After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
Build the user interface and logic of your application front-end using SAP Build Apps
Explore the backend for your application in SAP Build Apps
SAP Build Apps – Application
Generally, you will start with a link to the SAP Build lobby, where you can manage all your projects – whether they are SAP Build Apps, SAP Build Process Automation, or SAP Build Work Zone projects.
With SAP Build Apps, you can build two types of projects:
An application.
A backend, that is, a database for storing data for an application.
Let's start with the SAP Build Apps tool for creating the front-end of an application, and later in this lesson, we'll explore the tool for creating backends.
When you choose Create, you get a window where you can choose what type of project to create. To create an application, you choose Build an Application → Web & Mobile Application.
After entering a name for the app, you get the SAP Build Apps home page for the app.
Take a Tour of the UI Component Tools, the Logic Pane and the Data Tab
To get your bearings, here's a view of the home page for an app (with the logic pane at the bottom closed):
The Logic Pane
There is also the logic pane, where you indicate how the application should react to the user and other events. By default, this is closed, but you can open it up by choosing the link at the bottom of the canvas.
The logic pane works like the canvas, with widgets on the left that you can drag into your logic pane and that you connect to one another. These widgets are called flow functions – because you are creating a flow of actions, starting from the triggering event through all the flow functions you connect to it.
UI component tools
The components area on the left of the screen contains all the UI components for bringing onto the screen.
There are three tabs:
Core
Contains about 25 basic components, like buttons and input fields.
Marketplace
Contains many more complex components that you can install into your app. Choose Marketplace to view a whole world of components.
Installed
Shows all components you've installed, both core and Marketplace components.
Quick Tour of SAP Build Apps
The following video provides a quick tour of SAP Build Apps.
Backends of SAP Build Apps
SAP Build Apps lets you create your own data sources – you can design data tables, called entities, and populate them with data. These data sources can then be used in your applications, instead of you relying on only data from external sources.
When you choose Create in the SAP Build lobby, you can instead choose Build an Application → Application Backend.
The user interface is divided into three main parts, as can be seen in the tab at the top of the page:
We won't be creating a backend in this learning journey, but you should know that you can easily create your own data and functions for use in your applications.
Summary
You have taken a tour of the user interface of SAP Build Apps for building the user interface and logic of your application front-end.