As promised, following on from the previous article: #Dexterity Automating or Customizing the Report Destination Window, this article shows how you can achieve the automating of the Report Destination dialogs using GP Power Tools – Development Tools module, including the dialogs in the Dexterity Runtime Engine.
Development
#Dexterity Fixing the Properties Window width
A recent post on the GPUG Forums by my friend David Morinello asked how to fix the issue when the Dexterity Properties window resizes to smaller than its default width.
See the thread here: Dexterity Property Window too narrow
#Dexterity Automating or Customizing the Report Destination Window
Back in 2009, I posted about Automating or Customizing the Report Destination Window. In that article I discussed that there is more than one version of the Report Destination dialog and that additional methods would be required to control the version that is in the Dexterity Runtime Engine.
This article gets into more detail showing how the control the different dialogs with Dexterity.
Solved: Visual Studio Tools Addins fail after importing packages
I have been fairly quiet recently on the blog and forums as I have been concentrating on developing the next build of GP Power Tools. All I can say is that it is awesome and you will love it. I have a “Sneak Peak” article coming soon.
While working on the development and testing process, I had some unusual behaviour from my .Net Visual Studio Tools Addins and spent an entire day troubleshooting the issue so I could identify the cause and work out a solution. Read on for the gory details….
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#GPPT Converting .Net Execute Scripts from C# to VB.Net
Following on from the previous articles: #GPPT Speeding Up Referencing Modifier Added Fields and staying Web Client compatible and #GPPT Referencing Modifier Added Fields in the Web Client using .Net Execute, this article looks how we can use VB.Net rather than C# as the scripting language in the .Net Execute scripts.
Both VB.Net and C# use the .Net Common Language Runtime (CLR) and it is usually possible to write exactly the same code in either language. So we will duplicate our existing C# scripts and convert them to VB.Net, then we will duplicate the triggers to call the new scripts.
#GPPT Speeding Up Referencing Modifier Added Fields and staying Web Client compatible
Using the method discussed in the article #GPPT Referencing Modifier Added Fields in the Web Client using .Net Execute it was possible able to get past some of the limitations mentioned in the article Dynamics.Application Object not available on Web Client.
However, running the .Net (C# or VB.Net) code is slightly slower than running the Dexterity (sanScript) code. This article explains a method of how to improve Desktop Client performance while staying compatible with the Web Client.
Run Batch Files and Powershell Scripts with Administrator Permissions easily
Here is something a little different for you. I have two external drives connected to my Microsoft Surface Book 2 15″ computer. One is a 256GB micro SD card hidden in a BaseQi Ninja Stealth Drive loaded into the SD Card slot and the other is a USB 3.0 connected Western Digital 2TB WD Elements Portable. Both of these drives have BitLocker enabled and have the password remembered on this machine.
Every now and then, the drives fail to initialize correctly and in turn fail to unlock with BitLocker. Even though I can see the drives and their total and used capacity, I cannot access them.
#GPPT Referencing Modifier Added Fields in the Web Client using .Net Execute
You probably saw the recent article: Dynamics.Application Object not available on Web Client where I described an issue that was recently discovered and meant that the “Continuum” based triggers and scripts used to reference Modifier Added Fields in GP Power Tools – Developer Tools module were unable to work in the Web Client.
I mentioned a workaround that would function with the current GP Power Tools code when running on the Web Client (and Desktop Client). This article will show how you can use scripts in the .Net Execute Setup window to reference Modifier Added Fields.
Dynamics.Application Object not available on Web Client
This article comes about because we have identified a feature of GP Power Tools that does not work as expected on the Web Client. GP Power Tools has the ability to run scripts and register triggers against Modifier added fields and Modal Dialogs. These features uses the Dynamics.Application object and in particular a suite of functionality historically known as “Continuum”.
We can now confirm that the Dynamics.Application object is not available at all when running Microsoft Dynamics GP in the Web Client and so any functionality reliant on this object will fail to work.
#GPPT Disabling Manual Entry of SOP Number Field
Recently on the GPUG Open Forum, Jeff Roe asked if it was possible to disable manual entry by users into the SOP Number field on the Sales Transaction Entry (SOP_Entry) window.
I suggested using GP Power Tools – Developer Tools module to create a quick trigger to lock or disable the field. As Jeff is already a GP Power Tools user and has the Developer Tools module registered, I created the required code and posted it on the forum thread. Here is a slightly more detailed version of the forum response.
#GPPT Reporting for Minnesota’s Wage Theft Law
This article is comes about thanks to my friend, Melissa Brown, who approached me for a solution to a reporting requirement she had for a customer due to new legislation brought in by the US state of Minnesota.
The requirement was not possible to solve with the Dynamics Report Writer alone as it involved an array in a table which prevented a static relationship from working to retrieve the data needed.
#GPPT Parsing Returned SQL Data into Rows and Columns
When writing customizations using GP Power Tools as your development tool, there may be times where you need to return a SQL query as a data set to your Trigger Setup script or Runtime Execute Setup script.
It is possible to display a data set to the end user in a SQL Results window using the MBS_SQL_Results helper function. If you have “Goto” actions defined, the MBS_SQL_Results_Goto helper function will display the data and enable the SQL Goto functionality.
But what if we don’t want the data displayed to the user and just need to use the data in your code.
#GPPT Unknown Identifier Error when working against Modified windows
Dexterity is the native language of Microsoft Dynamics GP. It is an amazing development environment that is still the best and most powerful tool to integrate with the Dynamics GP User Interface. While Dexterity was originally developed in the late 1980’s, it has been continuously developed and extended with more and more features and functionality which allow it to handle everything needed for modern business applications AND still be completely backwards compatible to its original release.
However, Dexterity does have some limitations: It is a little bit more complex if you need to integrate with other third party dictionaries and it cannot work with modified windows. GP Power Tools extends Dexterity’s scripting capabilities to make it possible to easily work with multiple dictionaries and with modified windows.
#GPPT Beginner’s Guide to Adding Custom Fields – Video Demonstration
Welcome to the eighth and final article in the series of articles that explains in detail the steps to add a user defined custom field to a window using Modifier, Report Writer and GP Power Tools to add the business logic.
The series should be read in order starting with the introduction article:
In this article we will put everything in the previous articles together in a video demonstration of the steps.
#GPPT Beginner’s Guide to Adding Custom Fields – Publishing the project
Welcome to the seventh article in the series of articles that explain in detail the steps to add a user defined custom field to a window using Modifier, Report Writer and GP Power Tools to add the business logic.
The series should be read in order starting with the introduction article:
In this article we will adjust security and GP Power Tools settings to publish the customization to all users.
#GPPT Beginner’s Guide to Adding Custom Fields – Modifying the report
Welcome to the sixth article in the series of articles that explain in detail the steps to add a user defined custom field to a window using Modifier, Report Writer and GP Power Tools to add the business logic.
The series should be read in order starting with the introduction article:
In this article we will use Report Writer to modify the Detailed Item List report to add a calculated field which in turn calls the custom RW Function created in the previous article.
#GPPT Beginner’s Guide to Adding Custom Fields – Creating the RW function
Welcome to the fifth article in the series of articles that explain in detail the steps to add a user defined custom field to a window using Modifier, Report Writer and GP Power Tools to add the business logic.
The series should be read in order starting with the introduction article:
In this article we will use GP Power Tools to create a custom Report Writer (RW) function which will allow our custom URL field to be easily added to reports in the Report Writer.
#GPPT Beginner’s Guide to Adding Custom Fields – Using the data
Welcome to the fourth article in the series of articles that explain in detail the steps to add a user defined custom field to a window using Modifier, Report Writer and GP Power Tools to add the business logic.
The series should be read in order starting with the introduction article:
In this article we will use GP Power Tools to add the business logic to make the URL field work. We will make the hidden button open the URL in a browser window and add http:// at the beginning of the URL field if it is not added by the user.
#GPPT Beginner’s Guide to Adding Custom Fields – Saving the data
Welcome to the third article in the series of articles that explains in detail the steps to add a user defined custom field to a window using Modifier, Report Writer and GP Power Tools to add the business logic.
The series should be read in order starting with the introduction article:
In this article we will use GP Power Tools to add the business logic to save the data from the newly added custom field on the Item Maintenance window.
#GPPT Beginner’s Guide to Adding Custom Fields – Modifying the window
Welcome to the second article in the series of articles that explains in detail the steps to add a user defined custom field to a window using Modifier, Report Writer and GP Power Tools to add the business logic.
The series should be read in order starting with the introduction article:
In this article we will use Modifier to add the custom field to the Item Maintenance window.
