SAP Fiori tools 2205 continues our progress in simplifying development, adding troubleshooting capabilities, and moving more code to open source. We published some templates for custom elements, such as Custom Page, to open source, making it easier to work with the Flexible Programming Model. Open source offers transparency, so you can have more insight into how to build your application. I am also extremely pleased to announce the availability of a new open-source repo from SAP Fiori tools: guided-answer-extension. As an open-source repo, you can see what we have accomplished, how it was developed, and what’s planned. Soon, you can expect to see the extension available for download in the Visual Studio Code marketplace.  

Some other highlights in SAP Fiori tools 2205 include: 

• We now make it easier to build SAP Fiori apps while giving you the flexibility to choose your development environment. In this release, we enhanced the capability to manage SAP saved systems in Visual Studio Code. Now you can also create new connections in the SAP Fiori panel under SAP Systems.  
• We added a new wizard to help you create run configurations. This makes it easier to configure the parameters and settings you need to preview the application, based on your requirements and development environment.  
• There are now SAP Fiori elements templates for the Worklist and Overview page floorplans that use OData V4 as the data source.  
• We include the first batch of guides with ABAP CDS variants in Guided Development to support developers who prefer to maintain annotations in ABAP CDS using ADT (ABAP Development Tool) on Eclipse.  

Managing SAP Saved systems in VS Code 

Since the first release of SAP Fiori tools supporting VS Code, we have made several updates to better support our VS Code users that rely on saved SAP system connections. Initially developers could only add a new SAP saved system by using the SAP Fiori generator to add a new saved data source during app generation. We then introduced a dedicated section into the SAP Fiori panel in VS Code called “SAP Systems” with plans to make it more convenient for you to manage the connection information. Since then, we added the ability to delete and edit your SAP System, along with ability to test the connection. With this release, you can now also create a new SAP system. 

Run configurations creation made easy 

This release introduces new tooling to create and maintain run configurations used to preview application projects with varying parameters. You can start it with the palette command “Fiori: Open Run Configurations” or in SAP Business Application Studio (BAS) from the “Run Configurations” pane and using the create “+” action. The feature is available as of Application Modeler and @sap/ux-ui5-tooling version 1.5.3 for non-CAP SAP Fiori applications. 

Figure 1: Fiori: Open Run Configurations lets you define various options in your app

You can define all relevant options, like the UI5 version, whether you want to use mock data, or a list of custom URL parameters, plus more (see figure 1). The resulting configuration is saved in the workspace’s launch.json (for more details refer to run control overview). The run configurations can be executed using the native tooling of VS Code and BAS, or from the built-in overview (see figure 2). Beside create and edit, you can also copy or delete existing run configurations here.  

Figure 2: Create, edit, copy, or delete existing run configurations in the Run Configurations panel

Application Modeler uses Open UX tools 

With this release of Application Modeler, creating custom elements that are part of the Flexible Programming Model of SAP Fiori Elements for OData V4 uses the Open UX tools @sap-ux/fe-fpm-writer and open-source templates. Moving to open-source repositories allows everyone to inspect and contribute to the code base. Currently the templates for custom pages, custom table columns, and custom sections are available as open source, with more planned to be added in future releases. 

Changes in the templates 

The SAP Fiori generator now consumes two new changes to templates from our open-source project open-ux-tools. 

1. Until now, the SAP Fiori elements Worklist floorplan in the generator supported only OData V2 data sources. Now, it is possible to generate an SAP Fiori elements Worklist V4 application using the SAP Fiori generator. The application generated will be an LROP V4 application (list report object page), but with the setting “hideFilterBar=true” in the manifest. More details about this setting are in the documentation to configure filter bars. 
2. The SAP Fiori generator will also be able to support use of a OData V4 Source when generating an application for an overview page floorplan. Please note that overview page floorplan with a OData V4 Source is supported from SAPUI5 version 1.96.8 and above.  

Guided Development now offers variants with ABAP CDS code snippets 

This release of Guided Development has been focused on guide content, largely driven by you – our users. Thank you to everyone that has taken the time to submit guide requests.  

Over the past few months, we’ve seen an increasing number of developers that have been interested in taking the personalized code snippets created by Guided Development and using them to maintain annotations in ABAP CDS with ABAP Development Tools (ADT). While SAP Fiori tools remains a solution for SAP Business Application Studio and Visual Studio Code, we were excited about getting the automatically generated code snippets created by Guided Development into the hands of a wider variety of developers and helping to drive code consistency for another group of users. That’s why we’ve released a pilot batch of ABAP CDS guide variants focused on some of our most popular guides:  

• Add and edit table columns  
• Add and edit filter fields  
• Add a smart micro chart to a table  
• Add a field group as a section to a page  

Figure 3: Add and edit filter fields is part of the initial batch of ABAP CDS guide variants available for Guided Development in the 2205 release

To access ABAP CDS guide variants, ensure that your project with an OData RAP service is available in your SAP Business Application Studio or Visual Studio Code workspace, open Guided Development, and then open the relevant guide. You should see an ABAP CDS Annotation variant like the image above (see figure 3). 

You can then select the relevant parameters to generate the code snippet for your project. Copy that code to your clipboard, add it to the proper place in your project in ADT, and you’re done!  

As this is the very first batch of ABAP CDS guide variants, you may notice that some of the functionality is different from our other guide variants. For example, due to the fact that you are working on the project in ADT – as opposed to in SAP Business Application Studio or Visual Studio Code – you will need to use the Copy button to add the relevant part of the code snippet to your clipboard and then paste it into your project in ADT. You might also notice that the collections of parameters that allow you to add multiple table columns or filters at once via the Add and edit table columns and Add and edit filter fields guides are not yet available. These are enhancements that the Guided Development team is currently looking into to further simplify your development experience.  

We would love to hear what you think about our new ABAP CDS guide variants. Are there specific guides you would like to have? Is there specific functionality you would like to see? Please feel free to reach out to us and let us know or respond directly in the comments.  

Next steps: we continue to focus on innovations, harmonization and simplification 

As I mentioned earlier, you can soon expect to see the Guided Answer Extension available in the Visual Studio Code marketplace to help you with your troubleshooting needs. Work is underway to simplify configuration of application settings. We plan to harmonize SAP Fiori development experience with new capabilities in the Page Editor and Guided Development to support projects that are not based on the SAP Fiori floorplans. You can also expect to see more features in Page Editor to make it easier to configure SAP Fiori elements OData V4 features that are annotation based. You can see more details in the SAP Fiori tools roadmap. Lots of exciting development planned as we head into summer. 

From the team of SAP Fiori tools product owners: 

Conrad Bernal, Christoph Gollmick, Mariana Naboka, Ian Quigley, Sushant Priyadarshi, and Ashley Tung