SAP open sources UI development toolkit "SAPUI5"

Having worked with SAP via ABAP and Java back in the day (and hating it) I can still feel the soul of SAP through these web apps. They still feel incredibly slow and bloated for what they do. Their market dominance is driven by the FUD of other technologies unfortunately, so they need to create their own front-end javascript framework to keep the mystique going about how computer systems are complicated without SAP. On the other hand, when the SAP people retire I'd imagine they'll be completely out of business because no CTO in 20 years is going to get behind an SAP implementation as they work today.

SAP Hana is actually a pretty interesting technology for developing data analysis website. It&#x27;s a DB integrated with a web server and it automatically builds web services that let you query the data. It also provides a html&#x2F;js framework to easily display and drill down (i think SAPUI5 is tied to that framework, or even is that framework).<p>They even got an amazon AMI to start developping quickly without paying the license upfront. Unfortunately the IDE which you use to build the webapp requires Windows.<p>hint : i don&#x27;t work for SAP at all. I just discovered that technology a few weeks ago and it was pretty weird for me since i&#x27;ve always associated SAP to big, bloated, clumsy, and hyper expensive tools, for the enterprise only.

This is not one of the companies that I might have anticipated open sourcing this type of project. I hope that this helps other LargeCorps begin looking at open source as a reasonable business decision.<p>I salute SAP for the initiative and hope more follow suit.

Nice set of font icons included (licensed as Apache License 2.0 too I think, so you can use them standalone elsewhere):<p>Icon Explorer: <a href="https://openui5.hana.ondemand.com/test-resources/sap/m/demokit/icon-explorer/index.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;openui5.hana.ondemand.com&#x2F;test-resources&#x2F;sap&#x2F;m&#x2F;demok...</a><p>Uncategorized icons: <a href="https://openui5.hana.ondemand.com/test-resources/sap/ui/core/Icon.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;openui5.hana.ondemand.com&#x2F;test-resources&#x2F;sap&#x2F;ui&#x2F;core...</a><p>Class sap.ui.core.Icon reference: <a href="https://openui5.hana.ondemand.com/#docs/api/symbols/sap.ui.core.Icon.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;openui5.hana.ondemand.com&#x2F;#docs&#x2F;api&#x2F;symbols&#x2F;sap.ui.c...</a>

6MB, 150 files, interminably slow load times, a crazy-looking, complicated, Java-inspired API, and poor text contrast? Yeah, that&#x27;s about what I was expecting from a UI toolkit from SAP. Makes me sad.

I liked the UI because it is compact. I know they are not the only alternative, but I hate default padding and margin values of Bootstrap. Not everyone has retina or 4K displays. It is more suitable for desktop application where you need many components to be displayed, and you have a mouse to navigate. Bootstrap is good in the other way around.

Lots of negative comments on HN, surprise surprise. Seems like an enormous amount of code, we should be happy it&#x27;s now open source for others to use and learn from.

A UI toolkit from SAP, that&#x27;s rich.

What to makeof this thread? I see bias all around - on both sides of the house! Sure, it&#x27;s always fun to be thrashing the big guys (&quot;evil empires&quot;) and cheer for the under dog.<p>Those who have been watching more closely (IMHO, the only ones entitled to raise public critism) would back me up in saying that there has been an ongoing change for the better and SAP has really been opening up to the broader developer community - empowering developers and lowering the entry barrier!<p>SAP offers free education and free developer licenses so it&#x27;s easier than ever to get started. At the end of the day, it&#x27;s all about making a living as a software developer and hence I believe this is a positive trend... And one that should be acknowledged in a positive way.

The basic overview blog is well worth reading <a href="http://scn.sap.com/community/developer-center/front-end/blog/2013/12/11/what-is-openui5-sapui5" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;scn.sap.com&#x2F;community&#x2F;developer-center&#x2F;front-end&#x2F;blog...</a>

Here is a direct link to documentation and examples of all the controls in the UI library<p><a href="https://openui5.hana.ondemand.com/#content/Controls/index.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;openui5.hana.ondemand.com&#x2F;#content&#x2F;Controls&#x2F;index.ht...</a>

If you&#x27;re interested, we have a TodoMVC example for SAPUI5: <a href="http://todomvc.com/labs/architecture-examples/sapui5/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;todomvc.com&#x2F;labs&#x2F;architecture-examples&#x2F;sapui5&#x2F;</a>

Looks like UI kits from 3 years ago.

The most interesting components in this library is in the sap.m namespace. They are a core part of the new UI strategy of the SAP and are often referred to as Fiori (see more at <a href="https://experience.sap.com/fiori#demos" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;experience.sap.com&#x2F;fiori#demos</a>). Designed to handle responsive design and mobile OS device adaptions. Perfect for combining with a hybrid container such as Cordova&#x2F;Phonegap (though size-wise they need to be optimized more ref <a href="http://scn.sap.com/community/developer-center/front-end/blog/2013/11/26/why-i-want-my-fiori-to-be-lean-fast" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;scn.sap.com&#x2F;community&#x2F;developer-center&#x2F;front-end&#x2F;blog...</a>)<p>A lot of them are high-level components such as IconTabBar <a href="https://openui5.hana.ondemand.com/test-resources/sap/m/demokit/explored/index.html#/sample/iconTabBarProcess" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;openui5.hana.ondemand.com&#x2F;test-resources&#x2F;sap&#x2F;m&#x2F;demok...</a><p>TileContainer <a href="https://openui5.hana.ondemand.com/test-resources/sap/m/demokit/explored/index.html#/sample/tileContainer" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;openui5.hana.ondemand.com&#x2F;test-resources&#x2F;sap&#x2F;m&#x2F;demok...</a> Lists <a href="https://openui5.hana.ondemand.com/test-resources/sap/m/demokit/explored/index.html#/sample/listItemObject" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;openui5.hana.ondemand.com&#x2F;test-resources&#x2F;sap&#x2F;m&#x2F;demok...</a><p>Forms <a href="https://openui5.hana.ondemand.com/test-resources/sap/m/demokit/explored/index.html#/sample/form480" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;openui5.hana.ondemand.com&#x2F;test-resources&#x2F;sap&#x2F;m&#x2F;demok...</a>

Am I the only one this isn&#x27;t working for? I see comments in here describing all sorts of things but the demo and doc pages only give me JS errors:<p>&gt; Uncaught TypeError: Cannot set property &#x27;OS&#x27; of null sap-ui-core.js:152<p>&gt; Uncaught TypeError: Cannot call method &#x27;getUriParameters&#x27; of undefined openui5.hana.ondemand.com&#x2F;:35<p>I just see a blank page.

Seeing lots of comparisons to ExtJS, in many ways it is similar, but it is also a lot like Dojo and even Backbone.<p>Would hope in time we see a proper comparision like in <a href="http://coding.smashingmagazine.com/2012/07/27/journey-through-the-javascript-mvc-jungle/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;coding.smashingmagazine.com&#x2F;2012&#x2F;07&#x2F;27&#x2F;journey-throug...</a><p>Where SAPUI5 excels is in providing an easy and consistent way to interact with SAP based backends. Anyone who has tried to do this with other frameworks will appreciate the complexity, SAP themselves have used and are using SAPUI5 for developing many application across the globe. It has been used in anger and been proven to be very extensible and scalable, the kind of things you look for as a Enterprise Developer.

It&#x27;s very cool and immensely impressive, but the web moves fast and it&#x27;s interesting to note how quickly previous everything and the kitchen sink and or ui libraries become dated. Just look to dojo, jquery ui, ext.js, jquery mobile, even Cappuccino looks dated (take a look at <a href="http://www.cappuccino-project.org/learn/demos/LightsOff/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cappuccino-project.org&#x2F;learn&#x2F;demos&#x2F;LightsOff&#x2F;</a> for example).<p>Big libraries can&#x27;t move fast, and can&#x27;t adapt to all the latest things easily, like reactivity, flat ui, new features like webrtc, persistent websockets instead of REST, etc.

The amount of different controls is impressive. The design, not so much. Look at those emphasized buttons, for example.

Why is it so slow?

This looks like ExtJS, but worse than ExtJS.

Oh my, that &quot;Delphi mentality&quot; in 2013..) ExtJS, if I remember correctly, is 5 or 6 years old already?) But we, no doubt, will read about ground-breaking innovations from their PR machine.)<p>Is there any info which &quot;startup&quot; they have acquired or in what third-world country it was outsourced?)

The date-picker has a bug, it shows calendar week &quot;53&quot; instead of 1 (first week of 2014): <a href="http://postimg.org/image/faubokz5b/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;postimg.org&#x2F;image&#x2F;faubokz5b&#x2F;</a><p>SAPUI5 is good, finally they can replace the outdated Netweavers Web UI with its horrible JS code.