What extensions are available with SAP Fiori tools?
- Application generator
- Application Modeler
- Service modeler
- Guided development
- XML annotation language server
What is the application generator?
The application generator helps you configure and create your application project. Its wizard-style approach lets you select the SAP Fiori elements page type from a list of options. Then, you select a service to provide data for your application. You have several options. (1) You can connect to an existing SAP system (providing your credentials through the application generator), (2) an OData service (also providing authentication), or (3) a metadata document, which gives you the ability to work offline with mock data and no connection to a back-end system.
The application generator wizard then inspects the metadata and gives you options to customize your data to match the page type you have chosen. You enter text at various prompts, which the generator uses to generate the app name and directory structure.
After choosing the version of UI5 you want your app to use, along with the theme, the application generator downloads the libraries you need for the app and retrieves backend annotations, if they exist, to use in the generated app.
At this point, you can preview your app and modify it to have it look and behavior you want.
What is the application modeler?
The application modeler shows the application pages structure, allows you to add or remove pages, and to configure application settings. The application modeler supports SAP Fiori elements applications based on OData V2 and OData V4.
A new experimental feature for OData V4 based SAP Fiori elements applications adds the capability to add and modify many annotation-based elements like sections, fields, and table columns to further simplify application development.
Beside the application editing capabilities, the application modeler extension includes the application information page, a one-stop-shop with facts, actions and links about your application. It also contains the data editor to create and maintain mock data.
The application modeler also offers a fast way to make changes to the default SAPUI5 flexibility settings that were generated during the project generation phase, such as whether to show or hide a Download to Excel button.
What is the service modeler?
The service modeler provides a visualization of OData metadata files and their annotations in your app. It shows all the projections (subsets of data based on a query) available in your service, along with the local and back-end annotations associated with the projection.
The service modeler provides details on the annotations and descriptions of what they do. You can copy back-end annotations to a local annotation file and then modify the annotations as needed for your app. The service modeler lets you change the annotation hierarchy or select which annotation files are applied to your app. You can also drill down and see code snippets for your annotations and edit them.
Once have completed your edits to the annotation files, you can preview your app to see the effect of the changes.
What is guided development?
Guided development helps you implement additional functionality into your SAP Fiori elements application with minimal coding. Once you have generated your app using the application generator, you can add a wide variety of features to the standard SAP Fiori elements page types. For example, you can add and rearrange table columns or provide charts for your users.
When you open the guided development extension, you will see a list of all the ways you can enhance your app, with the capabilities grouped by page type, OData version, or application artifacts. Each guide contains a brief description, associated annotation terms, the specific steps to implement the functionality in the guide, and the code required to make your changes. You can also search the guides to find what you need.
As you respond to the prompts in the guide, the guided development extension inserts your parameters into the provided code snippet. When your configuration is complete, you just need to click a single button and the extension places the code into the right place in the relevant file.
What is the XML annotation language server?
The XML annotation language server accelerates how you work with annotations in the code editor. Context-sensitive code completion displays suggestions that are relevant to where you are in the annotation file for your app. As you type a few letters, the list is filtered down to make it faster and easier to find the syntax you need. These micro-snippets make it much simpler to add annotations, without having to memorize the definitions and syntax of all the available annotations.
The XML annotation language server also includes cross references, so you can lookup definitions of annotations that are embedded in your code without having to navigate away from what you are doing. It also reviews your code and provides diagnostic messages for troubleshooting, with the ability to take you directly to the location of a problem, as well as indicating if you can fix it with code completion.
