AX Label files

                                                          Label Files 

The term label in Dynamics AX refers to a localizable text resource, used throughout the product as messages to the user, form control labels, column headers,Help text in the status bar, captions on forms, and text on Web forms, to name just a few places. Labels are localizable, meaning that they can be translated into most languages

All text resources are kept in a Unicode-based label file that must have a three-letter identifier. The label file is located in the application folder (Program Files\Microsoft Dynamics AX\50\Application\Appl\Standard) and follows this naming convention:

                                    Ax.ALD

The following are two examples, the first showing U.S. English and the second a Danish label file:

Axsysen-us.ALD

Axtstda.ALD

Each text resource in the label file has a 32-bit integer label ID, label text, and an optional label description. The structure of the label file is very simple:

@<Label file identifier>

[Label description]

Below figure shows Label file opened in Microsoft Notepad showing a few labels from the en-us label file

                

             This simple structure allows for localization outside Dynamics AX using third-party tools.

After the localized label files are in place, the user can choose a language in the Options dialog box. When the language is changed, the user must close and restart the Dynamics AX client.

           You can create new label files by using the Label File Wizard, which you access from the Microsoft Dynamics AX drop-down menu by clicking Tools\Development Tools\Wizards\Label File Wizard. The wizard guides you through the steps for adding a new label file or a new language to an existing label file. After you run the wizard, the label file is ready to use.

Note

You can use any combination of three letters when naming a label file, and you can use any label file from any layer. A common misunderstanding is that the label file identifier must be the same as the layer in which it is used. This misunderstanding is caused by the Microsoft label file identifiers. Dynamics AX ships with a SYS layer and a label file named SYS; service packs contain a SYP layer and a label file named SYP. This naming standard was chosen because it is simple, easy to remember, and easy to understand. Dynamics AX doesn’t impose any limitations on the label file name.

The following are tips for working with label files:

• When naming a label file, choose a three-letter ID that has a high chance of being unique, such as your company’s initials. Don’t choose the name of the layer, such as VAR or USR. Eventually, you’ll likely merge two separately developed features into the same installation, a task that will be more difficult if the label files collide.
• Feel free to reference labels in the Microsoft-provided label files, but avoid making changes to labels in these label files, because they are updated with each new version of Dynamics AX.

Creating a New Label

You use the Label Editor to create new labels. You can start it using any of the following procedures:

• Clicking Tools\Development Tools\Label\Label Editor from the Microsoft Dynamics AX drop-down menu
  
• Clicking the Lookup Label/Text button on the X++ code editor toolbar
  
• Clicking the Lookup button on text properties in the property sheet
  

The Label Editor (shown in Figure L) allows you to find existing labels. Reusing a label is often preferable to creating a new one. You can create a new label by pressing Ctrl+N or by clicking the New button.

Figure L. Label Editor

In addition to allowing you to find and create new labels, the Label Editor can also show where a label is used. It also logs any changes to each label. 

The following are tips to consider when creating and reusing labels:

• When reusing a label, make sure that the label meaning is what you intend it to be in all languages. Some words are homonyms, meaning words that have many meanings, and they naturally translate into many different words in other languages. For example, the English word can is both a verb and a noun. The description column describes the intended meaning of the label.
• When creating new labels, make sure to use complete sentences or other stand-alone words or phrases in each label. Don’t construct complete sentences by concatenating labels with one or few words, because the order of words in a sentence differs from one language to another.

Referencing Labels from X++

           In the MorphX design environment, labels are referenced in the format @<LabelFileIdentifier> <LabelID>. If you don’t want a label reference to automatically convert to the label text, you can use the literalStrfunction. When a placeholder is needed to display the value of a variable, you can use the strFmt function and a string containing %n, where n> = 1. Placeholders can also be used within labels. The following code shows a few examples.

   

// prints: Time transactions print "@SYS1"; // prints: @SYS1 print literalStr("@SYS1"); // prints: Microsoft Dynamics is a Microsoft brand print strFmt("%1 is a %2 brand", "Microsoft Dynamics", "Microsoft");

The following are some best practices to consider when referencing labels from X++:

• You should always create user interface text by using a label. When referencing labels from X++ code, use double quotation marks.
• You should never create system text such as file names by using a label. When referencing system text from X++ code, use single quotation marks. You can place system text in macros to make it reusable.

Using single and double quotation marks to differentiate between system text and user interface text allows the Best Practices tool to find and report any hard-coded user interface text. 

The MorphX Tools - Debugger

                                                                                      Debugger

        The debugger is a stand-alone application, not part of the Dynamics AX shell like the rest of the tools . As a stand-alone application, the debugger allows you to debug X++ in any of the Dynamics AX components in the following list:

Microsoft Dynamics AX client :

        Click the Microsoft Dynamics AX drop-down menu, point to Tools and then Options. On the Development tab, select When Breakpoint in the Debug Mode list.

Application Object Server (AOS) :

         Open the Microsoft Dynamics AX Server Configuration utility under Start\Administrative Tools. Create a new configuration (if necessary), and select the check box labeled Enable Breakpoints To Debug X++ Code Running On This Server. 

        For Batch jobs, open the Microsoft Dynamics AX Server Configuration utility under Start\Administrative Tools. Create a new configuration (if necessary), and select the check box labeled Enable Global Breakpoints To Debug X++ Code Running In Batch Jobs.

Enterprise Portal and Business Connector:

        Open the Microsoft Dynamics AX Configuration utility under Start\Administrative Tools. Select one of two check boxes on the Developer tab: Enable User Breakpoints For Debugging Code Running In The Business Connector or Enable Global Breakpoints For Debugging Code Running In The Business Connector Or Client. The latter is useful for debugging incoming Web requests.

Note : Do not enable any of the debugging capabilities in a live environment. If we do, execution will stop when it hits a breakpoint, and users will experience a hanging client.

By pressing F9 we can set or remove " Breakpoint ".

You can enable or disable a breakpoint by pressing Ctrl+F9. For a list of all breakpoints, press Shift+F9.

                                                           Debugger Interface

        The main window in the debugger initially shows the point in the code where a breakpoint was hit. We can control execution one step at a time while variables and other aspects are inspected. Figure 1 shows the debugger opened to a breakpoint with all the windows enabled.

Figure 1. Debugger with all windows enabled

        In the following subsections, we briefly describe the debugger’s various windows and some of its other features.

Main Window :

       The main debugger window shows the current X++ code. Each variable has a ScreenTip that reveals its value. You can drag the next-statement pointer in the left margin. This pointer is particularly useful if the execution path isn’t what you expected or if you want to repeat a step.

Variables Window :

        In this window, local, global, and member variables are shown. Local variables are variables in scope at the current execution point. Global variables are the global classes that are always instantiated: Appl,Infolog, ClassFactory, and VersionControl. Member variables make sense only on classes, and they show the class member variables.

     The Variables window shows the name, value, and type of each variable. If a variable is changed during execution stepping, it is marked in red. Each variable is shown associated with a client or server icon. You can modify the value of a variable by double-clicking the value.

Tip :  As a developer, we might want to provide more information in the value field than what is provided by default. For a class, the defaults are New and Null. You can change the defaults by overriding the toString method. If your class doesn’t explicitly extend object (the base class of all classes), you must add a new method named toString, returning str and taking no parameters, to implement this functionality.

Call Stack Window :

      

       The Call Stack window shows the code path followed to arrive at a particular execution point. Clicking a line in the Call Stack window opens the code in the Code window and updates the local Variables window. A client or server icon indicates the tier on which the code is executed.

Watch Window :

     In the Watch window, you can inspect variables without the scope limitations of the Variables window. You can drag a variable here from the Code window or the Variables window.

    The Watch window shows the name, value, and type of the variables. Five different Watch windows are available. You can use these to group the variables you’re watching in the way that you prefer.

Breakpoints Window :

      The Breakpoints window lists all your breakpoints. You can delete, enable, and disable the breakpoints via this window.

Output Window :

       The Output window shows the traces that are enabled and the output sent to the Infolog application framework. The Output window includes the following pages:

• Debug You can instrument your X++ code to trace to this page by using the printDebug static method on the Debug class.
• Infolog This page contains messages in the queue for the Infolog.
• Database, Client/Server, and ActiveX Trace Any traces enabled on the Development tab in the Options dialog box appear on these pages.

Status Bar :

        The status bar at the bottom of the debugger offers the following important context information:

• Current user The ID of the user who is logged on to the system. This information is especially useful when you are debugging incoming Web requests.
• Current session The ID of the session on the AOS.
• Current company accounts The ID of the current company accounts.
• Transaction level The current transaction level. When reaching zero, the transaction is committed.

Debugger Shortcut Keys

Table lists the most important shortcut keys available in the debugger.

 Debugger Shortcut Keys

Action	Shortcut	Description
Run	F5	Continue execution
Stop debugging	Shift+F5	Break execution
Step over	F10	Step over next statement
Run to cursor	Ctrl+F10	Continue execution but break at the cursor’s position
Step into	F11	Step into next statement
Step out	Shift+F11	Step out of method
Toggle breakpoint	Shift+F9	Insert or remove breakpoint
Variables window	Ctrl+Alt+V	Open or close Variables window
Call Stack window	Ctrl+Alt+C	Open or close Call Stack window
Watch window	Ctrl+Alt+W	Open or close Watch window
Breakpoints window	Ctrl+Alt+B	Open or close Breakpoints window
Output window	Ctrl+Alt+O	Open or close Output window

Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 : The MorphX Development Tools

                   Dynamics AX includes a set of tools, the MorphX development tools, those allow developers to build and modify Dynamics AX business applications.The MorphX tools enable developers to create, view, modify, and delete the application model elements, which contain metadata, structure (ordering and hierarchies of elements), properties (key and value pairs), and X++ code.

                    For example, a table element includes the name of the table, the properties set for the table, the fields, the indices, the relations, the methods, and so on.

To enable the development mode of Dynamics AX 2009, press Ctrl+Shift+D. Ctrl+Shift+D is a toggle key that also returns you to content mode.

Below Table lists the MorphX tools.

Table . MorphX Tools

Tool	Use This Tool To:
Application Object Tree (AOT)	Start development activities. The AOT is the main entry point for all development activities. It is the repository for all elements that together comprise the business application. You can use the AOT to invoke the other tools and to browse and create elements.
Project Designer	Group related elements into projects.
Property sheet	Inspect and modify properties of elements. The property sheet shows key and value pairs.
X++ Code Editor	Inspect and write X++ source code.
Label Editor	Create and inspect localizable strings.
Visual Form Designer and the Visual Report Designer	Design forms and reports in a What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) fashion.
Compiler	Compile X++ code into an executable format.
Best Practices tool	Automatically detect defects in both your code and your elements.
Debugger	Find bugs in your X++ code.
Reverse Engineering tool	Generate Microsoft Office Visio Unified Modeling Language (UML) and Entity Relationship Diagrams (ERDs) from elements.
Table Browser tool	View the contents of a table directly from the table element.
Find tool	Search for code or metadata patterns in the AOT.
Compare tool	See a line-by-line comparison of two versions of the same element.
Cross-reference tool	Determine where an element is used.
Version Control tool	Track all changes to elements and see a full revision log.
Unit Test tool	Build automated tests that can exercise your code and detect regressions.

You can access these development tools from the following places:

• The Development Tools submenu on the Tools menu. From the Microsoft Dynamics AX drop-down menu, point to Tools, and then point to Development Tools.
  
  
  You can personalize the behavior of many MorphX tools by clicking Options on the Tools menu. Figure shows the Options dialog box.

  Figure : Options dialog box, in which development options are specified

  

  
  
• The context menu on elements in the AOT.
  
  
  The AOT is the main entry point to MorphX and is the repository explorer for all metadata. You can open the AOT by clicking the AOT icon on the toolbar or by pressing Ctrl+D. The AOT icon looks like this: