CUSTOMER

SAP GUI for Windows 7.70

Release Notes

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
SAP GUI FOR WINDOWS LIFECYCLE....................................................................................................... 3
PLATFORM SUPPORT ............................................................................................................................... 3
NEW FEATURES IN RELEASE 7.70........................................................................................................... 4
New visual theme “Quartz” ....................................................................................................................... 4
64bit versions of NWRFC controls ............................................................................................................ 5
Alternative browser control (Edge based on Chromium) ........................................................................ 6
Multi-Monitor-Scaling support................................................................................................................... 7
New default monospaced font (“72 Monospace”) as of Belize themes................................................... 8
Overflow for buttons in the footer of dialog boxes (popups)................................................................... 8
Customizable focus position in ALV Grid control .................................................................................... 8
Different background colors for hierarchical levels in tree control......................................................... 9
Improved version of SAP GUI Scripting “Record and Playback” dialog ................................................. 9
Placeholder characters in password fields .............................................................................................10
SAP Business Client Integration: User timeout ......................................................................................10
TAB separated Copy & Paste ...................................................................................................................10
NEW FEATURES IN PATCHLEVEL 1 OF RELEASE 7.70 .........................................................................12
Moving the main window by dragging via the title bar............................................................................12
Scrolling indicator in table controls.........................................................................................................12
CHANGED FEATURES IN RELEASE 7.70 ................................................................................................13
Display of main menu in Belize and newer themes.................................................................................13
NO LONGER SUPPORTED / AVAILABLE.................................................................................................14
This document gives you an overview of what is new in release 7.70 of SAP GUI for Windows.

SAP GUI FOR WINDOWS LIFECYCLE

SAP GUI for Windows 7.70 was created with Microsoft Visual Studio 2019 which is in mainstream support by
Microsoft until 9th of April 2022 (see also https://support.microsoft.com/en-
US/lifecycle/search?alpha=visual%20studio%202019).
Therefore, SAP GUI for Windows 7.70 is supported until 9th of April 2024.
The chart below shows the lifecycle of SAP GUI for Windows releases 7.50 up to 7.70. For the latest
information refer to SAP Note 147519.

PLATFORM SUPPORT
· Windows Server 2012 64-bit on x64 (AMD) and Intel EM64T
· Windows Server 2012 R2 64-bit on x64 (AMD) and Intel EM64T
· Windows 8.1 32-bit (only Professional and Enterprise editions)
· Windows 8.1 64-bit on x64 (AMD) and Intel EM64T (only Professional and Enterprise editions)
· Windows 10 32-bit (only Education, Pro, and Enterprise editions)
· Windows 10 64-bit on x64 (AMD) and Intel EM64T (only Education, Pro, and Enterprise editions)
· Windows Server 2016 64-bit on x64 (AMD) and Intel EM64T
· Windows Server 2019 64-bit on x64 (AMD) and Intel EM64T

SAP Note 66971 provides the latest information on platforms supported by SAP GUI.

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NEW FEATURES IN RELEASE 7.70

New visual theme “Quartz”

The successor to the Belize theme is the Quartz theme which offers a visual integration into the Fiori
3.0 theme available in other SAP UI frameworks. For the first time this theme also comes with an
additional dark flavor for users who prefer a dark background:

The feature set of Quartz is very much like the one of the Belize theme. It is available for all SAP
products still being supported, it is released for Accessibility and it also supports the Fiori features (right
aligned labels, automatic usage of the full screen width and so forth) introduced in Belize:

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Quartz and Quartz Dark also support different color palettes:

As of release 7.70, Quartz is the default theme in SAP GUI for Windows.

64bit versions of NWRFC controls

The SAP GUI shipment includes four controls which can be used for getting data from an SAP System
without using SAP GUI:
· Logon Control
· Function Control
· BAPI Control
· Table Factory Control

Up to 7.60 these controls are only available as 32bit versions. Especially with the stronger usage of
Microsoft Office 64bit editions this has become a challenge, because 32bit controls cannot be easily
invoked from a 64bit process. As of release 7.70 there are 64bit versions (non-Unicode and Unicode) of
these controls which can be installed in parallel to the 32bit versions. With this, scripts using these
controls can also be run from 64bit processes like Microsoft Office 64bit. To benefit from this, add the
appropriate installation component to your installation package (see also SAP Note 2724656):

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Alternative browser control (Edge based on Chromium)

Up to release 7.60 the SAP GUI HTML Control always uses the Microsoft Internet Explorer Control.
This may lead to the situation that SAP GUI launches an Internet Explorer window to display a
document or web page even though on the client PC some other browser is the default browser.
Additionally, nowadays Internet Explorer is no longer the default browser in many companies and has
several disadvantages.

As of release 7.70 we are offering a more modern browsing experience inside SAP GUI by integrating
the Microsoft WebView2 control (Edge based on Chromium) as an alternative to the Internet Explorer
Control (see SAP Note 2913405 for more information).

To use the new version of the HTML Control, you need to install a version of Microsoft Edge that
includes the WebView2 control (see also https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-
edge/hosting/webview2 / download at https://developer.microsoft.com/en-US/microsoft-
edge/webview2/#download-section). Since the default setting in SAP GUI is still the usage of Microsoft
Internet Explorer control, you need to adjust this setting in SAP GUI options dialog:

If the dropdown list only contains “Internet Explorer” you do not have a version of Microsoft Edge
installed which includes the WebView2 control.

The new HTML Control based on Edge behaves like the HTML Control based on Internet Explorer with
some technical differences:

· Web content which is not compatible with Microsoft Edge / Google Chrome is obviously not
compatible with the new HTML Control. If you are using this kind of content, you should migrate
this to new HTML standards or keep using the HTML Control based on Internet Explorer (at least
as long as Internet Explorer is still supported by Microsoft). See also SAP Note 2901278.
· The WebView2 control does not take the default font settings for web pages which do not set a
font from the Microsoft Edge browser (as opposed to the Internet Explorer control). Therefore, by
default, the SAP GUI HTML Control based on WebView2 uses the proportional font set in the
SAP GUI options dialog in this case. See SAP Note 2942740 for more information.

Furthermore, there are some differences between Microsoft Edge and Microsoft Internet Explorer which
are intended by Microsoft. For example, when SAP GUI detaches a URL from an HTML Control inside
SAP GUI, an external browser window opens. In case of Internet Explorer, this window offers a full
navigation bar, but Edge does not offer a navigation bar.

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A sample page displayed in HTML Control using Edge based on Chromium (WebView2 Control) looks
like this:

Multi-Monitor-Scaling support

Up to SAP GUI 7.60 scaling is done using the scaling settings of the primary monitor only. For other
monitors the operating system is scaling the SAP GUI window. This leads to blurry display of SAP GUI
windows and causes issues when SAP GUI is embedded in an application which is multi-monitor
scaling aware: When embedded in Microsoft Internet Explorer the dimensions of SAP GUI inside
Internet Explorer are determined incorrectly. See SAP Note 2541592 for more information.

As of release 7.70 multi-monitor scaling can be activated in the SAP GUI options dialog so that the
issues with multiple monitor setups using different scaling settings are solved. The feature can be
activated for Belize and Quartz themes via this setting:

7
New default monospaced font (“72 Monospace”) as of Belize themes

Monospaced fonts are used for ABAP lists and other UI elements depending on application settings (for
example in numeric fields). As of SAP GUI for Windows 7.70, the default monospaced font for Belize
and newer themes is the newly introduced “72 Monospace”. Previously “Lucida Console” was used, but
“72 Monospace” has multiple advantages:

· The look of the characters of “72 Monospace” fits the default proportional font (“72”) much better
· The baseline of “72 Monospace” and “72” is identical which makes labels and content of input
fields look better aligned
· The character for zero comes with a dot in it for improved differentiation from “O”:

Overflow for buttons in the footer of dialog boxes (popups)

The maximum width of a dialog box (popup) is limited by the vertical resolution of the display. When an
application inserts many buttons or wide buttons in the application toolbar (footer) of a dialog box or the
resolution is low or the used font size is big, this sometimes exceeds the maximum width. In SAP GUI
releases up to release 7.60, such buttons could not be displayed.

Therefore, as of SAP GUI for Windows 7.70 and starting with Belize themes, SAP GUI puts all buttons
which do not fit into the dialog box into an overflow button. If needed, the footer of the dialog box
displays a button "..." that offers a context menu containing all buttons for which not enough space was
available. This ensures that all applications, even those with many wide buttons, can be properly used.

Customizable focus position in ALV Grid control

The ALV Grid control may consist out of a toolbar area, title area, column header and table area. If you move
the focus to the ALV Grid control via keyboard, in SAP GUI for Windows the focus by default is set to the
table area. This is since in many cases the user first wants to do something in the table area (like selecting a
column) before using the buttons in the toolbar area (like for sorting the selected column). However, in case
a different behavior is desired, this can now be achieved by setting a newly introduced registry value. You
can decide whether the focus shall first move to the table area (default), to the toolbar area (value = 1) or
column header (value = 2).
See SAP Note 2973107 for more information.

8
Different background colors for hierarchical levels in tree control

In SAP Signature Theme the tree control shows different background colors for the first four hierarchical
levels. In newer themes this functionality was removed by design, because it reduces contrast of text to
background and the idea of the newer SAP GUI themes was having a display with fewer visual
hierarchies. However, the different colors for tree levels are considered helpful by some users, because
one can more easily understand on which level an item / node in the tree is located.

Therefore, as of SAP GUI for Windows 7.70, we have introduced different background colors to
differentiate tree control hierarchical levels also in newer SAP GUI themes starting with Blue Crystal
theme (which excludes the Corbu theme). This functionality is inactive by default and can be activated
as explained in SAP Note 2943146. For SAP Signature Theme the functionality remains active by
default and cannot be deactivated. Please note that in High Contrast themes this functionality is not
supported, because the contrast wouldn't be enough to meet the minimum contrast requirements.

The images below show the feature for Quartz, Quartz Dark, Belize and Blue Crystal themes:

Improved version of SAP GUI Scripting “Record and Playback” dialog

SAP GUI scripting offers a dialog for recording and replaying scripts. This dialog had several functional and
usability issues. Therefore, it has been reworked in release 7.70. More information can be found in SAP
Note 2953860.

This is how the new version of the dialog looks:

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Placeholder characters in password fields

A new option "Show placeholder characters" is introduced. If this option is deselected, SAP GUI does not fill
password fields with placeholder characters. Instead the placeholder characters (dots or asterisk) appear as
you type. This reflects the behavior of several other applications.

If placeholder characters are enabled, the password field looks like this even if the field is empty:

If placeholder characters are disabled, the password field is filled as the user types:

SAP Business Client Integration: User timeout

SAP GUI for Windows and SAP Business Client now exchange information on whether a user is still active to
avoid timeouts when the user is still active in another window / tab.

TAB separated Copy & Paste

By default SAP GUI takes over values taken from input fields / labels in Dynpro forms (like steploops for
example) into the Windows Clipboard with space characters as filling and separating characters. Input field
content is taken over with the concrete value and the required number of spaces to match the field length.
Empty space between elements is also filled with space characters. When copying from or into other
programs like Microsoft Excel this causes usability issues, because these programs are often using TAB
characters as separating characters. Copy and paste operations fail if the format including the spaces is not
exactly adhered to.

As of SAP GUI for Windows 7.70, a new copy and paste mode can be activated via a registry value (see
below). If this mode is activated, SAP GUI no longer uses spaces as separating characters, but TAB
characters instead.
To activate the new behavior, this REG_DWORD registry value must be set to value 1:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\SAP\SAPGUI Front\SAP Frontend
Server\Customize\CopyAndPasteTabSeparated

You can also create the registry value under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE:

· HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\SAP\SAPGUI Front\SAP Frontend
Server\Customize\CopyAndPasteTabSeparated (64bit operating systems)
· HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\SAP\SAPGUI Front\SAP Frontend
Server\Customize\CopyAndPasteTabSeparated (32bit operating systems)
The value under HKEY_CURRENT_USER has priority if multiple of the values mentioned above exist.

10
Example:

With the default copy operation SAP GUI adds the following to the Windows clipboard if all these elements
are selected via CTRL + Y, CTRL + C:

The new copy operation adds this:

The arrow symbols in the screenshot above indicate TAB characters.

11
NEW FEATURES IN PATCHLEVEL 1 OF RELEASE 7.70

Moving the main window by dragging via the title bar

In Belize and newer themes, the caption (top bar) of the SAP GUI window may only offer little space for
dragging the SAP GUI window to another place on your desktop. This can especially happen if the main
menu is displayed and contains many entries. Therefore, as of patchlevel 1 when using Belize or newer
themes, users can also click on the title bar showing the application title and move the window by dragging it
to the desired position.

Please note: When using this way of moving the SAP GUI window, the “Shake to Minimize” (or “Aero
Shake”) functionality of Windows which minimizes all other windows cannot be used. This can only be used
when dragging the SAP GUI window via the caption.

Scrolling indicator in table controls

SAP GUI offers two main user interface elements which represent tables: The "Table Control" and the "ALV
Grid Control".

As of patchlevel 1 of SAP GUI for Windows 7.70 the table control shows a so-called "scrolling indicator"
when the user scrolls vertically in the table via mouse or keyboard. This indicator helps the user to easily
recognize the position of the currently displayed block of data within the table and allows a more precise drag
and drop of the scroll bar button (thumb):

This feature is available for all themes except for “Classic Theme”.

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CHANGED FEATURES IN RELEASE 7.70

Display of main menu in Belize and newer themes

The setting "Move main menu to 'More' button" is deactivated by default as of SAP GUI for Windows 7.70.
This means that as opposed to SAP GUI for Windows 7.60 the main menu is displayed again by default for
all themes. Users or administrators can override this via a checkbox in SAP GUI options dialog or by
distributing the respective registry value.

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NO LONGER SUPPORTED / AVAILABLE
· The Belize theme offered a so-called “Fallback” theme in SAP GUI for Windows 7.50 and 7.60. This
“Fallback” was used for SAP systems which do not support the Fiori feature set. As of SAP GUI for
Windows 7.70 no “Fallback” theme is offered anymore. The theme set in the SAP GUI options dialog
(or via other means like the SAP Business Client) is used for all systems a user connects to.
· The Assignment Control used in transaction UCWB is no longer available. A technical alternative is
available as mentioned in SAP Note 2704440.

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