Dynamics 365 FO / AX - thoughts on application development and customizations

Put the following code in the GLOBAL class in a new method called setFormModal : static void setFormModal(int _thisHWND, boolean _bModal) {     DLL _winApiDLL;     DLLFunction _EnabledWindow;     DLLFunction _getTop;     DLLFunction _getNext;     DLLFunction _getParent;     void local_enableWHND(int _lHWND)     {         int lnextWnd;         lnextWnd = _getTop.call(_getParent.call(_lHWND));         while (lnextWnd)         {             if (lnextWnd != _lHWND)                 enabledWindow.call(lnextWnd, (!_bModal));       ...

Useful debugging tip for tracking down the point where an exception is thrown. Some times it can be difficult to determine where an exception is thrown. Is it e.g. the validatefield method on a data source field on a form that throws the exception, or is it the validatewrite method on the data source or even the validatewrite method on the table it self. A useful trick to establish the point in the code where the exception is thrown, is to set a break point in line 11 in the method add in the class Info. You can find the Info class at the bottom at the class subtree in the AOT. This will stop execution and activate the debugger each time something is added to the infolog which is normally done when an exception is thrown.

How to create, compile and run code at RUNTIME. In some situations the need for making "generic" code arises. This is a little example that generates, compiles and runs code to delete the contents of table PBACustGroup. The code is made as a job, but transforming this code into a method on a class, and calling this method with parameters that allows it to identify the table, suddenly makes us able to delete several selected tables with very little code. It also allows for USER CONTROLLED actions, for example letting the user build a liste of tables he would like to delete, and then calling the code for each of these tables. static void TestGenericCode(Args _args) {     XppCompiler XppCompiler;     str code;     str tableName = "PBACustGroup"; // Here we define the name of the table ;     // A compile object is created     XppCompiler = new XppCompiler();     // Here th...

How to extract label text. This code shows how to get the text of a specific label for a specific module, for a specific language. This might come in handy when constructing a text to be printed on a report, that will more than one label text. // This code allows you to extract the label text of a specific label, for a specific module, // for a specific language // // Handy when constructing text fields containing many values and labels for printing // // str = labeltxt("gls",element.design().languageId(),200); str labeltxt(str _labelModule,LanguageId _languageId, LabelIdNum _labelNo) {     Label l;     l = new label(_languageId);     return l.extractString(l.name(_labelModule,_labelNo)); }

When a form has called another form (the user has opened a form by clicking a button in another form), you sometimes need to get information from the calling form. The traditional way is to use element.args().record(); but this construction only allows for transferring ONE datasource at a time. Sometimes it would be nice to be able to transfer more than one datasource. This is an example of how that can be done. The code must be implemented in the init -method of the CALLED form: SysSetupFormRun s; APMObjectTable apmObjectTable; int dataSourceNo; // Determine value of fields APMProductId and APMModelId of APMObjectTable record // which might have been active at the time of pressing CTRL+F4 in the previous form // (CTRL+F4 on model field in form APMCustOverview) s = element.args().caller(); if (s) {     for (datasourceNo = 1; dataSourceNo     {         if (s.dataSource(dataSourceNo).cursor().TableId == tableN...

How to tokenize a string. In Java you can use an object of the stringTokenizer class to break up a string in to tokens. Dynamics AX has a handy class called TextBuffer with which you can achieve a similar effect. This example shows how (the code is written as a job): static void Job7(Args _args) {     TextBuffer t;     t = new TextBuffer();     t.ignoreCase(true);     t.regularExpressions(false);     // Set the text to break in to tokens     t.setText("When I find myself in times of trouble, mother Mary comes to me, speaking words of wisdom, let it be. And in my hour of darkness she is standing right in front of me, speaking words of wisdom, let it be.");     // The delimiter to search for when finding tokens is space     while (t.nextToken(false," "))     {         info...

How to get the value of a given field regardless of which tablebuffer is active. Foreign keys in Dynamics AX are scattered throughout the tables of the system, connecting the modules to each other. For example ItemId fields store the item identification in a lot of tables, for storing information related to the item in question. This example shows how you can write a generic method that gets the value of the field ItemId regardless of which table is active at runtime. The example was originally implemented as a method on a form. The method was able to return the value of the field ItemId regardless of which tablebuffer was active, when the form was called ( element.args().record() ). public ItemId getFormItemId() {     common table; // Generic table buffer     DictTable dt; // Dictionary object for handling table information     // Get the table in question     table = element.args().record();   ...

For debugging purposes code that can inspect the values of the fields in a datasource in a form or a report can be quite handy. This is how it can be done in e.g. the active method of the datasource : QueryBuildDataSource qbds; QueryBuildRange qbr; int dsc,dsi,rc,ri; // Get the number of datasource on the query dsc = queryRun.query().dataSourceCount(); // Loop over datasources for (dsi=1;dsi {     qbds = queryRun.query().dataSourceNo(dsi);     info("Table: "+tableid2name(qbds.table()));     rc = qbds.rangeCount();     // Loop over fields     for (ri=1;ri     {         qbr = qbds.range(ri);         info(fieldid2name(qbds.table(),qbr.field())+" value: "+qbr.value());     } }

This is an old blog entry from my old blog. Today I solved a problem, that has long puzzled me. From Axapta 3.0 (or was it 2.5 can't quite remember) it became best pratice to wrap reports in runbase-report classes. For a long time it has irritated me, that if you called your report class from something else than the menu, you were having trouble overriding syslastvalue, without clearing all saved last value completely. Example: You have a report called from a runbasereport class.For the class you naturally have a output menuitem, that is attached to the menu. So when you call this report, and make selections in the ranges of the query of the report, they are shown in the report dialog, and saved, so that the next time you call your report, the last used selections is being restored for you in the dialog for reuse. However sometime you experience, that the report can be called from BOTH the menu and somewhere else like a form. When you call the report from a form, it is customary to...

This is actually an old entry. Been tumbling with a problem for the last few days. A form in our Dynamics AX module for Preventive Maintenance Control was not behaving. The form has "explicit" filter fields that the user can see without having to activate the form filter (CTRL+F3), for setting up filters most commonly used in an easy way. And this is working ok. However at this customer site, the form has been adjusted so that the user can have the form refreshed automatically periodically, and when the users at the customer site were making use of the "explicit" filter combined with the AX's normal filtering (CTRL+F3), the form simply threw away the normal form filtering. I discovered a subtle but very important difference between writing _ds.executeQuery(); (which was the way our code was doing it) and _ds.Research(); The difference is that _ds.Research() will retain the filter ranges in the forms query as they are right now. _ds.executeQuery() will NOT. It ...

I Dynamics AX version 4.0 the information about on what AOS you are currently running your code, has been removed. In version 3.0 (3-tier) the client showed the AOS instance info. With a development, a test and a production environment at a site, the missing info can be of great annoyance when you are working with clients started in multiple environments. Today I found that other developers and consultants have the same problem, and one developer even solved the problem, with the very usefull hack: http://coolhake.wordpress.com/2008/07/22/configuration-in-title-bar/ Oh yay, saved my day.

A classical problem is indicating that a field is mandatory in a dialog, when the field is not bound to a datasource/field in a datasource. Normally fellow developers will tell you that, that is not possible. I found a way to do this. In your Runbase-based class you can implement the putToDialog-method e.g like this: protected void putToDialog() { super(); fieldMask.fieldControl().mandatory(true); } where fieldMask is a DialogField object in your dialog. This will make the field act like it was a mandatory field from a datasource in a form, showing a red-wavy line under the field, and requiring the field to have a value. Attention: Your class has to run on the client.If you set your class to run on the server, you get a run-time error, when the fieldMask.FieldControl()-call is made.

While working on a client case where custom made data export was needed, I coded some classes to make the export. While working with the code, I decided it would be a good idea to make the currently chosen company id a part of the file name when exporting, as the customer have several company accounts, and we need to export from all of them. I spent a little time to find out how to get the current selected company account id and I came up with: static void Job77(Args _args) { ; info(appl.company().ext()); } So I made a function for constructing the file name and put the appl.company().ext() bit in that.

This code snippet shows how to calculate a mathematical expression and get the result in X++ code (the shown code is made as a job): static void calc(Args _args) { XppCompiler x; // In str s we write the expression that we want to evaluate Str s = "1+2*(8+4)*cos(25)"; Str result; ; x = new XppCompiler(); if (x.compileExpr(s)) { result = x.execute(); } else { result = "Error in formula"; } info(result); }

Let there be sound .... Let there be ... :) Just created a blog to put all my dax thoughts in. Chose this blog-system because my own ISP's blog-software suxxx.