EP 5 (PDK) Javascript and Browser Issues

[Former Member]

My first post of this article seems to be lost, so I´ll repost this.

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I´ve installed the PDK and the SAP Netweaver Developer Studio an ran a few tests with it. I am shocked by the tremdous use of clientside Javascript. In connection with the cut out of all Browsers but IE the Portal is unusable for 30% of overall users and 60% of all Business Users (most large Businesses that still use IE disable ActiveX for securtiy reasons and that also stops JavaScript).

How das SAP adress this situation in the EP6 and coming releases of WebDynpro? I really hope that you stop using clientside scripting and open your portal to the world. It´s commonly kown that use of JavaScript for essential System functions is a bad idea due to error proneness and Browser diversity.

Also Web Dynpro technology is probably not the center of discussion here, I´d like to add that it already integrates fine with Dev Studio but it also produces just a bunch of clientside scripts.

[Oliver5]

Well,

I cann only speak for EP. And yes, it uses a lot of client side scripting, but only if you did configure it so.

You have the possibility to configure Enterprise Portal Client Framework to "0" (no javascript). I have tutorial about this on SDN.

HTMLB itsself uses no Javascript in standard.

Ragrding the browser diversity. Yes this is problem, our solution is to detect the user agent and to adopt styles and scripts to the browser version.

And yes it could be also a desirable feature of EP and WebDynpro to have a configuration without scripting at all. You could create a feature request for this.

But in typically EP runs in an Enterprise Intranet, and the only possibilty to have flickerfree dynamic browser application is to use javascript so far. So this will probably remain main use case.

There a lot of new and interesting browser architectures right now in development at MS and Macromedia. Hopefully we will se a new generation in some years.

BR,

Oliver