New ABAP Doc Features with NetWeaver 7.5

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In my document ABAP Doc I gave you a short overview about ABAP Doc and how you can use it.

In this blog, I would like to explain to you how you can export your ABAP Doc from the ABAP system and how you can synchronize your ABAP Doc comments with the short text descriptions in classes, interfaces and function modules. I hope you like these two new features which are available with SAP NetWeaver Application Server ABAP 7.5.

How can you export your ABAP Doc from the ABAP server?

We introduced a new functionality to ADT that allows you to export ABAP Doc of your classes and interfaces to local html-files.

In order to export your ABAP Doc you can proceed as follows:

1. Choose any package, class or interface in Project Explorer and choose „Export …“ from the context menu
2. In the wizard, choose "ABAP Doc"
   
3. On the next page of the wizard you can add further classes, interfaces or whole packages and define the root directory where the html files shall be stored in your local file system.
   
   If you choose a whole package, the ABAP Doc of all classes and interfaces of this package will be exported.
   
   

For each class or interface a dedicated html file is rendered that is located in the folder representing the package name.

If you want to adapt your own design to the exported html-pages, you can overwrite the stylesheet stored in htmldesign\stylesheet.css.

How can you synchronize ABAP Doc with short text descriptions?

Up to now, ABAP Doc and the classic short text descriptions you know from the SAP-GUI-based Class Builder or Function Builder were not linked to each other. This means, users who are still working with SE24 or SE37 and specify the short text descriptions there, didn't see the documentation written by their colleagues in ABAP Doc and vice versa.

Now, you have the possibility to define or change the short texts of classes, interfaces and function modules by using ABAP Doc. This includes also the short text descriptions of attributes, methods, parameters and so on.

This can be reached by classifying a paragraph in ABAP Doc as a short text. The short text shall be a brief summary of what your element is about. A short text in ABAP Doc looks like this:

"! <p class="shorttext">Returns all sales orders</p>

This is just a classification of a text in your ABAP Doc. Nothing special about this so far. However, if you also add the classification „synchronized“ to your short text, the text defined in your short text tag will be taken over to the short text descriptions of SE24 or SE37.

Even more, if a colleague updates the short text in SE24 or SE37, the short text in your ABAP Doc will be updated without touching the rest of your ABAP Doc.

A synchronized short text in ABAP Doc looks like this:

"! <p class="shorttext synchronized">Returns all sales orders</p>

If you enable the synchronization of the short-text-tag, the length of its content is limited to the length of the corresponding short text description in SE24 or SE37. If you use more than the allowed characters you will get a warning.

The new format of synchronized short texts is also considered if you import ABAP Doc from short text descriptions.

Then the imported texts are automatically synchronized. Additionally, the attribute „lang“ will be added to your paragraph.

"! <p class="shorttext synchronized" lang="en">Returns all sales orders</p>

This attribute will indicate the master language of your development object. The short text should be maintained in the master language, to ensure a correct synchronization. It is not possible to specify other languages than the master language; the editor would show you a warning if you do so.