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NAV Development Tools Preview – March Update

Welcome to the March update for the Developer Preview. We continue to fix bugs reported by you on our GitHub issues list (https://github.com/Microsoft/AL/issues) and made other improvements. To get an updated image you can see the original blog post or jump to the Azure Gallery signup at http://aka.ms/navdeveloperpreview.

You can see a list of what’s new below.

– We’re making you more productive in the Designer! You can now reorder columns with a simple drag and drop, and you can hide or show columns. Try it out on any page with columns, such as worksheets, sales documents, or lists.

add-a-column

– Report application objects join the list of supported objects! Create reports using new syntax and include them in your extensions.

  • Reports do support both Word and RDLC layout.
  • Layouts are now saved as external files. Save your layouts in a subdirectory of your VS Code project and then point to the file with the property wordlayout and rdlclayout.

a0c4cb3f

  • Note: At this time we have basic support for reports. Reports can be authored and they compile and run, but we’re aware there are advanced scenarios that may not work. We’re working hard to fix these and also encourage you to file issues you find to our GitHub project.
  • Note: Report development does not include an integrated designer experience – i.e., integration with Visual Studio for RDLC is missing but the Word editor will show fields in the XML Mapping from the Developer tab.
  • Sample code has been updated on the Azure VM to include Report 101 – Customer List.
  • Miscellaneous bugs reported from GitHub have been fixed.

– You may define a dependency on another extension by listing it in the app.json configuration file. Taking a dependency will allow you to code against objects including page extension object and table extension objects in that extension. Symbols from the extension will show up in IntelliSense.

As in the last update, we’ve already updated the Azure Gallery so new images will include the update. Again, we’ve designed for compatibility with your existing files so any .al projects you have already will work with the AL Language extension for VS Code. Having said that, changes may need to be introduced at some time so save your work independently as you go.

We’re closing in on the last Application Objects and we’re spending more time on making sure extensions behave well when dependencies are taken on them. Look for another update in around a month.

Thanks a lot for the bugs – we love that you use our tools and are happy to fix as many as we can.

/NAV

navteam

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