If you have any experience upgrading Dynamics AX code, we need your help to implement the right feature enhancements for the code upgrade toolset in Microsoft Dynamics AX.
Please spend 3-5 minutes on this short survey. Link to survey.
Your input is much appreciated.
In this ½ hour video Arthur Greef interviews me on the model driven development architecture of Dynamics AX. Small demos are shown during the interview including the powers of IntelliMorph and the layer technology.
http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=235384
Just now I've held my first sample of the Inside Dynamics AX 4.0 book in my own hands. Before the proud owner walked away with it again, I had a chance to photo the beauty!
If you want a copy for yourself, it is now available on Amazon.
If you already own a copy, make sure to review it on Amazon. I'm eager to hear what you think!
This week I'm visiting IDC - Microsoft's India Development Center located in Hyderabad - to conduct training on Dynamics AX development. Sitting on the back seat of a cab zig-zagging through the busy traffic in downtown Hyderabad I can't help thinking back on my very first Axapta (That was the product name back then) presentation. I did this presenation at DTB in London 1999, and it attracted 3 curious people wanting to learn about the intricacies of MorphX and X++. Now, a few years and thousands of miles later, I'm covering more-or-less the same material for a room packed with eager developers in India.
Traveling so far, and meeting with so many talented people, helped me understand something the many success-story memos and status reports couldn't. I'm left humble and deeply touched. Dynamics AX is on an amazing journey. And it is just getting started...
Last week a document on security considerations for Dynamics AX development was published.This 40 page document is a must-read for every X++ developer.
Topics covered:
The document is available here:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=5e050494-1613-4b3a-9363-d69d60c56877&DisplayLang=en
Yurii Rasskazov has written a great blog on his experience setting up VSS with Dynamics AX. Here it is:
http://axaptabuilder.blogspot.com/2006/06/notes-about-my-experience-in-setup-of.html
For more information on the version control system in Dynamics AX see the topics in the Microsoft Dynamics AX SDK under Microsoft Dynamics AX Programming Environment / MorphX Development Tools / Version Control System.
The solution is here!
The developer documentation for Dynamics AX has moved to a continuing publishing model. This means more and more documentation topics will be available as they are written, and not as previously only when a new version is released.
However, despite good intentions, the developer documentation released with Dynamics AX currently primarily contains the boiler-plate: "At the time of publication, no information was available for this topic." This even happens for topics that were documented in previous versions.
The documentation teams at Microsoft have work hard on verifying, proof reading and moving topics into the Html help. Only topics they have signed off are available in the Dynamics AX 4.0 RTM.
If you, like me, prefer less-accurate information to no-information, the solution is here.
Attached is an xpo-file, that when imported, will tweak the help system's behavior: If a help topic actually is available in the Html Help it will be displayed, just like the normal behavior. However, if a topic in Html Help just contains the boiler-plate message, then the legacy help system will take over, and display the topic from the legacy system.
This provides three benefits:
The downsides are:
[Update: The attached solution now also supports the 4.0 SP1 help][Update2: The attached solution now also supports incorrectly mapped topics ]
This post is provided "AS-IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
In version 3.0 the class TextBuffer had two methods: Encrypt and Decrypt. For version 4.0 the Encrypt method has been removed, and the Decrypt method renamed to DecryptOld.
The change happened for security reasons.
If you require to encrypt and decrypt strings in Dynamics AX 4.0, you can use the functionality provided in the .Net System.Security.Cryptography namespace.
By doing so, you should be aware of the dangers, including:
To help you get going, I've created an X++ Cryptography class. It uses the implementation of the encryption algorithm Rijndael from .Net. The class is attached to this thread.
Here is an example on how to use it:
static void main(Args _args){ Dialog dialog = new Dialog("Cryptography Demo"); DialogField dfText = dialog.addField(typeid(description), "Text to encrypt"); DialogField dfKey = dialog.addField(typeid(description), "Key to encrypt with"); str encryptedString; str decryptedString; if (dialog.run()) { encryptedString = Cryptography::Encrypt(dfText.value(), dfKey.value()); decryptedString = Cryptography::Decrypt(encryptedString, dfKey.value()); info(strfmt("Encrypted string: %1", encryptedString)); info(strfmt("Decrypted string: %1", decryptedString)); }}
A big thank you to Ivan Medvedev for providing the C# implementation that I rewrote to X++. You can find the original article here - including more security considerations: http://www.dotnetthis.com/Articles/Crypto.htm
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
Yesterday I was interviewed by Harish Mohanbabu on the upcoming development book on Dynamics AX.
Today the interview was published at: http://www.harishm.com/Navision/Ax4book.html
Today we reached the RTM milestone for Dynamics AX 4.0. This has been a highly anticipated milestone both for partners and customers and Microsoft team members working on the product. Making this happen is truly a great achievement!
For me, it has been a long and challenging journey, which just makes reaching the destination so much nicer. I'm proud to say, that I worked with the best people in the industry!
I hope everyone using this product will appreciate all the hard work put into this product by talented people all over the globe.
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