JS Fragments

The structure of JS fragments is similar to the structure of the respective views: They have a name and an object with a createContent() function.

You define a simple JS fragment named my.useful.UiPartX as shown in the following code snippet:

sap.ui.jsfragment("my.useful.UiPartX", { 
	createContent: function(oController ) {
		var oButton = new sap.ui.commons.Button({ 
			text:"Hello World", 
			press:oController.doSomething 
		}); 
		return oButton;
	} 
});

The createContent() function is responsible for the UI definition and has to return a control. The definition can be created either inline or in a separate file, for instance in …/my/useful/UiPartX.fragment.js. The oController is either already defined or it is null. In the first case, its methods can be used for the event handlers of controls.

Despite the many similarities to views, there are also differences: First of all, there is no getControllerName() method. Fragments cannot specify whether they have a controller. Whether oController is defined or not is not a decision of the fragment itself. Instead, it is decided by the code instantiating the fragment. If that code is part of a controller, it can pass a reference to itself to the fragment. This means there can be a dependency between controllers and fragments: Fragments may expect a controller to exist and to have certain methods. And controllers may expect certain controls to be in the fragment. This is in line with the purpose of fragments - to be very light-weight re-use entities that provide little encapsulation. For more encapsulation, views or even components are better suited.