Wow! SAP has today released the next (compatible, of course) version of SAPUI5, our HTML5 controls library, that SAP is using as the standard User Interface Control library in all their future applications that need a "consumer grade" User Experience, whether it is on desktop, tablet or smartphone! It's the basis for SAP's User Experience strategy. Now we have released version 1.12 officially and it is ready for download on the SAP Community Network Development Center. If you want a copy, here we go:
Now why am I so excited about this new version? Well, that's easy:
First, SAPUI5 per se is an absolutely cool and great UI framework. It's based on open source and open standards like JQuery, HTML5, JavaScript, CSS, LESS and others, it's extensible ("if we don't have something in stock, add an open source or 3rd party control) as a core framework and has been built from ground up to best support modern browsers like Google Chrome, Apple Safari, Firefox and Microsoft IE 9 and 10 (for details, check this out). It is independent of the backend system, whether it is SAP Application Server ABAP, or SAP Application Server Java, or HANA Cloud Platform -- it just doesn't matter. We've effectively decoupled the lifecycle of the UI, which changes often, from the backend system release, which changes more seldom. It is optimized to consume REST/OData services as exposed by e.g. SAP Netweaver Gateway, SAP HANA Cloud Gateway or SAP HANA itself. So you can connect it basically to any SAP system!
But with the newest version we've done the next major step: We are no providing two "flavors" of SAPUI5 based on the same programming model and tools:
- The full-blown desktop version with a vast set of UI controls to easily and quickly build state-of-the-art Web UIs
- The tailor-made mobile version that supports not only Apple iOS, Google Android, RIM BlackBerry and Microsoft Windows Phone 8 for both tablet and smartphone form factors, but also supports to run the tablet versions on desktop browsers (even for "old" IE8 with a few degradations) -- a capability that is absolutely unique in the market!
If you want to see SAPUI5 v.1.12 in action and what SAP has built with it, check out SAP Fiori, a collection of consumer-grade productivity applications for tablet, smartphone and desktop as announced at SapphireNow 2013 in Orlando.
The more detailed list of new features added with V1.12 reads nicely as well:
- Components: One can bundle UI5 related objects like modules, views, controllers, etc. in components
- New view type: Declarative HTML, this is also included in SAPUI5 Eclipse tools
- New desktop controls like
- Form, ResponsiveLayout, Autocomplete, Collection Inspector, FormattedTextView
- Notetaker, DateRangeSlider, SplitButton
- Best practices mobile demo application
- All mobile (sap.m) controls which are not experimental support Blackberry 10
- New mobile controls like
- SplitApp, PullToRefresh, MessageToast, MessageBox, ActionSheet, InputDateTime
- New experimental mobile controls like
- TileContainer, TabularList, Shell, Accept/Reject Switch, GrowingList, IconTabBar, ActionSheet
- DateTimeInput, Link, ObjectHeader, TextArea, URLHelper
- Calendar, ProgressIndicator, TabContainer
- New mobile features
- Configurable/themable background images for App, SplitApp, Shell (experimental)
- Swipe-for-action in Lists
- Mobile library comes with new experimental Blue Crystal theme
- Mobile library with Blue Crystal theme runs on smart phones, tablets and desktops. This is only an experimental feature
- Charts in sap.viz library
- Basic touch support
- New charts: Dual Bar, Dual Line, Dual Combination, Dual Column, Dual Stacked Bar
- New Icon fonts / pool
- sap.ui.Device: API for device and feature detection and media query support
- Calculated fields in databinding, i.e. bind control properties to more than one data property
And our new WYSIWYG, browser-based UI creation tool with dozens of pre-designed templates to start with, SAP AppDesigner, is soon to be released as well...
I can only recommend you to download this latest release as a free trial from SCN Developer Center and check it out! There's tons of documentation, tutorials, sample code snippets and demo applications
Dear SAPUI5 team! You really rock! Thanks! 🙂
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