What are logics for the SAP UI icons of "Back", "Exit" and "Cancel"?

[Former Member]

Hi SAP experts,

This question may sound kind of strange - isn't that obvious?

While, it is in fact a very important and difficult issue for UI app implementations when UI flow should be kept persistant. I have been feeling confused when doing UI implementations in Personas, specially when at some screens I need to add my own "BACK" button in order to go back to the previous screen (which can be different screens depending flow conditions.)

Can anyone explain what the basic logic is used for the SAP "Back", "Exit" and "Cancel" buttons (see below)?

Here are my understandings (which may not be accurate or correct):

1. "Back" icon (left): By pressing this icon, all the changes made in the current screen are discarded, and UI moves back to the previous screen. If there are some fields already been filled with values in the previous screen, there can be two UI behaviours depending on the platforms used:

    a) Some platform will restore the values so the screen looks EXACTLY like before.

    b) Some others will leave all fields empty (While, this can be annoying if you have to re-fill all the fields).

2. "Exit" icon (middle): By pressing this icon, all the changes made in the current screen are discarded, and UI moves back to the "Initial (or Home)" screen which in most time should be the first launching page of the app.

3. "Cancel" icon(right): I am very confused by this key - what is the special functionality of this key compared to those of the "Back" key and "Exit" key?

I have been working in many years on developing UI apps for mobile devices, and there were no such three types of keys for UI navigations. Maybe I missed some special points that is special only on SAP?

Thanks a lot in advance!

Dong Zhu

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

This may not sound that interesting so I will close it to keep our track "clean".

By the way, just want to share some finding - in Personas, when replacing the Exit or Cancel buttons by transactions, I found that "/n" and "SMEN" does not give the same result, and it depends on whether it is the Exit button or Cancel button that is to be replaced.

Close this question.

Dong Zhu