As of Release 4.0A, controls programming is supported through function modules. Starting with Release 4.5A, ABAP Objects is available for object-oriented programming with ABAP. An object-oriented version of the Control Framework is available as of Release 4.6A. The programming examples provided in this tutorial require that you have installed this release.

There are two other factors which are of importance:

• The operating system used on the frontend computer
• The control version installed on the frontend computer

Controls are addressed through a standardized interface. The system supports two of the common standards that are available on the market: ActiveX and JavaBeans.

Until Release 4.5B, you must use function modules in your ABAP program to check if the frontend system supports the relevant standard. As of Release 4.6A, the Control Framework performs this check automatically and triggers an exception if an error occurs. You use the function modules to respond individually to such an error, for example, if there is no JavaBean implementation of the control yet.

When you install a local SAPGUI on your machine, the system also installs the appropriate controls. If you install a new local SAPGUI, you should first uninstall the old version to ensure consistency.