Category: Extension Package
Business Central 21 enables Arabic Language
Walkthrough Extension Development in Online Sandbox – Business Central
I have my Sandbox environment as below:
Details of the Sandbox as below:
Connecting VS code to above environment.
When you try to Publish the extension, it will ask you to authenticate.
Copy the Link and open in the browser and paste the code in the box as shown below.
Next it will ask for your Online Instance User Id & Password provide it and on confirmation close the page. It will start deploying the extension.
In this walkthrough I am using below scenario:
Requirement is we need to be able to define some code for dimension combinations. Let me say it will be Sales Code, you can choose name of your choice, this is not Salesperson code.
I am assuming these dimensions will follow the sequence as defined on my General Ledger Setup as below:
On Sales Order & Invoice user should be able to select this Sales Code and dimensions should be populated on order accordingly.
For tracking purpose this Sales Code should flow to Posted Sales Invoice and Customer Ledger.
So, Let’s Start with the development process:
Step-1 We will Create the Table
Here is the code for LookupDimValue Function, it will set filter for Dimension Code on Dimension Value table, as per the Dimension No passed. (1 is for Shortcut Dimension defined on General Ledger Setup, similarly for other 8 dimensions)
Step-2 Next, we will create the Page for this Setup
Step-3 Next, we will add the Sales Code field to all required Tables & Pages
Here is the code for AddDim Function. It is assumed that only combination provided in Sales Code Setup will be used. If you have defined Default dimensions or Combinations, those need to be preserved else this code will overwrite them. You will have to find the Data Set Entry, store them in temporary table used in below code and then add all the dimensions from the setup.
When you Select Sales Code on the Order or Invoice it will populate all the dimensions defined in the Setup.
Code for other Tables & Pages
Step-4 Next, we need to take care to flow the Sales Code to the Ledger and Posted documents.
For posted documents we need not to worry it will flow automatically provided we have defined the fields on same Id.
However, for ledger we will require to use Events to pass the data to their destinations. In this case we are only passing to Customer Ledger Entry. For this we will create a Codeunit.
To Add Event Subscriptions, Use the new Shift+Alt+E shortcut in the AL code editor to invoke a list of all events.
Search for the even you are looking for.
When pressing Enter to select an event entry, an event subscriber for the event will be inserted at the cursor position in the active AL code editor window.
Here is the Codeunit Code:
This is not the final code; much more can be done or need to be done before it can be delivered to customer for their use. Purpose of this walkthrough was to demo the way we can customize the solution using extensions and publishing to Online tenant in Sandbox.
Hope you enjoyed the information. Will come with more similar information in my next posts. Till then keep exploring, learning and sharing your knowledge with others.
Remain safe, take care of your loved ones, put your mask, maintain safe distance and don’t forget to get vaccinated.
Options VS Enums
To define a variable of type Option, you can’t use the OptionMembers property that’s used on a field of data type Option. You need to list the available options as a comma-separated list after your variable definition.
For example:- Color: Option Red,Green,Yellow;
If you want to reuse the same Option type in other objects (like other codeunits, pages, or tables), you have to redefine all available values. Later, if you decide to add an extra value, you need to modify all objects with this extra value. Options in a table are not extendable with a table extension.
Solution to this is now available as enum.
An enum is a separate object with its own number and name. You can use an Enum object in other object without the need to redefine it at each object level. The Enum object can also be extended with enum extensions.
Lets see example defining and using enum.
I have created a EnumDefinition.al to define my custom enum Color.
I have defined one Function SelectColor to access values.
To call the Function and test result created extension of Customer List page and added code to access the value.
Now we can use this Enum throughout the extension in any objects without redefining it as in case of Option.
Let’s Publish the extension and see the result.
As you can remember from above code, I have selected color Green and have put the code to call of function on trigger of Customer List page, OnOpenPage.
The Enum object can also be extended with enum extensions.
Extending the Enum
Lets create new Extension, app.json file set dependencies to earlier/above Extension.
Next let’s extend our enum Color.
Next let’s create codeunit for function to access value of enum.
To call the Function and test result created extension of Customer List page and added code to access the value.
Let’s Publish the extension and see the result.
As you can remember from above code, I have selected color Red & Brown and have put the code to call of function on trigger of Customer List page, OnOpenPage.
Red is from earlier defined Color enum (Red, Green, Yellow), & Brown from extended enum (Blue, Black, Brown).
API – Business Central Part-2
In our previous post we saw basics of API in Navision. Let’s explore further.
If you missed the earlier post you can find here API – Business Central Part-1
Continuing from where we left in previous post.
Someone asked me why we require API when we have web service in place and can achieve same OData either query or filter in same fashion.
So what I am going to explain below will answer to that query.
The API will generate a REST service which returns OData. The API is not the same as the OData web services that we discussed in our earlier post.
There we created an OData web service based on a card page. If there were fields that need to be displayed on a card in the client application but you do not want those fields to expose in the OData web service, you will have to create a second card page to solve this problem. In this case, we create a separate page for our API and only for the API. This page cannot be requested in the client application. It’s also much better concept to separate them from the regular pages.
Also we can apply templates for default value of field, which we will discuss later in below post.
Let’s start with creating our own API.
Each resource is uniquely identified through an ID. As discussed in our earlier post. So let’s start with this, I will start with my earlier created Table LoadoutPoint and add one field ID.
Any new entry in my table will have a unique ID for Loadout Point, so I have added code in OnInsert trigger of the table.
To create an API, you should create a page of type API, instead of a card page or list page.
Use tpage, Page for type API snippet for page structure. You get all the bare minimum properties to be added for API Page.
Then you have to define which fields you would like to include.
Some important rules to be followed for API Pages:
- Fields should be named in the APIs supported format, Any Captions cannot have spaces and special characters. Only AlphaNumeric values permitted.
- When you insert an entity through API endpoint, Business Central don’t run OnInsert trigger on the table.
- And we have assigned the ID for the new record there. So Add Insert(true) for OnInsert Trigger.
- Add business logic to Modify trigger. As external user can change values through API, even the value of the primary key field.
- Add Delete(true) for On Delete trigger. The reason same as above.
So let’s add these 3 trigger in our page too.
Ok so now we have modified Table and Created new API page, now it’s time to publish our app/extension.
Use command palette to publish your app.
Now it’s time to test, let’s access our API page from client and do setup for same.
Search for API Setup Page in the client.
You can define and assign your Template from Template Code field, check with available same Templates how to do it.
Also the conditions when this Template should apply as discussed in earlier post also.
Now let’s access the API from outside the Navision/ Business Central.
I will use Postman to test this.
To get the list of 44 standard APIs.
To get the list of custom APIs.
https://ksd-desktop:7748/BC130/api/ksdconsultancy/app1/v1.0/
Hope you remember when we created API page we assigned few Properties like
APIPublisher = ksdconsultancy, APIGroup = app1, APIVersion = v1.0.
Now we will use those values to access my custom APIs.
See the url those are included after /api/
All information is available in JSON format and further can be confirmed that there are 1000 records. Thus, the number of records integrated here depends on the Max Page Size parameter setup in Navision Server.
What else you can do with APIs:
- Get to fetch or List
- Post to insert records
- Patch to modify records
- Delete to Delete records
- And so on.
- You can extend existing API Pages too, I have yet not tried.
That we may discuss in some other post. Not to complicate this topic more for now I conclude this post here.
Will come up with more details in my upcoming posts, till then keep exploring, learning and take good care of yourself.
Automated Testing in Business Central
Testing is the essential part of the software development process and Cover User Scenarios.
Developers take care of their unit tests and perhaps, some wider coverage when they deliver a finished module. When developer tests the software he only tests scenarios for which he have done development.
In manual testing, since there are usually only humans involved, there will without doubt be discrepancies in the burden that test are conducted. There’s is always the trade-off between whether or not to conduct a full test scenarios for every delivery. In most scenarios tests are performed to areas of application, those are relevant for the current release. Like why should you repeat the purchasing scenarios if you only made a change to the sales process for example?
Automated testing brings a level of insistency and repeatability to testing that is impossible to achieve with just humans. By using a tool that facilitates automated testing, you can run as many test, as many times, as you want with a guarantee that each and every test will run exactly the same way as the first time. You can actually prove that a change in the sales process will not affect the purchasing process.
The key to successful automated testing is that you can link test scenarios to user scenarios. To make your development process itself test-based, by writing proper test at the start of the development process will give you clear and concrete requirements that the software has to meet.
Repeatability of running test scenarios is another key ingredient of automated testing. Manual testing can be very tedious task that can cause a human tester to lose focus. Added project pressure can add to the temptation for tester to skip the unimportant pieces of the test scenarios. How many times do you have to make sure that you can’t enter text string in an amount field for example?
Automated testing is a predefined set of Instructions that always run, no matter what time, no matter how eager the project manager wants the results, no matter how hungry you are, the test scenario is defined and it will execute every instruction every time that the test runs.
It will run exactly the same manner each and every time. You can spin as many sessions you need and simulate real load test. You can potentially scale this up to hundreds or even thousands of users at the same time and really test the limits of your software’s capabilities. Even in larger organizations it will never be possible in a manual test situation.
Manual testing is great to prove that a new piece of software meets the requirements. But what is not always clear is whether a new change in the software has had any adverse effects on existing functionality in other areas. Whereas in case of automated testing provides the capability to prove that all test scenarios can still give you the same test results over time, whenever you make any changes to any part of the software. Since you can schedule automated tests, you can run a full system test overnight or weekend, when you come back at your desk in the next morning you can look at the outcome of the latest test run and focus on just the ones that failed.
Test that are included in the standard business central test toolkit, cover the entire application. You can run the full length of thousands of those test in a matter of hours. So, combined with a build script, you can automate the creation of a new tenant, implement your compiled app, run selected tests and then, evaluate the results in a fraction of the time, which it would take a team of manual testers to do the same thing in hours. Automated testing provides the capability to run a full test set every single day or multiple times a day. If you have that capability, why not use it?
You can organize your development process to include daily build process and include a full sweep of the entire set of tests, and almost guarantee a 100 percent success when you are ready to deliver your software.
Those working on AppSource apps, will not have a choice on matter. Automated testing is mandatory for your app source submission.
Conclusion best way to do testing will be take a fresh demo database of BC, install your app and test the user scenario. If you need to prepare any data is necessary to successfully complete the user scenarios or the test scenarios, the creation of that data should be part of the installation process of your app, and or your test app. Most important feature should be included is the ability to run them in a non-super role, it should not be mandatory to have super rights in order to use your app. Make sure you include the test for non-super users as well.
Oh!! Today lots of lecture. Let’s see how we can implement this, although writing test scripts is not a easy task, require lots of efforts to cover all scenarios and knowing the system well in advance, with clear set of inputs and outputs, else even you pass test scenario chances to fail in real word cannot be avoided.
Below are the steps we follow to create an automated test script. Below is not the full and final, it is just an idea how we can implement this, rest you have to use your experience and skills to complete as per your requirement and project need.
Not compulsory but it will be better if we can use fresh database for this task. We will have only our Extension on which we are going to run this Automated Test and the Extension which we are creating in this post for Auto Test.
Step – 1 : Nav/BC Preparation
If not already imported you need to import Set of objects to enable automated testing. You can find them on installation disk under TestToolKit folder.
If creating a Docker Container use option –includeTestToolkit in the new NavContainer Cmdlet.
Once you are done now you can run your Test Tool
Hold on, we will come to this later in below post.
Step – 2 : VS Code Project Preparation
Create a New project, and add Folder Structure to arrange your files.
You can find steps in this post : Bare Minimum Steps to Start with fresh Extension Project for Business Central
We need to Specify test target as a dependency. For this it is compulsory to have the apps symbols file to make this work. Install your Extension on this database if not already deployed.
We need to import symbols for the Test Framework as well. So need to specify ‘test’ settings to the app.json file of this project. Specify minimum supported value e.g. 12.0.0.0
Once these two settings are done, now when you hit Download Symbols it will include the Symbols for your Extension and Test Toolkit Objects.
Now you can see 2 additional package symbol files are downloaded.
- KSD Consultancy_MyFirstExtensionProject_1.0.0.0.app
- Microsoft_Test_13.0.24209.0.app
And 2 std. symbol file that gets included when you create any new Extension Project.
Step – 3 : Writing Test Codeunits
We will create a codeunit of Subtype = ‘Test’
Test procedures are decorated with [Test] attribute
Your OnRun will execute first, followed by other all test procedures.
You can use [TransactionModel] attribute to specify each test procedure is in a separate database transaction.
The output will be Success or Failure.
Failure is any error that is raised by the test code or from the code which is being tested. In either case Other Test procedures will still continue.
Other Features are Test Pages and UI Handlers, we will discuss on same in some other similar post.
AssertError statement is like if I do this error should come, it happens then your test is Success. In this case Failure is actually Success as you knowingly created error.
As I told earlier also this is very complicated area, to write Test Scripts, but if you start practicing from small stuffs eventually you will learn and will able to write a good Test Scripts. You can check out other standard Test Codeunits and update your knowledge how you can write your own Test Scripts.
My sample Test Codeunit looks something like below, it is just for idea in real scenario there should be lots more.
Step – 4 : Deploy & Run the Test App
Publish your Test App.
Go to Extension Management
You will find 2 Extension, The Initial Extension which we created in earlier posts and the Extension we just deployed.
Now open the Test Toolkit Page – 130401
Click on Get Test Codeunits function then Select Test Codeunits
Now Select the Codeunit we just created.
You can select other Codeunits as per the requirement, in my case I am just going to select my Codeunit which we created in this post.
This will list all the functions available in the Test Codeunit.
Now you can select Run all or Run Selected. To test your App, I will select Run All.
Here is the final output of test result
Hope you will agree the test we performed, same if done manually no one can test the same in 6 seconds as this did. And we can perform as many times, and any time.
Once your Test Codeunit in place whenever you make changes to app, you can just run the test and verify that any changes you made have not impacted the existing functionality in any manner.
To save the time in testing, you have to pay in other way in creating the test codeunit as it is not that easy to cover every user scenario in your test codeunit and will require lots of efforts.
But when you are working for App Source you have no choice, you will have to do it.
Today the post got bit longer, but this topic is very complicated and require explanation. Hope you got the starting point from this and will put your efforts to reach to your required conclusion, take help of existing codeunit, nothing will be better than those to learn how Microsoft themselves implements it.
See you again with some more topics, and if get some extra time will try to add more to this post as a second part to this post. Fact is one post is not sufficient for such a huge topic.
Till then keep exploring and learning and take care of yourself.
Control Add-In in Business Central
Today I will discuss about how we can create control add-in using VS Code & Extensions in Business Central.
We can create a control add-in the same way we created pages or code units. In Visual Studio we can use the code snippet T control add-in to generate a new control add-in.
It will better to create a fresh Extension Project in VS Code for control add in.
Step – 1 : Preparation
Create a New project, and add Folder Structure to arrange your files.
You can find steps in this post : Bare Minimum Steps to Start with fresh Extension Project for Business Central
I will create below Folder:
- ControlAddIn
- Images
- JsScript
- Page
- StyleSheet
Step – 2 : Create Control Add-In
In control add-in folder I’m going to create a new control add-in. So new file.
Use the snippet, T control add-in, to create a control add-in.
Give the name to your control add-in in my example I have used “WeatherControlAddIn”
A control add-in works with JavaScript files that can execute some code. The scripts property is used to reference these JavaScript files. They can be local files or references to external files over http or HTTPS. A very commonly used JavaScript library is jQuery. JQuery makes it a lot easier to write JavaScript code and it reduces the lines of code significantly. In our case any such files will be saved in JsScripts folder under Extension-> Objects Folder as setup above. One file we will create for StartupScript as Start.js.
Now let’s include jQuery. We have to download jQuery from the Internet. So if we open our Web browser and we go to the jQuery website, we can click the download jQuery button over here. But instead of really downloading the jQuery files, we are going to reference them online.
Open the site: https://jquery.com/
Click on Download jQuery v3.3.1 large button as shown above.
Scroll down to find: – Microsoft CDN (Content Delivery Network)
Microsoft also has a CDN for jQuery. We take that one.
Copy the link to the latest one. Add this to our Scripts property in our control add-in.
Use the URL of jQuery file. There’s also a property start-up script which you can use to call a special script that runs when the page where you have implemented your control add-in is loaded. Now let’s add our start.js script over here. So because it’s in the folder script, we have to “Objects/JsScripts/Start.js”. Now, there’s also a recreate and a refresh script. We are not going to use them in this demo project, so remove them. And with the images and the style sheets properties you can specify additional style to the control add-in.
Scripts = ‘https://ajax.aspnetcdn.com/ajax/jQuery/jquery-3.3.1.js’;
StyleSheets = ‘Objects/StyleSheet/StyleSheet.css’;
StartupScript = ‘Objects/JsScripts/Start.js’;
Images = ‘Objects/Images/Weather.jpg” />
I am using dummy image to display on my control add-in, select your image accordingly and place it in Images folder.
We will look into StyleSheet.css and Start.js later in below post.
This is how your WeatherControlAddIn.al should look like.
Step – 3 : Create Style Sheet
I will be adding a CSS file to this with the name StyleSheet.css. In this CSS file I can apply some layout styles to give my control add-in a color or let it choose a certain font and so on and so on. But remember there are some guidelines on which styles to apply. I’m going to set my image to a width 200 pixels. So in CSS, this is image. Width, 200 pixels, and a margin top of 25 pixels. And then I need to reference it in my style sheet properties. This is ‘Objects/StyleSheet/StyleSheet.css’ and of course in the folder StyleSheet.
You can apply your knowledge about stylesheets to decorate your add-in accordingly, for demo purpose I have just set the width and top margin of the image.
Similarly I have downloaded an image from internet related to weather and copied to Images Folder.
Now set the path of both the files in your control add-in as shown above.
Step – 4 : Create CardPart Page
Now, our control add-in will run in a CardPart. So we have to create a page. Let’s create a new file and call this WeatherCardPart.al. This is a page. So T page. Let’s give it an ID and a name. WeatherCardPart. Now the source table will be customer. And the page type is CardPart.
Your Page should look similar to below:
We have added our ControlAddIn on the CardPart.
Next we will pass data from our Navision to the JQuery Script to process, to do so we have added a local procedure GetCustomer, remember above in control add-in we added signature of this procedure. Now it’s time to implement that function.
We have created a JsonObject to store our data and pass to Control Add-In.
This function gets called from OnAfterGetRecord trigger of the Page.
You may be wondering about function call QueryTempOfCity, this is the same function which we used in our earlier post to call API and get temperature of specified city then updated the Headline of the RC Page.
If you missed you can find that post here: Working with Headline Role Center Page and HTTP Call – Business Central
I have copied some functions from that post and changed a little bit and added to this page, it should be like below:
This function will take City as parameter and query from API and return the current temperature of that city. This function is explained in referenced post above.
Step – 5 : Create Page Extension
CardPart runs in a factbox on a page. So let’s create a page extension on the customer card. So new page. Let’s call this customercardextension.al. which extends the customer card. Add a factbox in the factboxes, and this is a part — let’s give it a name. WeatherCardPart. And this is of type WeatherCardPart. When adding a part or a factbox, then need to set the sub page link. So don’t forget to set the sub page link and this is equal to the number equals field number.
It should be similar to above.
Step – 6 : Create jQuery Script
Here comes the most interesting and difficult part as we are not regular Java Script programmer, but thanks to google, who is always there to help.
We will create our Start.js
You can apply your Java Scripts skill to enhance this, let us keep it simple for learning purpose.
We will extract the information send via GetCustomer function in JsonObject and display in our Control Add-In.
You can say controlAddIn here as main outer container.
We have defined 4 sub containers and with unique id to reference further.
Now we add all this 4 sub-containers to the main container controlAddIn.
Get the values from the Navision CardPard GetCustomer function and decode the JsonObject Customer and extract value from it and assign to these 3 containers.
For 4th we have assigned the image path from Extension using special function Microsoft.Dynamics.NAV.GetImageResource
Step – 7 : Deploy and Test the Control Add-In
So now we are done with Creating of Control Add-In, deploy your extension by using command pallet, Publish you Extension.
Open the Customer Card and you should see your Control Add-In in action.
Tested successful. Here we come to the end of our today’s post.
Hope you liked and enjoyed learning the concept in this post.
Will come up with more such interesting concepts in my future posts.
Till then keep exploring and learning. Take Care of yourself.
Fieldgroup in Business Central
In today’s post we will see the usage of Fieldgroup and available options.
Today’s topic is very simple and straight forward.
Field groups are used to determine which columns you have available when you have a table relation to a field.
Another usage of field groups is when we go to a list page in Web Client like the customer list, we have a number of views of the customer list.
We have the normal list view, but there’s also two tiles layouts, the tall tiles and the regular tiles. When I select one of those layouts, I can see the number of the customer, the name, the contact and two decimal values, which are the balance and the balance due.
To have a tiles layout like this, you have to create a field group with the name brick, and then you have to specify all the fields you want to display. You can only have six fields in a tile and an image.
If the last field in your brick layout is media or media set field, in this case a picture for the customer table, then that will be the media set field which is used in the application. So the positions of your fields are very important.
It’s very important that your tables which are used in lists in the phone client and the tablet client, that you define a brick layout, because it’s a way that you can manage how, where and what information needs to be displayed.
Hope you find the information useful, and practice accordingly.
See you again in next post with some new topic, tips & tricks.
Till then keep exploring and learning, take good care of yourself.
Working with Headline Role Center Page and HTTP Call – Business Central
I am again back with my First post of 2019. Hope you all enjoyed New Year Parties.
Wishing you all readers again Happy New Year.
Today we will play around Role Center Headline Page and add our Message to it.
You have below 9 Headline RC Pages.
| 1440 | Headline RC Business Manager |
| 1441 | Headline RC Order Processor |
| 1442 | Headline RC Accountant |
| 1443 | Headline RC Project Manager |
| 1444 | Headline RC Relationship Mgt. |
| 1445 | Headline RC Administrator |
| 1446 | Headline RC Team Member |
| 1447 | Headline RC Prod. Planner |
| 1448 | Headline RC Serv. Dispatcher |
So let’s start with our task.
Step: 1 –
To be able to complete today’s customization you will require an account to any API weather forecast provider. Here I provide you with the free service, not all features are free, but sufficient to complete our task.
Open https://openweathermap.org/ page and register to the service. You will receive an API key upon sign up. This is required when you make an API Web Service call.
Step: 2 –
Open your Extension Project and create one New AL file for Page Extension
We will simply add one field to the Page.
Step: 3 –
This is the main part of this functionality:
We will write a procedure for Querying the current temperature of the city using API call and extract information from the response and add to the Headline.
Response are available in other formats too, but I am using JSON in my example. You can select your format you are comfortable with. You will find all details on the website API section.
Below will be our API call syntax:
‘http://api.openweathermap.org/data/2.5/weather?q=’ + City + ‘&units=metric&APPID=16ea4cf53127aa3baa74d4072381ba62’
To get data in API for current weather in Kelvins do not indicate units parameter into your API call.
To get in Fahrenheit add units=imperial parameter.
To get in Celsius add units=metric parameter.
API Key :- &APPID=16ea4cf53127aa3baa74d4072381ba62 – Compulsory
You will receive JSon response as below:
JSONText Value will be similar to below:
{“coord”:{“lon”:77.41,”lat”:28.67},
“weather”:[{“id”:711,”main”:”Smoke”,”description”:”smoke”,”icon”:”50n”}],
“base”:”stations”,
“main“:{“temp“:292.15,”pressure”:1019,”humidity”:48,”temp_min”:292.15,
“temp_max”:292.15},
“visibility”:1800,
“wind”:{“speed”:1,”deg”:210},
“clouds”:{“all”:0},
“dt”:1546432200,
“sys“:{“type”:1,”id”:9165,”message”:0.004,”country“:”IN”,”sunrise”:1546393411,
“sunset”:1546430725},
“id”:1271308,
“name“:”Ghaziabad”,
“cod”:200}
Below is the 2 functions used to extract the Information from JSon Response:
Step: 4 –
Save and Publish your Extension.
Open Web Client, make sure RC Business Manager profile is selected for your account or whichever Headline RC you have extended for above step.
You will see the Temperature of your selected city, as shown in the beginning of the post.
You can use similar concept to add your customized Headline to your Role Center Page.
See you again in my next post with some other concept, tips & tricks. Till then keep exploring and learning. Take care.
Enabling Multilanguage Support to Extensions – Business Central
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is Multilanguage enabled, which means that you can display the user interface (UI) in different language.
To add a new language to the extension you have built, you must first enable the generation of XLIFF files.
The XLIFF file extension is .xlf.
The support for using the ML properties, such as CaptionML and TooltipML, is being deprecated, so it is recommended to refactor your extension to use the corresponding property, such as Caption or Tooltip, which is being picked up in the .xlf file.
You can use the .xlf translation files approach only for objects from your extension.
It’s an XML-based format used to standardize localization.
Step – 1
To be able to work with translation files, you need to add a Feature to the app.json file.
This Feature is TranslationFile.
Step – 2
When we save our app.json file, we can see immediately that we get some warnings.
This warning is telling us that the Multilanguage syntax is being deprecated and that we have to update to the new syntax.
The new syntax requires us to remove all the ML properties, such as the caption ML and the option caption ML, and we have to use a regular Caption and OptionCaption properties.
We use Labels at place of Text Constants.
Let’s fix these issues. Any ML properties like Caption ML, Option Caption ML or Text Constants. Replace them with Caption and Label.
Before we start some important points:
- The New translation process decouples translation from development.
- New Label syntax – Default translation & Some attributes.
- Translation file can be combined with the extensions to support Multilanguage.
- Caption & CaptionML cannot be used simultaneously.
- Label syntax have comment, locked and maxLength optional parameters.
- Same syntax for Captions and Labels.
Here after fixing the above errors:
All errors resolved from my Project.
In Nutshell use only Caption, OptionCaption & Label, all translation will be done outside developer environment in xlf file, no more defining in objects.
Step – 3
Build your Package, choose AL:Package.
Once your Package is created error free, you will see new Folder Translations with one xlf file is created.
Every time you build your Package this file gets overwritten. So be cautious.
When you perform your translation make a copy of this file and save with new Name then perform your translation.
Means Translation task will be last process in your Extension building process.
If you add more Captions or Labels later then you will have to take care of them and populate in all of your Language translation Files.
No of Languages your extension supports, you will have that much of translation files and is packaged with your package, no separate installation like in older versions is required to enable MultiLanguage.
Step – 4
Let’s see what this xlf file looks like:
It is in xml format.
If you see “<file datatype=”xml”” you will get your Source-language & target-language. Source & Target is set to same Language.
“<trans-unit id” Specifies each of you Caption and Labels defined in you objects.
“<source>” node specifies Caption or Label in source Language.
You will have to add your “<target>” language translation.
Step – 5
Let make copy of this file in all the supported languages you want.
For example:
I have made 2 files en-US & nl-BE. Naming convention is for your understanding purpose only.
Now you can handover these files to translator and he can perform translation in required language outside your development environment.
You code/IP is safe from external agencies whom you give for translation.
Only what is required for this will be:
[1] Update your Target Language in below line as:
<file datatype=”xml” source-language=”en-US” target-language=”en-US” original=”MyFirstExtensionProject”>
To
<file datatype=”xml” source-language=”en-US” target-language=”nl-BE” original=”MyFirstExtensionProject”>
[2] For every
<source>…</source> add <target>…</target>
<source>Loadout Point</source>
<target>Loadout-punt</target>
There are number of tools available on internet which supports xlf file and give ease your work of translation.
Step – 5
Once you are done with your translation, copy all the translated file to the Translation folder and Build your Solution and deploy on Server.
Change the Language of Client to Dutch and run your Object:
I have translated only one caption shown in red-box.
Please read the points mentioned in the post carefully.
Now you can enable MultiLanguage support for your Extensions.
I will come up with some other topic in my future post.
Till then keep exploring and Learning. Take Care of yourself.
ARKSD Consultancy Private Limited 
You must be logged in to post a comment.