Getting Started with SAPUI5 Development

Objective

After completing this lesson, you will be able to set up SAP Business Application Studio

Working with SAP Business Application Studio

Dev Spaces

The following units and lessons discuss the basic concepts of SAPUI5 development. To deepen the individual learning contents, there are always exercises with practical programming tasks at the end of the respective topics. In these exercises, a complex scenario is built up step by step. The simple Hello World application that is created at the beginning will be expanded throughout the course into a comprehensive application that incorporates all the concepts discussed such as models, data binding, internationalization, and navigation.

The exercises will be implemented in the SAP Business Application Studio. To do this, a dev space will first be created (see the figure, Creating a Dev Space).

A dev space is a development environment containing the tools, capabilities, and resources you need to develop your application in SAP Business Application Studio.

There are different dev space types available. For the exercise scenario, a dev space of type SAP Fiori is required. It is designed to develop SAP Fiori applications based on various environments, including Cloud Foundry, ABAP Cloud, and SAP S/4HANA. A dev space of type SAP Fiori contains, among other things, the SAP Fiori Tools extension, which includes the templates, CLI, and code completion needed to create SAP Fiori applications.

Git Source Control

In SAP Business Application Studio, you can create projects from scratch using the project wizard, or import existing projects from the file system.

In addition, SAP Business Application Studio enables you to connect to the Git source control system and interact with Git remote repositories.

Note

It is recommended to always connect your projects to a Git repository for long-term persistence.

For detailed information on working with Git, see the SAP Business Application Studio documentation.

All Git tasks can be performed using the terminal in SAP Business Application Studio. To open a terminal, select the path Terminal → New Terminal from the hamburger menu in the upper-left corner.

In addition to the terminal, SAP Business Application Studio also provides a Git source control view to execute Git commands through a graphical user interface (see the figure, Cloning Repositories).

For the exercise scenario to be implemented in the training course, you will not create a new project from scratch using one of the available project templates in SAP Business Application Studio. Instead, for simplicity, the starting point for the exercises will be provided via a Git remote repository that you will clone at the beginning.

You can clone the source project, for example, via the Git source control view or via the Clone from Git tile on the Get Started page (see the figure, Cloning Repositories).

The main branch of the remote repository to be cloned contains the starting point for the exercise scenario. For each exercise, the remote repository also contains an additional branch with the sample solution for the exercise. The names of the branches can be found at the beginning of each exercise.

If you want to skip an exercise while working through the exercise scenario, you can use the associated sample solution branch as the basis for the subsequent exercise.

Previewing an Application

Once you have finished coding, several options to preview an application are available in SAP Business Application Studio.

You can start a preview by running npm scripts from the terminal or by using the Run Control function in the Run and Debug pane.

In addition to the predefined Launch Configurations found in the Run and Debug pane, you can also create additional Launch Configurations from there that define how your project is executed.

It is also possible to start a preview from the context menu. Right-click on any subfolder in your project and select Preview Application from the context menu that appears (see the figure, Starting a Preview from Context Menu). You are then provided with the following options, among others:

  • start-noflp

    This starts the application via the HTML page index.html. The application is not embedded in an SAP Fiori launchpad sandbox.

  • start-mock

    This starts the application by using a mock server to reflect an OData endpoint. This way, you can test an application without connecting to a live OData service.

In the training course, the exercises are initially tested using the start-noflp option. Later, an OData model is integrated into the scenario, which is used to call an OData service that is implemented in an ABAP back-end. Since this ABAP back-end cannot be made available for the course, the start-mock option is used to test the OData model. The start-mock option simulates access to the back-end data.

Output 'Hello World' via an HTML Page in a Prepared SAPUI5 Project

Business Scenario

In this exercise, you first create a dev space for the SAP Business Application Studio. Then, you clone a prepared SAPUI5 project from a Git repository into this dev space. Finally, you adapt the HTML page from the copied SAPUI5 project to output Hello World in the browser.

Template:Git Repository: https://github.com/SAP-samples/sapui5-development-learning-journey.git, Branch: main
Model solution:Git Repository: https://github.com/SAP-samples/sapui5-development-learning-journey.git, Branch: sol/1_hello_world

Note

In the following exercises, SAP Business Application Studio is used as the development environment. It is assumed that you already have access to this development tool.

If this is not yet the case, you can gain access to the SAP Business Application Studio free of charge via the free tier model for SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP). To do this, read tutorial Get an Account on SAP BTP to Try Out Free Tier Service Plans on how to create a free account on SAP BTP. Based on this, video SAP Business Application Studio Free Tier Model Onboarding shows the necessary steps to set up the free tier plan for SAP Business Application Studio.

Task 1: Create an SAP Fiori Dev Space

Steps

  1. If not already done, start the SAP Business Application Studio.

  2. Create an SAP Fiori dev space with the name UX400.

    1. Choose Create Dev Space.

    2. Enter UX400 as Dev Space name.

    3. Choose SAP Fiori as the application type.

    4. Choose the Create Dev Space button.

  3. Open your SAP Fiori dev space UX400.

    Note

    Immediately after creation, the new dev space is in the state STARTING. You must wait until it is in the state RUNNING before you can open it. This may take some time.

    After a period of idle time, the dev space is automatically stopped. A stopped dev space can be restarted with the dev space manager.

    1. Click the name UX400 of the new dev space as soon as it is in the state RUNNING.

      Result

      The SAP Fiori dev space UX400 opens and the Get Started page appears.

Task 2: Clone a Prepared SAPUI5 Project

Steps

  1. Clone the prepared SAPUI5 project from Git using the following URL: https://github.com/SAP-samples/sapui5-development-learning-journey.git.

    1. In SAP Business Application Studio, click the Clone from Git tile on the Get Started page.

      Note

      If the Get Started page is not displayed, it can be opened using the following menu path: Help → Get Started.

    2. In the Provide repository URL field that appears, type https://github.com/SAP-samples/sapui5-development-learning-journey.git and press Enter.

      Result

      A copy of the specified Git repository is created for use in SAP Business Application Studio.

  2. Open the sapui5-development-learning-journey project you just created.

    1. Select File → Open Folder... from the SAP Business Application Studio menu.

    2. In the Open Folder dialog box that appears, select the sapui5-development-learning-journey folder and choose OK.

      Result

      The sapui5-development-learning-journey project opens in SAP Business Application Studio.

  3. Download the required project dependencies using command npm install.

    1. Select Terminal → New Terminal from the SAP Business Application Studio menu.

    2. In the terminal window that appears, type npm install and press Enter:

      Code Snippet
      1
      user: sapui5-development-learning-journey $ npm install

      Result

      The required project dependencies are downloaded to a folder named node_modules in the project directory.

Task 3: Output 'Hello World' via the index.html Page in the Prepared SAPUI5 Project

Steps

  1. Open the index.html page in the editor.

    1. In the Explorer view of the SAP Business Application Studio, double-click webapp → index.html in the project structure of the sapui5-development-learning-journey project.

      Result

      The index.html page opens in an editor window.

  2. Add a <title> tag as a child to the <head> tag and use it to set the title of the HTML page to Exercise Application.

    Further, add a <div> tag as a child to the <body> tag and output Hello World over it on the HTML page.

    1. The index.html page should now look like this:

  3. Test run your application by starting it from the SAP Business Application Studio.

    1. Right-click on any subfolder in your sapui5-development-learning-journey project and select Preview Application from the context menu that appears.

    2. Select the npm script named start-noflp in the dialog that appears.

      Result

      The application will now display in a new tab.

      Hint

      If the application does not appear in a new tab, please check your pop-up blocker settings.

    3. In the opened application, check if the adjustments you made to the index.html page are displayed.

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