Working With Faceless Components 

Features of Faceless Components

Faceless components are Web Dynpro components without graphical elements – that is, without windows or views. They only include a component controller; optionally, custom controllers can be added. You use faceless components to separate the data used in the framework of a large-scale programming project. They are designed exclusively for receiving and structuring data. By declaring a component usage you embed them into other components; they then supply the embedding component with the required data.

 To create a faceless component, you create a new Web Dynpro component and delete the two visible elements – that is, the view and the window – from the object list.

 

Using Faceless Components Correctly

Whether or not to use a faceless component to separate the required data depends on the structure and size of the planned application. A faceless component is only useful if several other components access the same set of data. It does not make sense to create a faceless component for every application, because in less complicated cases the performance is better if you store the required data in the component controller of a central application component.

The usage of a faceless component and the subsequent mapping to its context node by the contexts of the using components also has logical consequences. Not only every change to the values of the context attributes is automatically propagated to all contexts involved in the mapping, but also properties such as the lead selection.