Waldo's Blog - Microsoft Dynamics NAV

When you start doing AL development in VSCode, you inevitably will want to convert from the very old and dusty C/AL language, to the brand new shining innovative AL language :-). How that is being done, is described in multiple places. Let me just reference to this post on my blog to get you going on it :-). Since that post, there is somewhat more possible. And probably, the way of converting it, will change in the future, as this is all “work in progress”. A good way to keep track...

I didn’t realize something .. but since April this year, I have been blogging for a full 10 years. Not THE most important topic ever created – definitly not when Microsoft announces big new things like Microsoft 365 and such – but hey, it’s holiday-season ;-). I still remember why I started blogging: I just received my very first MVP award for my contributions on MiBuSo .. and I wanted to do something “more” .. and give back. Mark Brummel started blogging just...

You might remember this post: http://www.waldo.be/2017/02/20/make-the-new-developer-tools-available-on-a-local-machine/ Well, back in those days, I might have forgotten a few bits ;-). Namely to enable the in-client visual designer. Well, there is not much to it – you can simply edit the web.config-file, and add the designer-attribute in it.. . With PowerShell, you can do it with: $NAVWebConfigFile = "C:\inetpub\wwwroot\Navision_main\Web.config" $NAVWebConfig = [xml](Get-Content...

When you want to experience the new developer tools, you need to set up a VM on Azure . Now, this takes a while. On top of that, it’s all “preview”. As in: “might crash”. And in: “if it crashes, there might not be a decent way out”. I was able to completely mess up my environment. Both data acted weird (getting errors like “record already exists” in an empty table), as the inability to publish any new extension (ending up with pages without...

I seem to remember that I have told you that I have created some modules in PowerShell to make my (and your) life easier in Microsoft Dynamics NAV.. ;-). Well – it seems that these modules are getting some traction. They are available on Github , and the PowerShell Gallery – and people seem to be downloading them quite a lot. Now, I had the pleasure of someone that added some very interesting functionality. Functionality that I had been working on, but I wasn’t able to get it...

Some time ago, Mark blogged an interesting article about running objects from extensions. You can read it here: https://markbrummel.blog/2017/05/20/tip-58-run-extension-objects/ . It made me wonder .. how would I solve this? And one of the problems of asking myself these kind of questions is .. the answer is always the same :-/: Powershell And apperantly, I already blogged something really similar as well :-): http://www.waldo.be/2015/07/09/start-nav-object-in-rtc-with-powershell/ I created...

When you’re a NAV developer, you’re not really spoiled with developer tools. So these are exciting times .. and I think I can speak for many developers when claiming I’m very much looking forward to the upcoming developer tools . Basically because it brings us VSCode .. and VSCode brings us a grown up development experience. Symbol Rename On example is the “Symbol Rename”. You can do that by simply press F2 (or right mouse click / Rename Symbol), and give the symbol...

When doing sessions about VSCode – one of the main advantages people always talk about (in comparison with our classic C/AL development environment (aka C/SIDE)), is “GIT Integration”. Or “Source Control Management right out-of-the-box”. I would even say that it’s difficult to work with VSCode without actually controlling your software. Out-of-the-box GIT Support VS Code ships with Git. So, when you install VSCode, you have a bunch of Git-stuff right under...

If you are a NAV developer, you probably have heard about the upcoming “New Developer Tools”. And if you didn’t, it’s very much time for you to catch up with the readings about this, like: the Getting Started article the Developer Reference Follow the blogs Read and contribute on GitHub And when you read this blog from Freddy – you might as well got started in Extensionsv1, and wonder how you can convert all your work to Extensionv2 – or basically...

I’m sitting in the plane, after I just kicked off my first PowerShot for NAV2017 in Sweden. It was not “the first” PowerShot of this year, because Vjeko actually started one day before me in Norway :-). What are PowerShots? You might have read from previous years that we (Cloud Ready Software) have been “touring” Europe, advocating various topics on NAV – with a strong focus on “Cloud Development”. You can read some overviews on my blog: PowerShots...

Recently, I came across a customer, where a partner had implemented some Stored Procedures on a Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2017 database. Now, for any change on SQL level that comes to my ears, my first reaction is always “ Nooooooooo “. Or as a pictures tells more than a thousand words: First thing I did was googling to see if the community shared my opinion. Apparently there is nothing to find about recommendations on this: nor good nor bad. I did find a few blogposts on how to call...

It’s not conference season and yet .. I have never been this busy during this part of the year for conferences. That must mean that new stuff (conferences that is..) is coming up. Let’s spend a very short blogpost on what’s coming up for me.. Directions ASIA In fact, at this very moment, I’m on the plane to Bangkok. The EMEA team is organizing its event for the first time in ASIA. I don’t know at all what the experience is going to be like – but I’m...

On my last blogpost on Source Code Analysis (which focused on the LineCount), I got the remark whether it would be interesting to drill into “statements”. I didn’t really know what he meant with it – but it made me think and drill down into the usage of the procedures. You might remember we talked about the “places” in NAV where we were writing code, like: OnValidate trigger, custom functions, OnInsert, .. but also OnDrillDown on a control of a page .. these...

Recently, I came across this nice graph: http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/million-lines-of-code/ . Pretty cool to see the comparison. But – obviously – the next question for us Microsoft Dynamics NAV developers is: How many lines of code does Microsoft Dynamics NAV contain? Good question .. and an interesting one. I always told people things like “it’s not easy to navigate in millions lines of code that you didn’t write yourself”. Assuming...

At this moment, I’m working on an Extension for Dynamics 365. One of the requirements is basically “publish an interface to an external packet”. In other words: “publish a bunch of web services”. Now, I’m always trying to find the “best practice” for different circumstances. That’s also why I’m so deep into PowerShell – I think we should automate these “Best Practices” as much as possible ;-). But in this case –...