Designing Screens
Overview of Controls | A Typical R/3 Window
Before we are going to design screens, we introduce the concept of windows to you and give you a general overview on the interface elements that are used in R/3 windows. Finally, we show a typical R/3 window with its interface elements.
Windows
Up to now we talked very generally of "screens" and "interface elements". R/3 screens are parts of windows. Windows are the primary interface element of modern graphical user interfaces. They cover a rectangular area on the computer screen and represent certain tasks or applications running on the computer. The user may move windows around the computer screen, size, stack, activate, or deactivate them.
When we talk of screens in the context of the R/3 System, we usually mean the work area of a window that is its main part. You as the developer place interface elements into the work area to fit a window to a certain task. In addition to the work area a window consists of further elements. Some of them serve for basic window handling, and some of them are specific for R/3. You may place interface elements into some of these areas, too.
There are two kinds of windows in the R/3 System, the primary windows, and the secondary windows, usually referred to as dialogue windows or popup windows. The R/3 System always resides in one main or primary window where the user's main activity takes place. In addition, dialogue windows may pop up in reaction to the user's actions to supplement the main window. Here the user may enter additional data, make choices or is informed on errors or consequences of actions. There may be more than one dialogue window at a time, but only one can be worked with. This is because in the R/3 System dialogue windows are "modal" windows, which take over control of the system.
The user may open more than one primary window in the R/3 System and exchange data between the sessions running in the various windows.
Source: SAP R/3 Style Guide