SAP UI5 - Overview

SAP provides various tools that the users can use to enhance their user experience to create apps with rich user interfaces for Web business applications. The most common enablement tools include −

• Theme Designer
• NWBC and Side Panel
• FPM Screens
• SAP UI5 Development Tools

Web-based apps that you create using SAP UI5 provides more consistent user experience and can be accessed on devices such as tablets, smartphones, and laptop. Using the NetWeaver gateway with UI5, you can define a clear separation between the user interface and business logic.

SAP UI5 provides the following key features −

• Extensibility concepts at the code and application level.
• Ability to create complex UI patterns and predefined layouts for typical use cases.
• Model-View-Controller (MVC) and data binding methods.
• Keyboard interaction support and accessibility features.
• SAP UI5 is based on open standards like JavaScript, CSS, and HTML5.
• Theming support based on CSS.

Following are the advantages of using SAP UI in business −

• It helps in increasing productivity.
• Increase user adaption.
• Less manual errors.
• Reduce the cost of training.
• High performance of SAP system.
• Perfectly designed API and can be consumed easily.

SAP UI5 ─ Version

Following is the list of recent UI5 versions that have been introduced. Each UI5 provides new features and enhancements from the previous versions, platform support, usability enhancements, etc.

• SAP UI5 1.26
• SAP UI5 1.28
• SAP UI5 1.30
• SAP UI5 1.32
• SAP UI5 1.34
• SAP UI5 1.36
• SAP UI5 1.38 and many more like SAP UI5 1.6

Version Scheme

SAP UI5 uses 3-digit version number. For example, SAPUI5 1.36.5. Here, the digit (1) specifies the major version. The second digit (36) specifies the minor version number. The third digit specifies the patch version number (5).

In each SAP UI5, the major and minor version as well as the patch version can be used to identify the patches.

SAP UI5 vs Open UI5

SAP UI5 and Open UI5, both provide the UI development environment. However, they are different from each other in the following aspects −

SAP UI5 is part of SAP product suite and is not a separate license. It is integrated with different SAP products like −

• SAP NW 7.4 or higher
• SAP NetWeaver AS 7.3x
• SAP HANA Cloud and on premise solution

Open UI5 is an open source technology for application development and it was released with Apache 2.0.

UI5 Browser Support

SAP UI5 supports all the main browsers from Microsoft, Google and Firefox with latest releases. However, features supported varies with the browser version and the vendor.