UI5 NewsCast

In this episode, we delve into the world of UI5con 2023, our conference for the UI5 community. It brings together developers, designers, and experts to discuss the latest trends and advancements in UI5 development. Through interviews with participants, we gained valuable insights into their experiences at the event and their personal connection to UI5. Join us as we explore the latest trends, innovations, and community-driven initiatives within the UI5 ecosystem, while uncovering the diverse perspectives and stories of people who share a passion for our UI framework. Participants of this episode’s interviews include among many others Kimmo Dragon (Neomore Consulting Oy), Jyri Jaakkola (Neomore Consulting Oy), Eugen Reyzenkind (SAP), Helmut Tammen (TAMMEN IT SOLUTIONS), Mike Zaschka (p36 GmbH), Peter Keiner (advades GmbH), Alexander Seibel (advades GmbH), Mike Doyle (Kintbury Consulting), Martin Fischer (Neptune Software), and Thorsten Wolf (Neptune Software).

The UI5 Tooling is a open and modular toolchain designed for developing state-of-the-art web applications based on the UI5 framework. Since its introduction a few years ago, it has become an indispensable part of UI5 app development. To gain deeper insights into this project, we have the honor of speaking with the architects of UI5 Tooling, Merlin Beutlberger and Matthias Osswald. Both have been involved with UI5 for many years, with Matthias even starting his SAP career in UI5 framework development. They have been instrumental in shaping the UI5 Tooling project right from its inception. We begin by discussing how they became UI5 framework developers. We then delve into the history of UI5 development tools, exploring the driving forces behind starting the project and the decision to make it open source. Additionally, they shed light on the barriers and restrictions that make this project particularly challenging. Finally, we gain some insights into what lies ahead for UI5 Tooling.

As the year is coming to an end, here is our UI5 recap of 2022. Christoph Haffner is joined by Stefan Beck (CPO SAPUI5/OpenUI5), Peter Muessig (CDA SAPUI5/OpenUI5) and Margot Wollny (Project Manager SAPUI5/OpenUI5) to review the year and cast their minds forward to 2023. They discuss their favorite UI5 NewsCast episodes and reflect the main improvements seen over the last 12 months for UI5, including TypeScript, web components, integration cards, adaptation project and much, much more. They also give an insight into what will happen with UI5 in 2023. Finally, they share the one thing that made 2022 special to them. Enjoy the episode! (This episode was recorded on December 15, 2022)

The ui5-community GitHub organization evolved to a central place to develop and share UI5 projects. It has become a great place to find ideas, to pick-up and continue ideas and finally make them available for the whole UI5 community. Starting with the UI5 ecosystem howcase mono repository hosting several tooling extensions, it now hosts more and more individual projects for different purposes: applications, libraries, custom controls, tooling extensions, middlewares, tasks or Easy-UI5 generators. Many developers contributed over the past year and during the panel discussion. Volker Buzek and Peter Muessig interviewed at UI5con 2022 some of the UI5 community contributors: Jakob Kjaer, Nitish Metha, Marian Zeis and Marco Beier to share their experiences and some history.

UI5con started in 2016 as a side project from a group of volunteers with the intention of bringing the UI5 community closer together. They wanted to create a platform for people who share a passion for UI5 to meet and learn from each other. In the meantime, UI5con has become the most important event for UI5 developers. Since it was only possible to run the event virtually for the last two years due to the COVID pandemic, the organizers decided last minute to open their doors to a limited number of participants onsite. Christoph Haffner was also part of this to capture voices live from the event and asking participants about their experiences as a UI5 developer. Participants of this episode include among many others Sergei Haller (U-NIQ), Marian Zeis (UI5 developer, freelancer), Marcel Schork (Schwarz IT), Lennard Abel (Optima Packaging), Margot Wollny (SAP), Frederic Berg (SAP) and Uliana Cáceres (SAP).

SAP integrated and developed several testing frameworks to test UI5 applications, libraries, controls or modules: QUnit for functional testing, OPA5 to do integration testing and UIveri5 for end-to-end testing. In 2020, wdi5 (pronounced as /vdiai5/) has been started by Volker Buzek at j&s-soft with the focus to test UI5 web apps in hybrid scenarios - the scenarios which aren’t supported by UIveri5. Beginning of 2022, UIveri5 got deprecated mainly due to technical reasons and a successor was needed. SAP started sponsoring the wdi5 project of j&s-soft to establish it as UI5s open-source end-to-end testing framework. In this podcast, Christoph talks with Volker, Hristo and Peter about the testing options of UI5, the history and the now, how wdi5 should be handed over into the responsibility of the UI5 community, migration steps from UIveri5 to wdi5, technical insights into wdi5 and the open gaps and next steps. Tune in and learn about the history, getting started, migration and the future direction of UI5 testing. Todays guests: - Volker Buzek, IT-Architect at j&s-soft GmbH and inventor of wdi5 - Hristo Manchev, Product Owner for UI5 test automation tools at SAP - Peter Muessig, Chief Architect of SAPUI5 at SAP

Recently the TypeScript programming language has become quite popular. It has become an essential part of many developers’ environments. The UI5 development team has looked into this subject as well and has made the necessary arrangements to support the usage of TypeScript in UI5 projects. Andreas Kunz, Lead Architect of UI5, is the leading developer in this task. This episode is full of his fascinating insights into the current state of the TypeScript support in UI5 as well as useful information on a range of topics related to UI5 and TypeScript.

The OData (Open Data) model of UI5 enables web-based applications to easily use the OData protocol for communication with application servers. Currently UI5 supports OData Version 2.0 and OData Version 4.0 in a given model implementation. Why have different model implementation approaches been chosen for the two versions? What are the similarities and differences? To get to the bottom of these questions, Christoph Haffner talks to Patric Ksinsik and Thomas Chadzelek, both developer architects for the UI5 model. Together they walk through the steps of requesting, querying and modifying data in an OData service and compare the approaches when using the OData V2 model or the OData V4 in UI5, They also disclose interesting facts from development and things worth knowing using OData with UI5. Listen on and find out more.

Data binding in UI5 is the synchronization between the model and the view. But how does this work exactly and which features related to data binding does UI5 provide out of the box? To get the bottom of this, Christoph Haffner invited Patric Ksinsik, developer architect working for the UI5 models team, to his studio. Patric walks us through the basics, but also talks about the particularities of data binding in UI5, best practices as well as hidden gems. There are plenty of features to discover! This episode is a new edition of the second UI5 NewsCast episode on data binding, which was at that time still in German. This new edition is in English and also covers some topics. So give it a listen and tune in to learn about data binding in UI5 from scratch!

The time is right for Web Components! That’s how Peter Muessig ended our episode about Web Components two years ago. Now the question is: Is the UI5 framework ready for Web Components? Christoph Haffner chats with Peter Muessig about the expectations that he put on Web Components, the obstacles the team had to overcome to publish the first release of the UI5 Web Components and how Web Components will find their way into the UI5 framework. Tune in for a deep dive into Web Components, the UI5 Web Components, and of course the UI5 framework!

In this episode, Christoph Haffner meets with Andreas Kunz, lead architect and co-founder of the UI5 project, to take you on a journey of discovery through the history of UI5. They talk about how it all started, which demands the framework has to fulfil and why open source is a matter of course for the UI5 team. Andreas tells the inside story with lots of little anecdotes on the history of UI5. He will explain the basic features of UI5 as well as differences and dependencies between SAPUI5, OpenUI5, SAP Fiori, SAP Fiori elements, and UI5 Web Components. This episode is a new edition of the very first UI5 NewsCast episode, which was at that time still in German. This new edition is in English and also covers some topics. So give it a listen and tune in for a deep dive into key insights, best practices, community, and more!

SAP Fiori elements is a low-code platform on top of SAPUI5 that helps you to quickly build enterprise-grade web apps. Hear the stories and insights from Stefan Engelhardt and Klaus Keller, both chief architects for SAP Fiori elements, how it all began. Let them explain you about the use cases and strengths of SAP Fiori elements and learn about UI annotations, the difference between back-end and local annotations, when to choose which and much more.

Business applications are subject to constant change and adjustment, be it altered requirements or various user groups define different working methods. Such adjustments can be time-consuming and cost-intensive. To counter this, UI5 includes a comprehensive concept that allows user groups to shape the UI of an UI5 application without touching the source code. Tune in to hear all about SAPUI5 flexibility, the story of how it came into being, the use cases it is aimed, and much more.

SAPUI5 smart controls are a special category of controls that help to boost application development and are part of the SAP Fiori elements offering. One specific feature of the smart controls is that they can interpret the OData protocol and adapt according to the protocol’s annotations. In order to hear more about the motivation for providing such a library for SAPUI5, their relation to SAP Fiori elements, and how they can be used, Christoph Haffner talks with Dirk Becker, Area Product Owner of the smart controls, and Thomas Houghton-Larsen, Area Architect for the Smart Controls, both with many years of experience in UI technologies.

Quality management ensures that an offered product is consistent. The focus is not only on product quality but also on the means to achieve and maintain a desired level of quality within this product. In this episode, Christoph Haffner meets Anila Elizabeth Chandy, Diana Shtilianova, and Marcos Gavilan de Paz, all three of them Quality Experts working for UI5. They help us understand the importance of quality management as well as its processes and challenges and talk about their activities to ensure a high quality for the delivery of new UI5 features and bug fixes. While they explain the stages of quality control and tasks involved, they focus on what you need to know to ensure quality for your own UI5 apps.

Volker Buzek and Peter Muessig are on a joint mission again: To create a platform for the UI5 developers inside and outside of SAP to collaborate on various topics. This idea was the result of a small hackathon that Volker and Peter did with other like-minded developers to create a template for UI5 library development. Well, actually, it all began much earlier when Volker and Peter met the first time. Tune in and listen to their story in its entirely!

In this episode, we're joined by Katja Zoch and Sebastian Steinhauer, Chief Product Owners for SAP Fiori elements. This is a great opportunity for you to learn more about this framework, which is built on top of SAPUI5. We discuss the relationship between SAP Fiori elements, SAP Fiori, and the SAP Fiori design guidelines, and we learn which floorplans are supported by their templates. In addition, they show us how you can build SAP Fiori-compliant web apps with SAP Fiori elements quickly and effectively. Katja and Sebastian also share some customer insights and best practices on how to use the framework to the max. Tune in to learn more!

Marius Obert started his career as working student at SAP, went to an internship to Palo Alto where he got in contact with UI5 development the first time. After returning to Germany, Marius joined a new position as a developer advocate and is doing this until today with passion. He is focusing on UI development and closely working with different product teams acting as a front runner to try out latest features. Beginning with his role as developer advocate, he conceived of the idea for a simple tool to scaffold new UI5 projects with ease. Tune in to find out how this idea became reality. Learn about how the Easy UI5 Generator works and get some tips from Marius how to make best use of it for your projects.

A lot happened in the UI5 universe in 2020! Listen to Stefan Beck – Chief Product Owner – and Peter Muessig – Chief Architect – wrapping up all the important news and activities around UI5 in 2020. Speaking to Christoph Haffner, they discussed major innovations in the UI5 framework, rendering, the smart controls stack, tooling, and UI5 flexibility. They also thanked the UI5 community for the great collaboration during the year, a special thank went to the SAP Mentors for giving extensive feedback on further planned UI5 Evolution topics. Finally we still had some time to outline some features the community can look forward to in 2021. Tune in to learn more!

As the COVID-19 crisis began, SAP sent all employees home and asked them to work remotely. How does this affect the work in the UI5 teams and how do people feel about this new situation and cope with it? These and other questions Christoph Haffner discusses with the three UI5 team members Dirk Becker (Area Product Owner for Smart Controls and Tables), Angelika Kirilin (Developer for UI5 Flexibility) and Florian Vogt (UI5 Framework developer).