Quick Introduction
Welcome to the New ABAP Editor!

The New ABAP Editor is a state-of-the-art source code editor tailored towards developers creating and analyzing ABAP code. The New Editor may be configured to replace the old frontend editor in many common transactions such as SE80, SE38, and SE24 and to display source code in the new ABAP debugger.

 Quick introduction to main features

The New ABAP Editor supports a large number of different programming languages such as BSP but has been optimized for ABAP code. The editor offers:

  • Customizable syntax highlighting
  • Code outlines (i.e., collapsible blocks)
  • Code hints and code completion [only on 7.10]
  • Personalized code templates
  • Advanced clipboard functionality
  • Incremental search and customizable keyboard shortcuts
The detailed editor documentation will be distributed as part of the regular GUI installation once it has been completed.

 Quick look at the editor interface
 Using code completion

The New ABAP Editor supports two kinds of code assistance that aim at reducing the need for cross navigation and the consultation of the ABAP online help.

Code hints suggest the most common keywords and recently used identifiers automatically as you type:

Suggestions can be inserted by pressing the TAB or the RETURN key. If the suggestion is unique, the code hint will be displayed black-on-white. If there is more than one potential hint, the most relevant one is displayed white-on-black.

Code hints are computed by the GUI. For performance reasons, they are derived heuristically by analyzing the current statement only. While keyword hints are always valid at the current cursor position, identifier hints cannot be filtered for correct type or visibility information and may thus present semantically invalid identifiers.

Some of the code hints shown may contain funny symbols such as §. These hints denote templates that may be inserted by accepting the hint with the TAB or RETURN key. You can maintain your own library of templates in the settings dialog.

Code completion suggests valid keywords and identifiers that may be inserted at a given source code position. To invoke code completion, press and hold the CONTROL key while pressing the SPACE key:

When the list of code completions is shown, you can continue typing to filter the list of suggestions by prefix.

Completion results include the following source code entities, each of which has its own unique icon:

  • Variables, including structures and components
  • Types (including DDIC), classes
  • Methods, attributes, constants
  • Forms
  • Functions
  • Formal parameters of methods, functions, and forms
  • Keywords
Items shown in boldface denote entities that match the requirements for source code entities at the current cursor position. All other items denote entities that may contain additional entities that may also match the requirements. In the example above, the interface IF_SERIALIZABLE_OBJECT may contain additional class methods that can be accessed by inserting the interface name at the current cursor position.

Once you have selected an individual suggestion, you can insert it into your program by pressing the TAB or the RETURN key. For some completions, pressing CONTROL plus RETURN will not only insert the identifier but generate a partially prefilled pattern.

Important note: Code completion is computed by the backend and thus requires a recent 7.10 kernel in order to work!

To disable code hints and/or code completion, uncheck the appropriate checkboxes in the settings dialog.

 How to report a bug

  1. Verify that you have the newest version of the editor installed. You can update your control with this script - maybe your problem has already been fixed. (This applies to beta testers ONLY!)
  2. Check the internal FAQ (CSN note 812186) for up-to-date information about known problems.
  3. Find out who is responsible. If the error relates to the syntax highlighting or the code completion, create an internal message for component BC-ABA-LA. In all other cases create an internal message for component BC-FES-GUI.
  4. Please provide clear step-by-step instruction of how to reproduce this error.
  5. Please be patient - we try to fix bugs as quickly as possible, but propagating the corrections may require some time. If something breaks and a fix is not yet available, you can always disable code hints or code completion in the settings dialog.