SAP screens
There are two types of SAP screens. The most commonly used is the regular screen where users have full interaction and can read and/or write data is used almost 99% of time during any sap session. The other type of screen, that is seldomly used in SAP transactions are called 'report screens' where data are displayed in report format and have very limited interaction with the screen.
Both type of screens behave very differently internally and need to be processed separately. In order to find a dynamic object; for a regular/normal screen there is an action called 'Find' available for each SAP object class and users should use that action during the dynamic search of object. For report screens that behave very differently there is a set of actions called 'Set Reference Row" and "Set Relative Object' to search an object or object pattern on those screens.. These actions not only search for objects in the visible area of the screen but also scroll if there is a scroll bar during the search process to search for the desired object on the scrolled out of view area of the screen.
Due to technical limitations, it is recommended that the user should use respective actions on each kind of screen during object searches. Although, users can use the regular screen action 'Find' to search for an object on the report screen, this search would be limited ONLY to the visible area of the screen and would not move the scrollbar during the search. Similarly, using the report action 'Set Reference Row' on normal screen would yield results but at the expense of performance.
Set Reference Row
The action 'Set Reference Row'
is designed to handle a scenario where user need to find a particular pattern
where more than one object lay next to each other on a virtual screen row. Due
to peculiarities of search screen where this operation usually performed (ABAP
report screens) and unique requirement of this action, this action take into
account all screen objects during search and more or less almost each and every
object got touched during the search operation. User should never use this
action if they are not looking for a pattern involving more than one object.
For single object search, one should always use 'Dynamic Object' that employs
different search methodology that is much faster than the 'Set Reference Row'
action.
Note on SAP report screens: The SAP report screens are very
different than the rest of the SAP screen and due to its unique nature more
search operation are performed if more than one search criteria are specified
by the user. If screen is very busy, then more objects are searched that make
it more slower.
Reset Vertical Scrollbar after search
"Due to technical limitations, the Certify action 'Set Relative Object'
can only search objects on the current screen of SAP GUI. It cannot
scroll page during the object search like the action 'Set Relative
Object'. If an object that is being search is not in the current screen
then action 'Set Relative object' shall fail.
In order to overcome this limitation, we have two additional
parameter called 'Reset Vertical Scrollbar after search' and ''Reset
Horizontal Scrollbar after search' in action 'Set Reference Row'. The
vertical scroll parameter shall reset vertical scroll bar after search
such that searched row become either first, last or middle row on the
screen. Similarly, the horizontal scroll parameter reset horizontal
scroll bar after search such that last selected object be the right,
left or center of the screen. These options help to provide more screen
area for the next search through 'Set Relative object'. Value used of
these parameters depends on the object position relative to the search
object.
For example, Certify is supposed to search object(s) with Set
Reference row and searched object is at the bottom of screen. The next
object that the process is supposed to select through action 'Set Relative object' is 5
row down from the current row and is not in viewable screen area. In
this case, you would use parameter on action 'Search Reference Row' to
reset screen after search such that searched row become first or middle
row on the screen. It would give provide more screen area for next
object search that was looking for object below the current search row.
Similarly, if you feel that you need to search in 'Up' direction then
you would like to set searched row at the bottom of the screen.
Thus use parameter 'Reset Vertical Scrollbar after search' and/or
'Rest Horizontal scrollbar after search' for the action 'Set Reference
Row' to reset your screen according to the need of the next object
search."