for ABAP and still is in the old SAPscript editor.

Extend the DESCRIBE statement to return the name of a field in a structure.

Make it easier to create function groups in the ZX name range. When I change SAP code for customer enhancements I add a user exit, instead of just the modified code. this way the modification can be switched off in production without involving both a programmer and basis personnel.

[Peter_Inotai]

I also would like to some kind of download/upload tool for Workbench objects....for example download all program in one Development Class/Package in one step...or based on created by.

There are some tools available from 3rd party vendors (eg: Direct Download), but I would prefer a SAP version with lot of finctionalities.

[Former Member]

Aside from proper boolean support as already mentioned I'd like to see true date/time support.  It's a pain to code date/time selection ranges both in the UI and DB code. Timestamps are not the same thing. They don't support date/time mathematics.

It bugs me in 4.6 that pretty printer doesn't work for method calls.  Not sure whether this is fixed with 6.20.

It always seemed strange to me that the SAP applications store text descriptions in mixed and upper case to allow case-insensitive searching.  I imagine there must be some sort of cross-DB issues with supporting SQL like "where lower(field) like '%text%'. Perhaps index optimization too.

Though that aside, I gotta say that I love ABAP.  It's (currently) pretty poor IMO as a UI platform but is so great for business and persistence logic.

Scott

[Former Member]

Peter, can you please name these 3rd party products? I'm also pretty interested in uploading/downloading complete packages. And I can say, that I miss syntax highlighting and refactoring support very much.

[Peter_Inotai]

Check http://www.dalestech.com/ for details....it's able to download programs/screens in for example HTML format.

Also in http://www.sapfans.com/forums/index.php some other products were mentioned several time, you can find the with searching on that site.

Incho

[raphael_almeida]

Peter,

You know about SAPLink?

With it you can download any type of object created and exported to another system.

[rosenberg_eitan]

Hi,

I wish that SAP support SAPLink.....

Regards.

[Peter_Inotai]

Yeap, I know SAPLink and I love it. But I believe the time this chat was opened (2003 ) it was not yet available

[Peter_Inotai]

There is some ABAP Eclipse support for it. Check this video:

Install SAPlink Plugin for ABAP in Eclipse - YouTube

[Former Member]

On the Simple ALV standard toolbar, I wish for an icon to give me how many lines are displayed.

[Former Member]

I think the standard error messages that SAP displays should be more informative.

[Former Member]

Hi,

I think that in some cases the FM documentation isn't exhaustively and in other cases is missing.

In my point of view, documentation is very important, so I hope that SAP improve this aspect.

Regards

Ivan

[tom_demuyt]

* I would like to call methods IN SEPARATE TASK so that I dont need FM's in my OO solution

* I would like to have better native support for JSON than what ABAP has now

* I would like a good SE80 native editor for HTML and JavaScript when I develop BSP apps

* Or, have good native support to link through WebDAV to any BSP project and code in my own IDE

* I would like native support for SFTP in ABAP, not just FTP

* I would like native support encryption/decryption of files with key management in ABAP

* I would like to be able to change the constructors of my own custom exception classes(!!)

* I would like SAP to review error message handling, message parameter 1,2,3 and 4 can have too many different lengths in different circumstances/FM's

* I would like the BAPI transaction to have an example use of each BAPI FM so that I don't have to rely on the Google so much

* I wish I could configure extended syntax checks to become default syntax checks to catch some mistakes earlier ( FM calls mismatches..)

* I wish I could configure extended syntax checks to be used by SE10 when releasing ABAP code, no release possible if these checks fail..

* Speaking of SE10, how about some minimal code review workflowing in there ?

* I love the preferred parameter, it makes for more beautiful code, sometimes I feel this feature could be even smarter

* Ponies?

[raphael_almeida]

Extensive Wishlist isn't ?! lol

Why you wish a pony Tom?

[tom_demuyt]

I have a young daughter

[tom_demuyt]

* Code completion in the pattern feature ( if I type cl_ab and I only have 1 class called cl_abap_gui_services, then ABAP should prefill that class name in the OO pattern popup automatically or after I press control-enter

* Possibly the same for methods when I press control-enter?

[neocluster]

• I wish that ABAP will receive a real package concept with its own namespace.
• I wish that ABAP will lost the length restrictions for repository objects and source code artifacts.
• I wish that ABAP will contain a real method overload functionality.
• I wish that ABAP will have a native Mock Object Option in ABAP Unit.
• I wish that ABAP will get a better / easier translation environment.
• I wish that ABAP IDEs (AiE / SE80)  will have a native extended syntax check at designtime which contains quick fix options (for those findings where it is possible).
• I wish that my wishes will be going real...

[rosenberg_eitan]

Hi,

Going through the list it seems to me that in order to fulfil those wishes SAP need to do a simple thing replace ABAP with Java or .net....

Regards.

[raphael_almeida]

I wish the communities of non-English languages ​​have their own areas of ABAP and functional (eg the Portuguese community) support. Writing in English is nice, but nothing beats our native language

I wish that people close their threads and give points for those who helped

I wish everyone here in Brazil better known SAP Eclipse plugin and thus able to use this tool.

I wish to have an XBOX One

And also, I want to get to Gold later this year