Desktop Technical Overview

Components in Desktop Suite

Desktop Suite includes three important components which target different aspects of GuiXT technology. Each component has a major effect on company’s business processes, productivity and return on investment on SAP environment but the synergy formed by grouping these components in one Suite creates the direct effect to profitability.

Process Engine

Process engine is the core component of GuiXT comprehensive solutions which streamlines business processes and creates process focused applications by using a scripting technology instead of ABAP. It is the driving engine which is 64-bit compatible of GuiXT technology to create customized user actions in SAP to alter and simplify the flow of business processes.

Key differentiator of Process Engine

Process engine not only creates simplified, streamlined and customized business processes, but it assists developers in forming these processes. With its recording functionality, it memorizes all user actions taken to complete a process flow which might include several modules in SAP and it transfers this memory to a script file which is called Input Script. The compiled code can either be processed in GuiXT Desktop or in GuiXT WS/64 Desktop Suite depending on the platform it gets executed. Having streamlined and packaged all the user actions needed to be done to complete a process in this particular script file, application runs the compiled code in this file in the background when the process is called. Therefore users gain an experience of simplified UI and fast data entry.

How does Process Engine Work

Process engine requires a license to perform; therefore it also can be called a "license component". Once this license is obtained, any process flow in SAP can be recorded by recording functionality as described above and redesigned. Process engine is designed to assist developers to create process flows. GuiXT is a technology that works on the front-end of SAP. Therefore, whenever process engine creates a process flow, it uses standard Dynpro screens as event handlers in SAP to manage the flow of user actions. Developers can modify and redesign the Input Scripts formed by the recording process based on the SAP screen design they maintain using Developer Suite (please refer to Developer Suite). All the data entered in screen elements that are created in GuiXT customized SAP screens can be used and accessed in the Input Scripting via global variables assigned to designed screen elements. This is called "the redesign of recorded Process". Input Scripts contain user actions taken in a SAP streamlined process flow. Once streamlined process is formed, it has to be called from screen scripts to initiate the flow of these user actions.

Viewer

Viewer is another license component in Desktop Suite. It lets developers integrate and view external documents, such as web pages and RTF documents, in special windows on GuiXT customized SAP screens.

Key differentiator of Viewer

Viewer does not only display web pages or RTF documents in GuIXT customized SAP screens. It also manages the transfer of information between these documents and SAP screens.

How does Viewer Work?

Viewer component uses a special application programming interface in the SAPGUI client to draw RTF documents and web pages onto SAP screen. This API is called Windows API. Having dependent on this particular API, at the moment GuiXT command (view) is called in the script, a local presence of GuiXT is needed in SAPGUI client for GuiXT to draw the requested component; either web page or RTF document.

GuiXT Server

GuiXT Server is an individual software component in Desktop Suite. It enhances the management and implementation of GuiXT especially in big-sized enterprises. Please refer to the following section for a detailed explanation.