Technology Blogs by Members
Explore a vibrant mix of technical expertise, industry insights, and tech buzz in member blogs covering SAP products, technology, and events. Get in the mix!
cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 
Former Member

Introduction of Fiori for iOS control Series Blog


The series blogs will be a full introduction of  Fiori for iOS controls .

It helps you to get best benefits of controls provided by SAP to develop iOS apps using swift language.

Part1: Overview 


Introduction of Fiori for iOS (This Blog)

Overview of Controls of Fiori for iOS

Part2: Step by step blogs to use Fiori controls


  Set up development environment for Fiori for iOS development

2.1 Build input form using FUIFormCell series controls


Getting Start with FUIFormCell control and it’s sub classes

Build complex input form

Make your code reusable

Short Summary

Part3: Realize Fiori floor plans using Fiori for iOS controls


Part4: Theme customization


 

1.The Concept of SAP Fiori

As a developer, this first thing comes out of my mind about SAP Fiori is SAPUI5, then  OData services, followed by SAP Netweaver Gateway, Fiori Launchpad, and so on……

But after I read a lot documents from SAP, I know that Fiori is not a technology, or a collection of technologies , Fiori is an instruction of how enterprise applications should be in the future.

There are two things most important in Fiori:

a.Application Floor Plans.

Application Floor Plans define a series page layouts for applications and tell people when to use which floor plan,

For example, List Report floorplan is suitable for display row based report, split-screen layout is for  list business entities and choose and do complex operation to a business entity.

 



The floor plan not only define the look and feel, it also defines how to navigation among views, where the button should be placed , and so on…

B.UI Elements for build the floorpans

Now we have page layout, we also need elements to fill the page. Fiori also defines a collection of UI Elements to display data or react to user actions.  You can find the UI Elements in https://experience.sap.com/fiori-design-web/explore/.

2.The Concept of Fiori for iOS

a.What is the difference between Fiori for iOS and  Fiori

Generally Fiori for iOS is an iOS version of Fiori. However, SAP Fiori is a design guide build from scratch, Fiori for iOS is a design build on top of iOS Human Interface Guidelines. The guideline build by apple is widely used to create apps on iPhone and iPad. So when SAP build a user experience on iOS, it’s not a good idea to re-invent the wheel. And that means Fiori for iOS is much simpler than Fiori.

b.What’s the advantage of Fiori for iOS compare to iOS Human Interface Guidelines

Although iOS Human Interface Guidelines works well on consumer-grade apps, it does not perform so well on enterprise apps.

First of all, enterprise apps need to display complex data. Think about you want to display a list of sales order in a list control. You need to display the customer name, amount, description, delivery status and payment status in a small cell in the list. How to put so much information in a cell and make best use of the space of the cell, while keep the list delightful? While apple just told you do not put so much information in the cell, SAP give you the solution.

Second, when you decide to develop apps on iOS, you will find that you can not put all your needs in on app, you need lots of apps to satisfy different requirements. And it’d difficult to keep all your apps have the same look and feel if you use controls provide by app only, because the guideline and controls provide by apple are served for generic apps, they are not clear enough for building enterprise apps. Fiori for iOS helps you to have all you apps have similar look and feel, the same look and fell helps your user get familiar with apps you build and helps your enterprise adopt the app quickly.

Third, when you develop enterprise apps, you need to focus on the business logic, not technical details. Lots of ready-to-use controls help you solve common problems rapidly. That makes develop enterprise apps using Fiori for iOS is far more efficient than just use iOS cocoa touch controls.

 

3.Summary and next steps

After reading this blog, I believe you have already know the concept of Fiori for iOS, why we need Fiori for iOS when building enterprise application on devices run iOS.

In the next blog, I will give you an overview of controls in Fiori for iOS, you will get the idea of how Fiori controls simplified your work.

Next Blog: Overview of Controls of Fiori for iOS.
4 Comments
Labels in this area