ABAP development tools for Visual Studio Code: Patch 1.0.1 released

[thomasalexander_ritter]

What happened since the first release?

First of all, thanks to all the ABAP developers who have already tried out the new extension! You provided a lot of positive feedback & constructive criticism over the last two weeks and can be assured that we read every single one. When looking at the overall feedback three things stand out:

1. Trouble with setting up system connections. Because the extension ships with a new way for configuring system destinations, some of you had trouble configuring ABAP system access. We have already published improved documentation and we are also looking into how we can further improve the usability of these user flows in the upcoming releases.

2. Missing support for Windows ARM hardware. We added this to our backlog and already made some progress. However, further testing needs to be done until we can release it to the public.

3. Missing support for RFC + password. We communicated openly and proactively across multiple channels that RFC + password support would arrive in the next major release, and we were aware of its importance. Even so, we were still surprised by how many users are relying on classic passwords. That’s why we reacted quickly. Since the mandatory security review of such a critical change was already done, we are pleased to add support for passwords via a patch.

We also received general feedback that the community would appreciate more how-to guides. Here are some links for getting started and learning more about the extension. We are planning to provide more guides in the future.

• RAP130 tutorial. A tutorial that walks you through using the ADT MCP server together with an AI agent.
• Setup guide how to get started with GitHub Copilot. Björn Schulz published a nice guide for configuring the initial setup.
• Podcast on the ADT for VS Code extension. Rich Heilman did a podcast with some members of the ADT team. It covers a lot of technical aspects of the extension but also provides some insights into the plan for the next releases.

What gets shipped with this release?

RFC System logon via password

You can create RFC destinations with password access.

AGENTS.md template

The documentation already provides a template for an AGENTS.md file. With the update the same file gets shipped with the VS Code extension. This makes it easier to get started. We still recommend duplicating the template and adding your own company/team/project-specific instructions. The more time you spend on onboarding the agent into your project the better results it will produce.

What's next?

The next release is currently planned for next month. The planned features remain unchanged from the previous blog post:

• Support of more core development object types: RAP behavior extensions, DDIC tables, DDIC structures, DDIC enqueue objects, DDIC type groups, CDS entity buffers, programs/includes, function groups and modules, ...
• MCP tools: Unified diff tool for transports, ABAP test cockpit tools, …

Follow the ABAP Cloud Roadmap if you are interested in knowing what comes next.

Provide feedback and influence our product backlog!

We welcome your feedback! Feel free to use the comment section or create a customer influence request to let us know which features you are missing the most. Your input will help us prioritize the feature backlog for the next releases.

[jvanattenhoven]

For some reason Fiori Tools only supports basic authentication to connect to on-premise systems. I would prefer using this type of connection for that as well ("SNC/SSO RFC connections").

[SimonFriedli]

Possibility to use Claude Code (the Anthropic CLI) would be absolutely great. Currently, it dosen't work due to the remote/virtual filesystem nature of ADT.

Are there plans to provide a possibility to preview CDS View Data directly within VS Code, similar to the Data Preview feature in Eclipse?

[manish_kn]

Great work!! Thanks a lot 🙂
RFC via password works now. 

[thomasalexander_ritter]

@SimonFriedli Yes, data preview gets requested a lot and is in the backlog. However, due to various factors we decided to work on the sql console support first and this feature is currently under development. 

[selectfrom]

Thank you, really nice with the enabled password login!

I have two requests:
1. Like I said before with the Public-Cloud also with OnPrem the creation of a package doesn't work. I can neither create a folder in the sidebar nor is there an option "ABAP Package" in the dropdown list when choosing the command to create an ABAP object.

2. The other request i have is this: When you add CDS View support, could you alter the formatting logic a bit? I have the problem with the Shift+F1 formatting in CDS-View-Entities in Eclipse that when there are multiple nested parentheses in a join-on-condition the formatting adds a lot of line breaks and makes the code look very messy. It happens for example with an on-condition like:

... on ( ( view1.field1 = view2.field1 ) and ( ( view1.field2 is initial ) or ( view1.field2 = 'TEST' ) ) )

[matthias_becker]

@selectfrom 

Regarding: "When you add CDS View support, could you alter the formatting logic a bit? I have the problem with the Shift+F1 formatting in CDS-View-Entities in Eclipse that when there are multiple nested parentheses in a join-on-condition the formatting adds a lot of line breaks and makes the code look very messy. It happens for example with an on-condition like:"

The current version of ADT for VS Code already does contain "CDS view support"- support for CDS Data Definitions  (DDLS) and other CDS object type to be precise. Also formatting for DDLS is supported. Just select the "Format Document" command from VS Code's command palette. It calls the same formatting algorithm though. Can you please explain in more details how the source (snippet) looks like before and after formatting and what exactly you would like to have differently?

[ThFiedler]

Hi @selectfrom 

Package creation will be integrated into the command palette like all the other types can be created there. 

It is currently planned for the November release.

Regards,

Thomas. 

[selectfrom]

@matthias_becker

Package creation is among the first things I do whenever I start a project. If I used VSCode as my main IDE I'd have to use Eclipse for that then. So, I'm looking forward to it.

About the formatting: Following is an example of how I would format the code and how it is fomatted in reality. It is at least my opinion that the latter case looks unnecessarily messy, hence my proposition.

Custom formatting:

Shift+F1 formatting:

Or if I add another nested condition, it's formatted to look like:

[CyaneGF]

Hi, 
When I am trying to add a new destination with "ABAP:New Destination" and "connecting to Private Cloud or OnPrem by selecting RFC" I have the error "No system configurations found".

can someone help me? 

Thanks! 

[CyaneGF]

Hi @manish_kn 
How have you configured it?
When I am trying to add a new destination with "ABAP:New Destination" and "connecting to Private Cloud or OnPrem by selecting RFC" I have the error "No system configurations found".

Thanks!

[matthias_becker]

@selectfrom 

The Data Definition Formatter can be configured quite heavily in ADT (for Eclipse) but unfortunately you cannot control if "(" go into a new line. You only can control where the "AND" and "OR" is put.

Sorry to tell you that we don't have concrete plans to remove this limitation (that is not specific to VS Code) but stands for ADT for Eclipse as well.

[manish_kn]

@CyaneGF Please use the newly released (as of version 1.0.1) and official way of connecting on-prem systems via RFC (password/SSO).

[manish_kn]

@matthias_becker
Situation:

In ABAP CDS files, semantic token classification is too coarse.
Using "Developer: Inspect Editor Tokens and Scopes", multiple distinct elements are all classified as:
semantic token type = decorator

Examples:
- Annotation names: @UI.identification, @UI.facet
- Property names: label, position, type
- String values: 'General Information'
- Enum/hash values: #CORE, #STANDARD

Request:
Please improve semantic token classification for CDS objects so that different language elements are exposed with distinct semantic token types.
Different elements should use appropriate semantic token types, e.g.:
- annotation → decorator
- property name → property
- string → string
- enum/hash values → enumMember or constant
- identifiers → variable/property
This would allow proper semantic highlighting instead of mapping everything to 'decorator'.

How it looks by default:

As a workaround, we implemented a custom VS Code extension using TextMate injection grammar to introduce finer scopes (annotation, property, enum, etc.), but this requires disabling semantic highlighting and is only a partial fix compared to proper semantic token classification:

[Peter_Inotai]

Hi,

based on the roadmap (https://help.sap.com/docs/abap-cross-product/roadmap-info/tools) data element support is planned for Version 1.2.

However I can't find any information about domains. Is it not planned in the next major release? Is it because of eg fixed values makes it tricky?

Thanks,

Peter

[Peter_Inotai]

Hi,

just a wish: 😀

Is it possible to add system ID for opened tabs same way as in Eclipse?

VSCODE:

Eclipse:

Especially useful if same code is opened in several systems.

I know the tooltip contains the system ID, but showing on the tab is more user friendly.

Thanks,

Peter