ABAP wed dynpro framework vs CRM UI framework

I have been doing development on CRM UI for quite a while. Recently I started to work on ABAP Web dynro developments. At first, I thought it would be quite similar to CRM UI development as I knew both of them were based on MVC (Model View Controller) Architecture. Although both of them were developed by using MVC technology, there are quite a few differences that I found out.

1.     The output screen of ABAP web dynpro is not fancy like CRM web UI screen. The CRM web UI screen has got more AJAX features in it and that is what it makes look so good. The output screen of webdynpro has got more screens flickering and we can’t use it in a more robust environment. For robust environments and high usage, SAP recommends using Java wed dynpro.

2.     AWD (ABAP web dynpro) doesn’t use BSP to design the view. It uses more of SE51 screen painter extension to design the view.

3.   AWD view hasn’t got good control over its view attributes. I mean CRM UI framework provides methods like SET, GET, VALUE etc. to handle each attribute independently. But we don’t have that feature in AWD.

4.      From a development perspective, there is a tool called BSP Component Workbench in CRM which is very good to enhance the SAP standard solution. Also all the developments done using BSP component workbench will be supported during the upgrade.

5.      The best thing that I liked in AWD is the wizard. It generates the code as per requirement in most of the cases.

There are lot of features on CRM UI framework which doesn’t exist on AWD. Maybe both of them were developed for completely different objectives by SAP and I should embrace them differently than comparing them against each other.

For now, I’m a big fan of CRM UI framework and a bit unhappy about AWD. Maybe if I spend a bit of time on AWD, then I may develop more liking towards it.