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

Chapter 8. Advanced NAV Development Tools

The universe is full of magical things, patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper—Eden Phillpotts

The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible—Arthur C. Clarke

Having studied the foundation basics of C/AL, followed by a review of intermediate functions and structures, it's time to get into more advanced topics. As NAV is so flexible and suitable for addressing many different problem types, advanced NAV topics range far and wide.

We have three key goals in this chapter. One is to gain an overall view of NAV as an application software system. We're not going to study its functional operation, but gain a basic understanding of the process flow of the system. We also want to have a good understanding of the structural "style" of the software, so that our enhancements are designed for a better fit.

The second goal is to review some of the higher level components of the NAV system that...