6 ms·

SAP open sources UI development toolkit "SAPUI5"

68 points by blahbap 13y ago

filearts 13y ago
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. I salute SAP for the initiative and hope more follow suit.
- sirion 13y ago
  Since the project started the developer fought for this internally. Finally they won.
  - filearts 13y ago
    Interesting, I was thinking that SAP might have opened this up to help broaden the base of developers who are comfortable working with their technology. I just assumed that there must be some business logic underlying the move. I imagine that an open-source javascript project would be a great deal more approachable than proprietary ABAP for developers exploring new career paths.
    - easytiger 13y ago
      Yea that's isn't how SAP work. They only want inhouse developers developing on their platforms
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
elsewhat 13y ago
The basic overview blog is well worth reading http://scn.sap.com/community/developer-center/front-end/blog/2013/12/11/what-is-openui5-sapui5 http://scn.sap.com/community/developer-center/front-end/blog...
- computer 13y ago
  And the linked "Reasons to open-source this toolkit" at http://scn.sap.com/community/developer-center/front-end/blog/2013/11/20/reasons-why-sap-should-open-source-sapui5 http://scn.sap.com/community/developer-center/front-end/blog....
blahbap 13y ago
Here is a direct link to documentation and examples of all the controls in the UI library https://openui5.hana.ondemand.com/#content/Controls/index.html https://openui5.hana.ondemand.com/#content/Controls/index.ht...
frik 13y ago
The date-picker has a bug, it shows calendar week "53" instead of 1 (first week of 2014): http://postimg.org/image/faubokz5b/ http://postimg.org/image/faubokz5b/ SAPUI5 is good, finally they can replace the outdated Netweavers Web UI with its horrible JS code.
- Joeri 13y ago
  In US week numbering i believe that is actually valid, because week 53 can also be week 1 of the next year. Given that in the screenshot the weeks start on sunday, i assume US numbering applies. They probably have a setting to switch to ISO week numbering where it would indeed be week 1.
- adnam 13y ago
  It's probably defaulting to the 4-4-5 calendar used in finance or something.
  - frik 13y ago
    maybe. I think they coded it for European style calendar format "Monday" = first day of week, as SAP is a german company. I wrote a datepicker in JavaScript and it had similar bugs in one of the calendar formats too.
d55 13y ago
The amount of different controls is impressive. The design, not so much. Look at those emphasized buttons, for example.
- blahbap 13y ago
  Not so long ago, SAP released a suite of applications under the brand "Fiori" - these apps are responsivea, have a uniform look and feel and are much more pleasing to the eye. Here is an example from the Demokit: https://openui5.hana.ondemand.com/test-resources/sap/m/demokit/poa/index.html https://openui5.hana.ondemand.com/test-resources/sap/m/demok...
  - tmikaeld 13y ago
    This looks really good, but doesn't seem to be part of the open sourced UI? If it is, i can't find it.
    - blahbap 13y ago
      It is part of the library - you'll find the Fiori controls under the sap.m (for "mobile") namespace in the API section. It's the "SplitApp" element that gives you the nice looking, responsive container (I was not able to find a good code sample right away).
bsaul 13y ago
SAP Hana is actually a pretty interesting technology for developing data analysis website. It'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/js framework to easily display and drill down (i think SAPUI5 is tied to that framework, or even is that framework). 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. hint : i don't work for SAP at all. I just discovered that technology a few weeks ago and it was pretty weird for me since i've always associated SAP to big, bloated, clumsy, and hyper expensive tools, for the enterprise only.
- Argorak 13y ago
  SAP is a strangely technology-driven company on the inside. They just solve a horrible problem: implementing everyones business process as they find them at the client, instead of the other way around, with legacy support for ages. (disclaimer: I worked for SAP as an intern, a few years ago)
  - qznc 13y ago
    SAP (or Salesforce or whatever) comes in. Client wants new tech, but keep the business process the same. Lots of wasted money, tears, and anger. Client adapts business process. The problem is that most enterprise do not reach the last step.
- mrich 13y ago
  As an example, the NBA.com stats website is running on HANA: http://stats.nba.com/ http://stats.nba.com/
- schmerdy 13y ago
  the HANA IDE doesn't require Windows. You can get it for Windows, Linux and Mac. https://hanadeveditionsapicl.hana.ondemand.com/hanadevedition/ https://hanadeveditionsapicl.hana.ondemand.com/hanadeveditio...
  - 13y ago
dschiptsov 13y ago
Oh my, that "Delphi mentality" 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.) Is there any info which "startup" they have acquired or in what third-world country it was outsourced?)
- dserban 13y ago
  What does "Delphi mentality" mean? I'm genuinely curious, not having been exposed to that ecosystem at all.
  - dschiptsov 13y ago
    Well, Delphi was very interesting phenomena. I fought (and lost) a great fight trying to convince coworkers that it is a dead end and that no one will support future development or adapt it to modern versions of Windows, because no one would pay to this huge effort which must be done right on time. In other words, it was a naive blind faith in so-called desktop apps (built on top of a wired third-party toolkit), while it was obvious that a browser is the proper way of visualizing an information. This is the Delphi mentality. Now they have a dead codebase and whole project is in ruins. The irony was that it was some in-house a-la ERP system.)
    - porker 13y ago
      > while it was obvious that a browser is the proper way of visualizing an information. It really wasn't obvious in the early 2000's that the browser was the "proper" (I'll use the same word that you use, though I disagree with it) to display information, run software etc. I liked Delphi but while the adaptation to modern versions of Windows and future development was always going to be an issue, the main problem was company maangment, sales and mishandling of what was a good product in its time (up to Delphi 7).
    - gaius 13y ago
      The browser is for hypertext documents. It's not at all obvious that it's the right thing for, well, anything else. Why do you suppose apps are preferred on tablets and phones, rather than websites?
bdg 13y ago
Am I the only one this isn't working for? I see comments in here describing all sorts of things but the demo and doc pages only give me JS errors: > Uncaught TypeError: Cannot set property 'OS' of null sap-ui-core.js:152 > Uncaught TypeError: Cannot call method 'getUriParameters' of undefined openui5.hana.ondemand.com/:35 I just see a blank page.
- mkname 13y ago
  Same here. After setting the user agent to IE 8 the page renders fine. (I guess it can't handle FreeBSD)
  - bdg 13y ago
    I'm also a user of FreeBSD. I've created a pull request to address the issue. https://github.com/Incognito/openui5/commit/09a1b50bf73bc6bd6f07c4c4fe47fc8bf41af6dd https://github.com/Incognito/openui5/commit/09a1b50bf73bc6bd...
CSDude 13y ago
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.
- smrtinsert 13y ago
  Yeah bootstrap doesn't really have an enterprise look to it. Arguably the enterprise look is uncool though, so that's not surprising. wrapbootstrap has stuff that almost bridges the gap, erring on the cool side of things though. I doubt most enterprises want something that sleek looking. In short, make your enterprise software look like the Microsoft suite of the day and you should be ok. I think Extjs fails in that regard, it used to look fresh though.
hawleyal 13y ago
Looks like UI kits from 3 years ago.
- infinite_snoop 13y ago
  Compared to SAP GUI screens this is like an advanced alien technology. https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=sap+gui&espv=210&es_sm=93&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=5JmoUsmyGIKF4ASyt4D4Ag&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAQ&biw=1600&bih=755#imgdii=_ https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=sap+gui&espv=210&es_sm=93&...
kitsune_ 13y ago
A UI toolkit from SAP, that's rich.
leokun 13y ago
It's very cool and immensely impressive, but the web moves fast and it'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 http://www.cappuccino-project.org/learn/demos/LightsOff/ http://www.cappuccino-project.org/learn/demos/LightsOff/ for example). Big libraries can't move fast, and can't adapt to all the latest things easily, like reactivity, flat ui, new features like webrtc, persistent websockets instead of REST, etc.
- watty 13y ago
  And the web will continue moving fast and soon enough "flat" ui will look dated. This is why it can be themed: https://openui5.hana.ondemand.com/#docs/guide/ThemingFAQ.html https://openui5.hana.ondemand.com/#docs/guide/ThemingFAQ.htm...
  - leokun 13y ago
    jQuery UI can be themed, there's a flat theme, few people use it. Those who do were already using jQuery UI and searched for it.
bobx11 13y ago
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.
- droopyEyelids 13y ago
  It will be called SalesForce then.
  - jedmeyers 13y ago
    As if SalesForce is any better.
- gwu78 13y ago
  "Java... web apps... incredibly slow... bloated... market dominance... FUD... front-end javascript framework... keep the mystique going..." "completely out of business" The end.
- skriticos2 13y ago
  The company I contract for is currently rolling out a big SAP installation. Yes it's a big company, yes it's all the enterprise nightmares you heard about and no, SAP won't go out of business any time soon. Not even COBOL is completely phased out here and most stuff is Java developed at some offshore location. Enterprise is a very, very weird place. And yes, IBM won't starve any time soon either.
- smtddr 13y ago
  I dunno where the SAP hate comes from. In my days of AT&T, SAP was the best thing going on. It was the one thing that actually worked reliably. I loved using ABAP and SAPjCO[1] to do all kinds of cool things. I thought the design of SAP was amazing for the complexities it had to deal with. Of course, our HRP1001 table had over 8 million rows. Someone probably had to buy some very expensive hardware to keep SAP running fast. 1. http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw04/helpdata/en/6f/1bd5c6a85b11d6b28500508b5d5211/content.htm http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw04/helpdata/en/6f/1bd5c6a85b11... P.S., I wish other programming languages would consider implementing a table variable like ABAP has; allowing me to run SQL against it. http://sap-core.com/articles/basis/abap/abap-variables/ http://sap-core.com/articles/basis/abap/abap-variables/
vanni 13y ago
Nice set of font icons included (licensed as Apache License 2.0 too I think, so you can use them standalone elsewhere): Icon Explorer: https://openui5.hana.ondemand.com/test-resources/sap/m/demokit/icon-explorer/index.html https://openui5.hana.ondemand.com/test-resources/sap/m/demok... Uncategorized icons: https://openui5.hana.ondemand.com/test-resources/sap/ui/core/Icon.html https://openui5.hana.ondemand.com/test-resources/sap/ui/core... Class sap.ui.core.Icon reference: https://openui5.hana.ondemand.com/#docs/api/symbols/sap.ui.core.Icon.html https://openui5.hana.ondemand.com/#docs/api/symbols/sap.ui.c...
- vanni 13y ago
  You can find the SAP-icons.ttf and SAP-icons.eot files into the following folders inside the UI5 Runtime zip file: resources/sap/ui/core/themes/*/fonts/ The copyright lines inside the font files say: Copyright (c) 2013 by Gerard Keane SAP AG Visual Design. All rights reserved. Copyright (c) 2013 by SAP AG Visual Design. All rights reserved. But I still think that the Apache License 2.0 applies here too.
  - dstroii 13y ago
    The copyright issue should be fixed. Looks like this was generated automatically by the software ;)
    - vanni 13y ago
      At first I thought you were part of the team and already fixed the font license issue on the public website, but I just checked and nothing seems to have been changed. So maybe I misinterpreted your comment, and you are not part of the team, but just saying that this issue need to be fixed, and that probably it is there because of automatic generation. Could you please clarify the meaning of your comment? Thanks! :)
benigeri 13y ago
Why is it so slow?
- baudehlo 13y ago
  It's 400KB of minified Javascript. Compare with some other large-ish libraries: Angular: 97KB jQuery: 90KB jQueryUI: 87KB It takes a while to load and compile.
  - lenkite 13y ago
    To be truly fair, you need to compare this against ext-js which is ~700KB
  - sirion 13y ago
    Also jQuery is included in UI5.
watty 13y ago
Lots of negative comments on HN, surprise surprise. Seems like an enormous amount of code, we should be happy it's now open source for others to use and learn from.
- jeswin 13y ago
  Most of the criticism is valid though, in this case. This is a genuinely poor UI framework. 1. This is extjs, like someone else was mentioning below. 2. Why would you supplant native HTML/CSS capabilities with shit like new sap.ui.commons.TextView({ layoutData : new sap.ui.layout.GridData({ span : "L4 M6 S12"... 3. The problem is that the entire approach is outdated, and fairly slow and bloated on my machine. Coding with this is going to be as interesting as legacy Java and .Net "thick client" apps.
  - brd 13y ago
    I think SAP deserves some praise for open sourcing some real work. Beyond that I agree with your critique, this framework is not going to make inroads in the larger web community. However, keep in mind that this is an SAP tool geared towards the SAP ecosystem and it will ultimately be a pretty big deal within that space. As an SAP developer I am happy to see any progress towards more modern practices and better technologies and SAPUI5 is, without a doubt, progress.
  - anonymous001 13y ago
    “Why would you supplant native HTML/CSS capabilities with sap.ui.commons.TextView” Because “The DOM is a Mess”. SAPUI5 works across devices desktop, tablet and smartphone. Thinks about browser regressions (removing or changing unspecified APIs), missing features (typically older browsers missing specific features), browser bugs and differences. Using the Facade pattern, protects frameworks/libraries against those problems, the best example is the jQuery library. Why would you supplant native DOM APIs with jQuery?
ch0wn 13y ago
If you're interested, we have a TodoMVC example for SAPUI5: http://todomvc.com/labs/architecture-examples/sapui5/ http://todomvc.com/labs/architecture-examples/sapui5/
- lightblade 13y ago
  Took over 5 seconds to load. I don't like this.
aaronbrethorst 13y ago
6MB, 150 files, interminably slow load times, a crazy-looking, complicated, Java-inspired API, and poor text contrast? Yeah, that's about what I was expecting from a UI toolkit from SAP. Makes me sad.
elsewhat 13y 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 https://experience.sap.com/fiori#demos https://experience.sap.com/fiori#demos). Designed to handle responsive design and mobile OS device adaptions. Perfect for combining with a hybrid container such as Cordova/Phonegap (though size-wise they need to be optimized more ref http://scn.sap.com/community/developer-center/front-end/blog/2013/11/26/why-i-want-my-fiori-to-be-lean-fast http://scn.sap.com/community/developer-center/front-end/blog...) A lot of them are high-level components such as IconTabBar https://openui5.hana.ondemand.com/test-resources/sap/m/demokit/explored/index.html#/sample/iconTabBarProcess https://openui5.hana.ondemand.com/test-resources/sap/m/demok... TileContainer https://openui5.hana.ondemand.com/test-resources/sap/m/demokit/explored/index.html#/sample/tileContainer https://openui5.hana.ondemand.com/test-resources/sap/m/demok... Lists https://openui5.hana.ondemand.com/test-resources/sap/m/demokit/explored/index.html#/sample/listItemObject https://openui5.hana.ondemand.com/test-resources/sap/m/demok... Forms https://openui5.hana.ondemand.com/test-resources/sap/m/demokit/explored/index.html#/sample/form480 https://openui5.hana.ondemand.com/test-resources/sap/m/demok...
lightblade 13y ago
This looks like ExtJS, but worse than ExtJS.
jasper_07 13y ago
Seeing lots of comparisons to ExtJS, in many ways it is similar, but it is also a lot like Dojo and even Backbone. Would hope in time we see a proper comparision like in http://coding.smashingmagazine.com/2012/07/27/journey-through-the-javascript-mvc-jungle/ http://coding.smashingmagazine.com/2012/07/27/journey-throug... 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.
steinermatt 13y ago
What to makeof this thread? I see bias all around - on both sides of the house! Sure, it's always fun to be thrashing the big guys ("evil empires") and cheer for the under dog. 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! SAP offers free education and free developer licenses so it's easier than ever to get started. At the end of the day, it'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.

68 points by blahbap 13y ago

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. I salute SAP for the initiative and hope more follow suit.

sirion 13y ago
Since the project started the developer fought for this internally. Finally they won.
- filearts 13y ago
  Interesting, I was thinking that SAP might have opened this up to help broaden the base of developers who are comfortable working with their technology. I just assumed that there must be some business logic underlying the move. I imagine that an open-source javascript project would be a great deal more approachable than proprietary ABAP for developers exploring new career paths.
  - easytiger 13y ago
    Yea that's isn't how SAP work. They only want inhouse developers developing on their platforms
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

elsewhat 13y ago

The basic overview blog is well worth reading http://scn.sap.com/community/developer-center/front-end/blog/2013/12/11/what-is-openui5-sapui5 http://scn.sap.com/community/developer-center/front-end/blog...

computer 13y ago
And the linked "Reasons to open-source this toolkit" at http://scn.sap.com/community/developer-center/front-end/blog/2013/11/20/reasons-why-sap-should-open-source-sapui5 http://scn.sap.com/community/developer-center/front-end/blog....

blahbap 13y ago

Here is a direct link to documentation and examples of all the controls in the UI library https://openui5.hana.ondemand.com/#content/Controls/index.html https://openui5.hana.ondemand.com/#content/Controls/index.ht...

frik 13y ago

The date-picker has a bug, it shows calendar week "53" instead of 1 (first week of 2014): http://postimg.org/image/faubokz5b/ http://postimg.org/image/faubokz5b/ SAPUI5 is good, finally they can replace the outdated Netweavers Web UI with its horrible JS code.

Joeri 13y ago
In US week numbering i believe that is actually valid, because week 53 can also be week 1 of the next year. Given that in the screenshot the weeks start on sunday, i assume US numbering applies. They probably have a setting to switch to ISO week numbering where it would indeed be week 1.
adnam 13y ago
It's probably defaulting to the 4-4-5 calendar used in finance or something.
- frik 13y ago
  maybe. I think they coded it for European style calendar format "Monday" = first day of week, as SAP is a german company. I wrote a datepicker in JavaScript and it had similar bugs in one of the calendar formats too.

d55 13y ago

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

blahbap 13y ago
Not so long ago, SAP released a suite of applications under the brand "Fiori" - these apps are responsivea, have a uniform look and feel and are much more pleasing to the eye. Here is an example from the Demokit: https://openui5.hana.ondemand.com/test-resources/sap/m/demokit/poa/index.html https://openui5.hana.ondemand.com/test-resources/sap/m/demok...
- tmikaeld 13y ago
  This looks really good, but doesn't seem to be part of the open sourced UI? If it is, i can't find it.
  - blahbap 13y ago
    It is part of the library - you'll find the Fiori controls under the sap.m (for "mobile") namespace in the API section. It's the "SplitApp" element that gives you the nice looking, responsive container (I was not able to find a good code sample right away).

bsaul 13y ago

SAP Hana is actually a pretty interesting technology for developing data analysis website. It'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/js framework to easily display and drill down (i think SAPUI5 is tied to that framework, or even is that framework). 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. hint : i don't work for SAP at all. I just discovered that technology a few weeks ago and it was pretty weird for me since i've always associated SAP to big, bloated, clumsy, and hyper expensive tools, for the enterprise only.

Argorak 13y ago
SAP is a strangely technology-driven company on the inside. They just solve a horrible problem: implementing everyones business process as they find them at the client, instead of the other way around, with legacy support for ages. (disclaimer: I worked for SAP as an intern, a few years ago)
- qznc 13y ago
  SAP (or Salesforce or whatever) comes in. Client wants new tech, but keep the business process the same. Lots of wasted money, tears, and anger. Client adapts business process. The problem is that most enterprise do not reach the last step.
mrich 13y ago
As an example, the NBA.com stats website is running on HANA: http://stats.nba.com/ http://stats.nba.com/
schmerdy 13y ago
the HANA IDE doesn't require Windows. You can get it for Windows, Linux and Mac. https://hanadeveditionsapicl.hana.ondemand.com/hanadevedition/ https://hanadeveditionsapicl.hana.ondemand.com/hanadeveditio...
- 13y ago

dschiptsov 13y ago

Oh my, that "Delphi mentality" 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.) Is there any info which "startup" they have acquired or in what third-world country it was outsourced?)

dserban 13y ago
What does "Delphi mentality" mean? I'm genuinely curious, not having been exposed to that ecosystem at all.
- dschiptsov 13y ago
  Well, Delphi was very interesting phenomena. I fought (and lost) a great fight trying to convince coworkers that it is a dead end and that no one will support future development or adapt it to modern versions of Windows, because no one would pay to this huge effort which must be done right on time. In other words, it was a naive blind faith in so-called desktop apps (built on top of a wired third-party toolkit), while it was obvious that a browser is the proper way of visualizing an information. This is the Delphi mentality. Now they have a dead codebase and whole project is in ruins. The irony was that it was some in-house a-la ERP system.)
  - porker 13y ago
    > while it was obvious that a browser is the proper way of visualizing an information. It really wasn't obvious in the early 2000's that the browser was the "proper" (I'll use the same word that you use, though I disagree with it) to display information, run software etc. I liked Delphi but while the adaptation to modern versions of Windows and future development was always going to be an issue, the main problem was company maangment, sales and mishandling of what was a good product in its time (up to Delphi 7).
  - gaius 13y ago
    The browser is for hypertext documents. It's not at all obvious that it's the right thing for, well, anything else. Why do you suppose apps are preferred on tablets and phones, rather than websites?

bdg 13y ago

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

mkname 13y ago
Same here. After setting the user agent to IE 8 the page renders fine. (I guess it can't handle FreeBSD)
- bdg 13y ago
  I'm also a user of FreeBSD. I've created a pull request to address the issue. https://github.com/Incognito/openui5/commit/09a1b50bf73bc6bd6f07c4c4fe47fc8bf41af6dd https://github.com/Incognito/openui5/commit/09a1b50bf73bc6bd...

CSDude 13y ago

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.

smrtinsert 13y ago
Yeah bootstrap doesn't really have an enterprise look to it. Arguably the enterprise look is uncool though, so that's not surprising. wrapbootstrap has stuff that almost bridges the gap, erring on the cool side of things though. I doubt most enterprises want something that sleek looking. In short, make your enterprise software look like the Microsoft suite of the day and you should be ok. I think Extjs fails in that regard, it used to look fresh though.

hawleyal 13y ago

Looks like UI kits from 3 years ago.

infinite_snoop 13y ago
Compared to SAP GUI screens this is like an advanced alien technology. https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=sap+gui&espv=210&es_sm=93&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=5JmoUsmyGIKF4ASyt4D4Ag&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAQ&biw=1600&bih=755#imgdii=_ https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=sap+gui&espv=210&es_sm=93&...

kitsune_ 13y ago

A UI toolkit from SAP, that's rich.

leokun 13y ago

It's very cool and immensely impressive, but the web moves fast and it'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 http://www.cappuccino-project.org/learn/demos/LightsOff/ http://www.cappuccino-project.org/learn/demos/LightsOff/ for example). Big libraries can't move fast, and can't adapt to all the latest things easily, like reactivity, flat ui, new features like webrtc, persistent websockets instead of REST, etc.

watty 13y ago
And the web will continue moving fast and soon enough "flat" ui will look dated. This is why it can be themed: https://openui5.hana.ondemand.com/#docs/guide/ThemingFAQ.html https://openui5.hana.ondemand.com/#docs/guide/ThemingFAQ.htm...
- leokun 13y ago
  jQuery UI can be themed, there's a flat theme, few people use it. Those who do were already using jQuery UI and searched for it.

bobx11 13y ago

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.

droopyEyelids 13y ago
It will be called SalesForce then.
- jedmeyers 13y ago
  As if SalesForce is any better.
gwu78 13y ago
"Java... web apps... incredibly slow... bloated... market dominance... FUD... front-end javascript framework... keep the mystique going..." "completely out of business" The end.
skriticos2 13y ago
The company I contract for is currently rolling out a big SAP installation. Yes it's a big company, yes it's all the enterprise nightmares you heard about and no, SAP won't go out of business any time soon. Not even COBOL is completely phased out here and most stuff is Java developed at some offshore location. Enterprise is a very, very weird place. And yes, IBM won't starve any time soon either.
smtddr 13y ago
I dunno where the SAP hate comes from. In my days of AT&T, SAP was the best thing going on. It was the one thing that actually worked reliably. I loved using ABAP and SAPjCO[1] to do all kinds of cool things. I thought the design of SAP was amazing for the complexities it had to deal with. Of course, our HRP1001 table had over 8 million rows. Someone probably had to buy some very expensive hardware to keep SAP running fast. 1. http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw04/helpdata/en/6f/1bd5c6a85b11d6b28500508b5d5211/content.htm http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw04/helpdata/en/6f/1bd5c6a85b11... P.S., I wish other programming languages would consider implementing a table variable like ABAP has; allowing me to run SQL against it. http://sap-core.com/articles/basis/abap/abap-variables/ http://sap-core.com/articles/basis/abap/abap-variables/

vanni 13y ago

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

vanni 13y ago
You can find the SAP-icons.ttf and SAP-icons.eot files into the following folders inside the UI5 Runtime zip file: resources/sap/ui/core/themes/*/fonts/ The copyright lines inside the font files say: Copyright (c) 2013 by Gerard Keane SAP AG Visual Design. All rights reserved. Copyright (c) 2013 by SAP AG Visual Design. All rights reserved. But I still think that the Apache License 2.0 applies here too.
- dstroii 13y ago
  The copyright issue should be fixed. Looks like this was generated automatically by the software ;)
  - vanni 13y ago
    At first I thought you were part of the team and already fixed the font license issue on the public website, but I just checked and nothing seems to have been changed. So maybe I misinterpreted your comment, and you are not part of the team, but just saying that this issue need to be fixed, and that probably it is there because of automatic generation. Could you please clarify the meaning of your comment? Thanks! :)

benigeri 13y ago

Why is it so slow?

baudehlo 13y ago
It's 400KB of minified Javascript. Compare with some other large-ish libraries: Angular: 97KB jQuery: 90KB jQueryUI: 87KB It takes a while to load and compile.
- lenkite 13y ago
  To be truly fair, you need to compare this against ext-js which is ~700KB
- sirion 13y ago
  Also jQuery is included in UI5.

watty 13y ago

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

jeswin 13y ago
Most of the criticism is valid though, in this case. This is a genuinely poor UI framework. 1. This is extjs, like someone else was mentioning below. 2. Why would you supplant native HTML/CSS capabilities with shit like new sap.ui.commons.TextView({ layoutData : new sap.ui.layout.GridData({ span : "L4 M6 S12"... 3. The problem is that the entire approach is outdated, and fairly slow and bloated on my machine. Coding with this is going to be as interesting as legacy Java and .Net "thick client" apps.
- brd 13y ago
  I think SAP deserves some praise for open sourcing some real work. Beyond that I agree with your critique, this framework is not going to make inroads in the larger web community. However, keep in mind that this is an SAP tool geared towards the SAP ecosystem and it will ultimately be a pretty big deal within that space. As an SAP developer I am happy to see any progress towards more modern practices and better technologies and SAPUI5 is, without a doubt, progress.
- anonymous001 13y ago
  “Why would you supplant native HTML/CSS capabilities with sap.ui.commons.TextView” Because “The DOM is a Mess”. SAPUI5 works across devices desktop, tablet and smartphone. Thinks about browser regressions (removing or changing unspecified APIs), missing features (typically older browsers missing specific features), browser bugs and differences. Using the Facade pattern, protects frameworks/libraries against those problems, the best example is the jQuery library. Why would you supplant native DOM APIs with jQuery?

ch0wn 13y ago

If you're interested, we have a TodoMVC example for SAPUI5: http://todomvc.com/labs/architecture-examples/sapui5/ http://todomvc.com/labs/architecture-examples/sapui5/

lightblade 13y ago
Took over 5 seconds to load. I don't like this.

aaronbrethorst 13y ago

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

elsewhat 13y 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 https://experience.sap.com/fiori#demos https://experience.sap.com/fiori#demos). Designed to handle responsive design and mobile OS device adaptions. Perfect for combining with a hybrid container such as Cordova/Phonegap (though size-wise they need to be optimized more ref http://scn.sap.com/community/developer-center/front-end/blog/2013/11/26/why-i-want-my-fiori-to-be-lean-fast http://scn.sap.com/community/developer-center/front-end/blog...) A lot of them are high-level components such as IconTabBar https://openui5.hana.ondemand.com/test-resources/sap/m/demokit/explored/index.html#/sample/iconTabBarProcess https://openui5.hana.ondemand.com/test-resources/sap/m/demok... TileContainer https://openui5.hana.ondemand.com/test-resources/sap/m/demokit/explored/index.html#/sample/tileContainer https://openui5.hana.ondemand.com/test-resources/sap/m/demok... Lists https://openui5.hana.ondemand.com/test-resources/sap/m/demokit/explored/index.html#/sample/listItemObject https://openui5.hana.ondemand.com/test-resources/sap/m/demok... Forms https://openui5.hana.ondemand.com/test-resources/sap/m/demokit/explored/index.html#/sample/form480 https://openui5.hana.ondemand.com/test-resources/sap/m/demok...

lightblade 13y ago

This looks like ExtJS, but worse than ExtJS.

jasper_07 13y ago

Seeing lots of comparisons to ExtJS, in many ways it is similar, but it is also a lot like Dojo and even Backbone. Would hope in time we see a proper comparision like in http://coding.smashingmagazine.com/2012/07/27/journey-through-the-javascript-mvc-jungle/ http://coding.smashingmagazine.com/2012/07/27/journey-throug... 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.

steinermatt 13y ago

What to makeof this thread? I see bias all around - on both sides of the house! Sure, it's always fun to be thrashing the big guys ("evil empires") and cheer for the under dog. 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! SAP offers free education and free developer licenses so it's easier than ever to get started. At the end of the day, it'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.