Use (SAP Library - BC - SAP Style Guide)

Use

The use of long screens depends on the following three aspects:

Task Structure

Long screens should contain only data of the same hierarchy level, for example, overview data.

Hierarchically structured tasks with detail screens should use separate screens for dependent detail data display. (Remark: As soon as the technical possibilities are available, these detail screens should be defined as modeless dialog boxes). The detail data, in turn, can be arranged on long screens.

Logical View

The most important criterion for grouping fields on one or more screens should be the number of fields the customer needs to access quickly at the same time per business process (within the task). The set of fields in question is referred to as "logical view".

All important data of a logical view is to be positioned on one screen.
Less important or rarely used data of a logical view is to be transferred to a dialog box.
The compression effect has low priority in favor of a meaningful arrangement of the data and an efficient navigation to these screens.
This means especially that all data of different views of a task should be positioned on a long screen, not only for compression reasons.

Editing Mode

Generally, the user should be able to access the desired field quickly. This requirement results in the following screen size recommendations:

For the sequential creation of master data, long screens make sense as long as meaningful data views per screen can be achieved.

To change and/or flexibly edit data on long screens, you should allow the user to navigate directly to smaller units. This can be achieved, for example, by selecting the desired group on the initial screen and positioning the cursor in the corresponding group (Positioning the cursor via the frontend in the visible area, which goes along with it, still has to be realized).

If editing data is the primary edit mode (because data has been entered automatically, for example), you should design small meaningful and flexibly accessible screens.