Book Image

Programming Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009

Book Image

Programming Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009

Overview of this book

Microsoft Dynamics NAV is a well established Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) application, part of the Microsoft Dynamics family. Dynamics NAV is installed worldwide, with well over one million users. Version 2009 contains many major new features and structures, requiring even experienced Dynamics NAV developers to refresh their NAV development knowledge. Renowned for its challenging learning curve, Dynamics NAV is a complex piece of software with a unique design structure. For developers learning to modify or enhance Dynamics NAV for vital business purposes, the task can sometimes be intimidating. This book is an in-depth step-by-step guide to programming NAV, designed to ease you through the complexities of NAV application development. You will learn the skills and develop the confidence to tackle your own critical NAV applications. This book will act as your experienced NAV programming mentor, helping you to become productive as a NAV developer much more quickly. NAV development is quite complex, with a steep learning curve. This book makes it easy for you. From basic NAV terminology and concept definitions, through the essential building blocks of NAV data structure and objects, you will gain an understanding of the fundamental underlying concepts of NAV. You will learn practical details about NAV object construction and the tools available, including table, page, and report design. You will learn how to use NAV's tools to effectively navigate through the various features of objects, including properties, triggers, and C/AL code, and receive practical guidance on ways to develop and test in the unique NAV C/SIDE development environment. Extensive guidance on software design for NAV is provided along with tips for efficient design of new NAV applications or enhancing existing applications. With its comprehensive collection of NAV information and distillation of years of NAV development experience, this book is not only designed to help you learn, but to act as a reference as well.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
Programming Microsoft® Dynamics™ NAV 2009
Credits
About the Author
Acknowledgement
About the Reviewers
Foreword
Preface
Index

Documenting modifications


We have discussed many of the good documentation practices that you should follow, when modifying an NAV system. We will briefly review those here.

Identify and document your modifications. Assign a unique project ID and use it for version tags and all internal documentation tags. Assign a specific number range for any new objects.

Wrap your customizations in code with tagged comments. Place an identifying "Modification starts here" comment before any modification and a "Modification ends here" comment at the end. Retain any replaced code inside comments. Depending on the amount of replaced or deleted code, it should be commented out with either slashes or braces (// or { }).

Tip

No matter how much or what type of standard NAV C/AL code is affected, the original code should remain intact as comments.

Always include explanatory documentation in the Documentation Trigger of modified objects. In the case of changes that can't be documented in-line such as changes to properties...