It’s funny, I really believed I’d be able to convert my ABAP Web Dynpro app (Renovation) to good old SAP Dynpro in under a week. After all, the heavy lifting was done, right?!? Shame on me for not remembering how the real world works. So I thought I’d just pass along some of the things I “relearned” during this experiment.
- Nothing is ever as straightforward as it seems. Even though the back end stuff didn’t change, getting the correct screen formatting is still starting from scratch (but there will be more on this later).
- Dynamic formatting is NEVER easy. When I did the work in Web Dynpro, it took a lot of effort to get things to work correctly. SAP Dynpro is no different. It’s still creating lots of subscreens, and logic and containers, to keep things dynamic. Every platform is starting over when it comes to screen design and formatting.
- Creating functions to encapsulate existing logic (and prep for UI5) is worthwhile, but still requires a lot of re-examination. I’ve had to relearn parts of my original app, just to understand what the hell I was originally thinking. Don’t expect to remember why you did things… and don’t expect all your choices to have been perfect when you did them them first time. This goes for drop down menus as well as heavy duty functions to create documents.
- Pay attention because maybe everything wasn’t working in the original the way you expected. I found features that worked great for 90% of the scenarios, but during this design I discovered some test cases that were previously missed. So, if you do an adventure like this, use it as another round of testing. You’ll end up with 2 products that are better.
- DO NOT ADD MORE FEATURES – this one is tough for me. As I start playing, I think of other new things I could just “throw into” the solution. Instead, be smart about it. Add those ideas to a list. Just because you think it’s cool, doesn’t mean your customers want or need it. Plus, it gets too easy to be sidetracked added new functionality, instead of just finishing the conversion. STICK TO THE TASK AT HAND.
At the end of the day, these tips are just common sense in the design world. But occasionally, even the best of us forget these simple lessons.
Thanks for reading,
As always, thanks for reading and don't forget to check out our SAP Service Management Products at my other company JaveLLin Solutions,Mike