Enhancement of column selection in WD ALV

[Former Member]

Hi,

I got a request to enhance the column selection functionality. As you know the alv table provides a user definied column selection tab (under Settings -> Column Selection) to add or remove columns on the output tab.

The point is that this selection of columns doesn't proivde a categorization of columns. In my case there are a bunch of columns so that it is very hard for the user to find the wanted column in the existing selection table. What I need are categories to pre-select the entries in the "hidden columns"-table.

For Example:

existing columns are: material number, material description, weight1, weight2, weight3, size1, size2, size3

The hidden columns tab would now consists of all these columns if there are no columns displayed.

What I want is a categorization like the following:

weight: weight1, weight2, weight3

size: size1, size2, size3

When the user wants to add a column to his output tab (e.g. size2), he must choose the category "size" (e.g. realized as a dropdown box) and the "Hidden Columns"-tab consists of size1, size2, size3.

From my point of view the only way to proivde this functionality is to write an own "column selection". Or do you have any other ideas for this? Is there an interface to configure the settings menu or the "column selection"-tab?

Thanks & Regards,

Hendrik

[thomas_jung]

The functionality you describe is not available in the standard ALV component. To acomplish this you would need to modify your system - most likely with some considerable effort. Personally I would be rather cautious about making modifications to the SAP ALV component. It is rather complex, due to the amount of dynamic coding. Also SAP makes frequent changes to the component itself, so you may find yourself with a rather large maintenance effort.

[Former Member]

Hi Thomas,

I totally agree. I checked the implementation of the column selection functionality and I don't think that this is realizable whithout any modifications. As a work arround I would suggest to add a new function button to the alv toolbar and create a popup to select the columns with the help of an own program.

This selfmade program can use the standard methods to hide or show columns. Doing it that way, you are still able to use the column selection functionality of SAP's ALV.

Thanks & Regards,

Hendrik