ABAP in Eclipse

Introduction

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Agenda Eclipse

  • Overview
  • Views and Perspectives
  • Search
  • Navigation
  • Edit Mode
  • ABAP Editor
  • Debugging
  • Tools
  • Core Data Services

ADT Guide from DSAG

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Overview - Eclipse and Plug-Ins

Eclipse is an open source software platform from the Eclipse Foundation. Anyone can download and use the software free of charge.

SAP is a strategic member of the Eclipse Foundation and actively contributes to many projects.
https://www.eclipse.org/membership/showMember.php?member_id=665

There are thousands of plug-ins for Eclipse that allow you to use Eclipse as an integrated development environment (IDE) for different languages and environments. SAP offers the following plug-ins, for example

  • ADT - ABAP Development Tools - That's what we're talking about today!
  • BW-MT - BW Modeling Tools
  • HANA Tools
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Overview - Installation and Versions

The following website is the central entry point for installing Eclipse for ABAP development:
https://tools.hana.ondemand.com/

Here we can see which versions of Eclipse are currently available and for which the corresponding plug-ins are available. Please only install the version for which all the necessary plug-ins are available.

Screenshot as of 10/2025

tools.hana.ondemand.com

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Overview - Installation and Versions

Installing Plug-Ins:
Menu: Installing Plug-Ins:

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Workspace

The workspace is a local folder containing all important settings:

  • Projects
  • Eclipse settings
  • Local history

When switching to a new computer, the workspace can be taken with you, i.e., copied.

The workspace should be located locally on the computer. So no network drive!

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Views

The userinterface is divided into many windows, the so-called views. Often, several views are arranged one after the other and can be selected via tabs.

Tab tabs of the tool views

The arrangement of the views is very flexible. They can be moved using their tab tabs. Additional views can be added via the menu item Window --> Show View:

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Perspectives

Many plug-ins contain special perspectives. These are arrangements of views for a specific purpose. These perspectives can be opened via the menu item Window --> Perspective --> Open Perspective:

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Perspectives that are already in use are also displayed as icons in the upper right corner:

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Saving and resetting perspectives

Particularly successful view arrangements can also be saved under a name as a new perspective:

alt text

However, it is much more common to want to return to the original state of a perspective. This can be done using the menu item Reset Perspective...

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Structure of the ADT interface

  • Navigation is always on the left
  • The main area with the editors is at the top right
  • Additional information is located below the main area
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