This post is about two tools I have been working on over the past 6 months, and now releasing(Early Access) for the community for feedback: AppTemplater and CAPGEN. AppTemplater and CAPGEN aim to automate the first 50% of Development, allowing Developers to focus on the most value adding parts.

AppTemplater is a SAP Cloud Application Programming Model(CAP) Application(Node.js) that allows Developers to jump-start their projects by defining and modelling Service/Applications via a Fiori Interface. Through the User Interface the following aspects of a Service/Application can be modeled:

• Entities – Both Master Data and Managed
  • The Fields of an Entity including
    • Field Types and keys
    • Labels
    • If the Field is Mandatory, Read Only, Optional
    • In what Order and what Facet the Field should appear
    • If the Field should appear in List view and/or the Object Page
  • Facets
  • Actions
  • Value Helps
• Entity Associations – N Levels Deep
• Roles and Authorisations for the Service

Through the Generate Template Action, a JSON File is generated. This the output of AppTemplater. This JSON file can then be used as input in AppTemplater’s companion CLI tool CAPGEN. CAPGEN generates a working SAP CAP(Node.js) project including:

• A working Fiori Applications N Levels deep
• Schema, Services, Value Helps, Roles, Annotations, and Localisation all done!
• Initial data csv files with headerline generated

Here are some screenshots from AppTemplater:

AppTemplater Service Definition Screen

AppTemplater Entity Definition Screen

So you might have a few questions:

A wide variety of tools already exist. Why these tools?

• It is Fast! CAPGEN can generate a project in seconds. Check out the demo!
• They are Open Source and written in technologies that you the target audience is familiar with
• It can run locally! No special tools or licensing

Why the two step process with AppTemplater and CAPGEN?

• AppTemplater’s terminology is very SAP CAP/RAP specific but this tool could be used to model an application in any technology
• It allows other generators to be developed by the community such as using the JSON to generate a RAP Application without the need to change AppTemplater
• The JSON file can be easily shared between developers

This tool sounds great but how do I use it?

Both projects are now on GitHub under an Apache License. Head over to the repositories as both contain the installation instructions under Getting Started. The code is compatible with both Visual Studio Code and Business Application Studio. I have also released a demonstration video on YouTube here:

AppTemplater: https://github.com/MertSAP/AppTemplater

CAPGEN: https://github.com/MertSAP/CAPGEN

Please let me know if you have any questions, feedback, bugs, or suggestions for additional features!