Axapta programming blog: practical HOWTOs

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

How to make Dynamics AX interface more user friendly with Tabax?

Does it sound familiar for you when you work with Axapta you get heaped with different windows after some time? Maksim Belugin has developed a great tool called Tabax to help organize all your opened windows into tabs, quickly change their positions and so on. Tool and more information about it can be found on the front page of www.axaptapedia.com.

I have just started to use this tool and I think its really great and can make life much easier for Axapta developers. Tabax designed for Axapta 3.0 and, as author says, tested with Axapta 3.0 SP4. I have tried to use it with Axapta 4.0 and found that with just a few small modifications you can run it on Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0 as well.

Here they are, my changes to Tabax version 0.2.4 to make it work with Dynamics AX 4.0:


1. Open method Pathes and comment out this string:
//["\\Data Dictionary\\Feature Keys\\", #imageFeatureKey],

since there are no any feature keys in Axapta 4.0. Also add one more string
["\\Data Dictionary\\Perspectives\\", #imagePerspective], // added

2.Open unpack method and modify it like it shown here:

if((conlen(packedMenuUsageStatistics) > 4)) { // added

menuUsageStatistics=Map::create(packedMenuUsageStatistics);

if(!menuUsageStatistics)

menuUsageStatistics=new Map(Types::String, Types::Container);

} // added



I haven't got enough time to test it with Axapta 4.0, so it might have more issues, but at least it works with these modifications in place. Hopefully Maksim will make a full test of it with Dynamics AX 4.0 and present us with a new version of his great tool in the nearest future.

How to learn Axapta programming: “MorphXIT: an introduction to Axapta and the MorphX Development Suit”

I have recently read the book "MorphXIT: an introduction to Axapta and the MorphX Development Suit". It is very well written and put together book. Easy to read and understand even for not native speakers like me. Author is very experienced Axapta developer in a friendly style sharing his knowledgege in Axapta programming. Always straight to the point highlighting key things of every aspect.
I am very much excited about this book, and found there many tips and tricks I didn't know before. So, even though this book mostly dedicated to Axapta newbies, I think it will be interested and helpful for experienced developers as well. Ideally, in my opinion, will be right for people who already have some small experience with Axapta, something like 3-6 months for example.
You can find more information about it here: www.steenandreasen.com