The SAP Fiori tools team continues to accelerate development and foster best practices for SAP Fiori apps. In the last few months, we have added support for TypeScript in CAP projects and introduced guides to help developers adopt TypeScript as a programming language for developing SAP Fiori apps. It is quick to add any flexible programming model building block with the code completion capabilities. We have made it even easier for you to make use of the most frequently used flexible programming model building blocks using Page Editor. On the open source front, we continue our journey to move the code to open source and make it reusable by the community. In parallel, we are also continuously delivering new capabilities to the open source extensions (Guided Answers extension by SAP & UI5 Language Assistant) based on the feedback from the community. In this update, I will give you a summary of these topics.

For those of you planning to attend UI5con, we will cover these topics in the following sessions:

Boost Your Productivity In Developing SAPUI5 apps With SAP Fiori Tools (workshop)

Develop SAP Fiori apps in TypeScript using SAP Fiori tools (talk)

TypeScript offers more flexibility

The mission of SAP Fiori tools is to simplify the developer’s experience and foster best practices. TypeScript leads to better coding quality and offers more flexibility. We had been adding end-to-end support around TypeScript to help to boost developer efficiency. You can now generate a new project with TypeScript enabled for all supported templates and OData versions using SAP Fiori tools, including CAP projects.

When generating a new project with Custom Template for flexible programming model, the controller for the default view is generated in TypeScript. For those of you who prefer the step-by-step approach to coding, two TypeScript guides (Add a custom action to a page using extensions and Add a custom filter to the filter bar) have been added to the collection of guides in Guided Development. When using Page Editor to add extensions such as custom column for OData V4 apps, the controller code is generated in TypeScript.

Controller code created in TypeScript

Flexible programming model made easier

Building blocks are reusable artifacts that are offered in the SAP Fiori elements runtime to further accelerate your development. We have now made the experience even easier with the ability to add/maintain building blocks using Page Editor. When adding a building block, Page Editor starts a guide to walk you through the creation, and you can update the building blocks in the properties panel. Currently, you will see options for filterbar, chart, and table building blocks. You can expect that we will continue to add support for other building blocks. You can also maintain any blocks using code completion as I mentioned in my previous update.

Easily add/update building block using Page Editor

Open Source journey continues

Open Source remains a key initiative for us. Our goal for open source is to bring transparency, promote reuse of code, and foster community collaboration. We added new modules for deployment tooling, project access, and all writers now support TypeScript. On the capabilities front, since the launch of Guided Answers extension by SAP, we had been improving the quality of content of troubleshooting tips in Guided Answers, and incorporated it into the message text for most frequently encountered problems.

To make it easier to share and collaborate with other developers, we have introduced the shareable link feature allowing you to easily copy the shortcut link which you can pass to your colleagues to directly launch Visual Studio Code, open the Guided Answers extension, and navigate to the specific step from which you copied the link. You can also now bookmark a specific document or step so you will have those handy when you need it again.

Bookmark a guide and copy shareable link to Guided Answer

Customer requests guide our priorities

Our guiding principle is “happy live customers”. We love working with customers to understand their needs and prioritize their requests in our planning. The most recent example of that is enabling support for offline mode in UI5 Language Assistant extension for those who work in an environment that do not have public internet access.

We are focused on continuous improvements

We will stay committed to simplify the SAP Fiori development experience with continuous improvements and innovations. We have plans to bring you a manifest editor to make it easier for you to configure application settings. We will also continue to improve the features that make the flexible programming model even easier. And, bring you an integrated learning experience and make it easier for you to find the documentation you need for the task at hand. Stay tuned for more to come from SAP Fiori tools!

If you want to influence what we do next, please join like-minded customers every month to talk about SAP Fiori development best practices and areas where you need help.

We also have a newsletter that we publish every other month with articles on SAPUI5, SAP Fiori elements, SAP Fiori tools, and SAP Business Application Studio. Subscribe to the SAP Fiori development newsletter.