Assigning Title, Format, and Notes

In the first screen of the Field Selection sequence of screens, you determine the title and the page format.

You are in the Field Selection screen and want to create a new query or change an existing query.

1. Use the and functions to navigate in the first screen of the Field Selection sequence of screens.

2. Type the appropriate information into the dialog fields.

   • Title:

     SAP Query uses the title you define in this screen later as the title of the screen or, when printing, as the first line of the heading for the lists generated by the query.

   • Remarks:

     Additionally, there are three lines where you can enter notes that are used to document the query. When you request the query directory, the system displays these notes with the title.

   • List format (for ABAP lists only):

     There is a standard format for lists displayed on the screen, but you can always overwrite this. Unless you specify otherwise, the system adapts the standard format automatically to suit the output device that you are using. For output to the screen, the default is a dynamic page size (i.e. no fixed number of lines) and 83 columns. In the case of output to a printer, the system proposes a standard format on the print option screen, but you can also overwrite this.

     The number of columns you specify determines the maximum width of the list. Regardless of this, however, the width of each sublist is no more than is actually required. The number of columns determines when a line break occurs in basic lists. With statistics and ranked lists, the number of columns must be large enough to avoid line breaks.

     Note

     If you define statistics or ranked lists at a later stage, the number of columns may increase automatically. In this case, you get a warning message.

     The advantage of dynamic page-sizing, is that the dimensions of your list do not depend on the size of the monitor screen. You should therefore usually use the dynamic page size. Each of the different sublists (basic list, statistics, and ranked lists) always start on a new page.

   • Table format:

     If you want to display a list as a table, you can define the size of the table view control with the table format specifications.

   • Special attributes:

     Special attributes allow you to define some other properties for the query or the report that it generates.

     Assigning a standard variant

     You can create one standard variant per query. This variant is always used when you start the query with the help of the function Execute. The name of this standard variant is also the default value for the Execute with variant function. Any query with a standard variant is thus always executed with a variant.

     Note

     Remember that you can only maintain query variants on the initial screen. For this reason, defining a standard variant is possible only when you have already defined a query to the extent that you can generate a report.

     More information about working with variants: Executing Queries Online.

     • Executing queries only with a variant

       Besides the standard variant, there is also the attribute Execute only with variant. You use the standard variant only if you execute the query in the component Maintain Queries. However, the attribute Execute only with variant applies to the generated report and is therefore also effective when you start this report directly.

     • Change lock

       If you want to set a change lock for your query to protect it against changes by other users, you can achieve this by selecting the appropriate field. Only the person who sets this attribute is able to make further changes to the query.

       By choosing  Goto  Query directory  in the component Maintain InfoSets, the system administrator can cancel the lock for selected queries.

   • Printing lists (only for ABAP lists):

     • Printing lists with or without a standard title

       This option allows you to decide whether you want to output a standard title, which does not appear in the screen display, for each page when printing a list. The standard title contains the date, the query title and the page numbering.

       Note

       A standard title is also generated if you execute the query in the background.

       If you do not want the standard title to be printed, but you do need the date or the page number, you must maintain your headers accordingly (more information: Headers and Footers).

     • Left Margin

       This option allows you to designate the size of the left margin when printing the list. This option does not affect the screen output of the list.

   • Display format (forwarding the list directly)

     The radio buttons on the selection screen of the generated report are pre-set as a result of the options for forwarding a list (see Interactive Functions for Further List Processing).