Background documentationInput Help Locate this document in the navigation structure

 

In the context of an interactive business application, the input of data by the user is of great importance. In a large number of dialog variants, a valid input represents an element of a limited set of values. The user can select the required value from a table containing possible values.

Note Note

Input help is also known as value help, search help, and F4 help.

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Note Note

A simple example of input help is the short name of an airline carrier, which is frequently used for demonstration purposes:

To select an airline, the user enters the two letter ID of the airline into a search mask. The list of valid letter combinations is limited to the number of available airlines; there is a unique assignment. To facilitate the input, it makes sense to offer a list of the available IDs to the user, from which to select the desired one. This is done by integrating an input help.

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Input Help for Web Dynpro ABAP

Once an input help has been integrated, Web Dynpro Framework automatically generates and implements the correct icon for the user to choose to call the input help at runtime. In parallel, the F4 key is automatically assigned to call the input help.

There are different types of input help. Which type of input help you choose depends on the respective application.

Web Dynpro ABAP Framework provides two pre-implemented input helps:

  • ABAP Dictionary Search Help

    This input help is based on the search help function of the ABAP Dictionary in the SAP system. So you use search helps for data elements and structures defined in the ABAP Dictionary so far as these are supported by Web Dynpro.

  • OVS Value Help

    You can use Object Value Selection input help if it is not possible to carry out the search using the ABAP Dictionary, for example, if the value set is to be calculated in the Web Dynpro application.

Both these pre-implemented types of input help have the advantage that you can fill several fields at a time. (For example, two fields for the name of a town and its country).

In addition, you can also program your own input help.

You can add further restrictions to your input help by choosing standard Select Options.

You can also use a dropdown list, that is, either UI element DropDownByIndex or DropDownByKey. When you use these UI elements you should keep the value set relatively small.

Caution Caution

Too many dropdown list boxes in one view may lead to performance bottlenecks.

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