Developing for Dynamics GP

A relaxing day before the Microsoft Dynamics GP Technical Conference 2009

2009-11-09T01:00:00Z

Just after I hit the publish button on the previous post about my trip, I received a call that some friends were waiting in the lobby for me. So I finished getting ready and went down to catch up with Mariano Gomez (The Dynamics GP Blogster) and Leslie Vail (The Dynamics Confessor).

I spent the next few hours chatting with Mariano and Leslie while walking around West Acres Mall taking advantage of the good exchange rate and trying to fill the previously mentioned bag. While at the mall, we were joined by Richard Whaley (Accolade Publications). The shopping trip was successful and also a lot of fun catching up with friends.

We organised to meet for dinner with all the GP people we knew were at the Ramada. We were joined by Mark Rockwell (Rockton Software) and Darren Hunt (IBG). Being lazy, we stayed in the hotel at the Basies Restaurant and had a meal with great food and great company.

From left to right: Mariano, Mark, Leslie, Richard, David & Darren

So after a relaxing day acclimatising to Fargo (time zone and weather), I am ready for tomorrow.

David

Getting to the Microsoft Dynamics GP Technical Conference 2009 Part 2

2009-11-08T01:00:00Z

Following on from Getting to the Microsoft Dynamics GP Technical Conference 2009 Part 1.

I have an uneventful four and a bit hour flight from Perth to Sydney, arriving at 13:00 (Sydney time). I then transfer by airport coach from the domestic terminal to the international terminal where I go through passport control and security again. Once through security, you have to wind your way through a huge duty free shop to get into the main part of the terminal. I did go and look at the cameras but resisted the temptation to upgrade... for now. I wonder how many people "impulse buy" because of the way you are forced to walk through the shop.

After a short walk around the various shops, I went up to the Qantas lounge. -- A quick bit of trivia: Qantas is one of the only words in English to have the letter Q not followed by a U. This is because it is not really a word, but an acronym for Queensland And Northern Territory Aerial Services. If you want to know more, look at their website. -- At the lounge, I was told that my seat had been changed to an exit row. While this means lots of legroom (something I don't really need), it also means that you don't have a seat pocket in front of you to put your stuff in. However, it was also a premium economy seat, so I "no complain".

I settled into the lounge for a bit, keeping an eye on my watch, when my phone wakes up to tell me the plane leaves (not boards) in 30 minutes. I realised that I had adjusted my watch by 2 hours for Sydney rather than 3 hours to include daylight saving. I knew there was a reason that Western Australia voted against having daylight saving for the fourth time in a recent referendum. So a short but quick walk down to the gate and I catch the tail end of the boarding. On the plus side, I was able to bypass the additional security check where they literally empty your bag. My backpack weighs about 14kg and has my laptop and netbook in it as well as a heap of gadgets (inc. spare battery, power supplies, etc.). I get aboard and settle in for the 13 hour flight across the Pacific to Los Angeles arriving at about 10:00 (LA time).

In LA, I get both hands finger-printed and a mug shot taken accompanied by a short but pleasant interrogation and then I am allowed into the US. I get my bag and go through customs and give my bag back so it can hopefully make the domestic flights to meet me in Fargo. A "short" walk from Terminal 1 to Terminal 5 gets me to where Northwest operate from. Once inside the terminal, I unsuccessfully, spend a some time looking for a Northwest sign, I could only see Delta. Eventually, I ask an official to find out that Northwest is now part of Delta. So I get my boarding pass from one of the automated touch screen systems and head through security... yet again.

The flight to Minneapolis/St Paul was delayed departing LA because the incoming flight was late. I wonder if the pilots were chatting. I board the flight and have a pleasant 3.5 hour trip talking to a student called Brian who is originally from New York, but studying at Purdue University in Indiana. He had just spent some time at a conference in Beijing in China. We arrive 45 minutes late at 18:35 (MSP time) in the twin cities to have people running to make connections. Brian had about 10 minutes to get to his gate, but they were holding the flight. A brisk walk to my gate which was miles away and I board my flight to Fargo.

As I walk down to my seat, I said hello to Andrew Ingalls (ex Dexterity Guru, now working with Dynamics AX) sitting in the big seats at the front. I plan to say hello again once the seat belt sign goes off, but fell asleep for most of the flight. I think I will catch him again when we disembark but he must not have had checked bags and was gone. Oh well, I will say Hi again in the office.

Anyhow, after 35 minutes in the air, we arrived in Fargo on time at 20:30. I go to pick up my bag and dutifully wait until the luggage carousel is turned off and everyone else has their bag. Somewhere between LA and Fargo, my bag went AWOL. I had a tight connection in Minneapolis, so maybe it did not make it in time. So, I go and have a chat with the guy at the counter and get on the hotel shuttle (thanks for waiting).

I check in to the Ramada at 21:00, have a lovely meal (Fettuccine Alfredo with chicken), write the first half of this blog post and go to bed. ..... I get a phone call at 11:00 on Sunday, my bag is at the airport and by 12:00 we are re-united.

Yippee, I am in Fargo and so is my bag. It only took me 31 hours door to door. It took my bag a little longer.

See you at the conference.

David

Getting to the Microsoft Dynamics GP Technical Conference 2009 Part 1

2009-11-07T01:00:00Z

I always said I would not use the blog to keep a diary. But I am going to make an exception as I keep you up to date with my trip to Fargo, North Dakota, USA for the Microsoft Dynamics GP Technical Conference 2009.

I will skip passed the effort involved to get everything ready for the conference and start with the packing. No, I will not tell you how many pairs of socks I packed. Just about an ongoing philosophical discussion (read argument) that my wife and I have about packing. Jennifer likes to pack a full bag, this stops things moving around and protects the more fragile objects better. So when she helps me pack (which is most times I travel), she always tries to use the smallest bag that will fit what has been selected to take. I like to take a bigger bag, so that when it is time to come home, you don't have to struggle to get your original contents, as well as any purchases you might have made, to fit in the bag. This time I won. ... Well, West Acres Mall is across the road from the Ramada and the Australian Dollar is very strong against the US Dollar at the moment.

Now, comes the trip. I live in Perth, Western Australia. I think this is the furthest capital city away from Fargo that you can find while staying on the planet. It is 14 hours ahead of Fargo (13 hours when DST is active in North Dakota), and is in the southern hemisphere. Most other Australians who come to Fargo live on the East coast (Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, etc.). This means that they don't have far to travel to get to Sydney Airport to fly to the USA (usually Los Angeles). Because I live in Perth, I start with a long flight across Australia to get to Sydney.

So, I get up at 03:00 Saturday morning (Perth time), get ready and wait for the taxi booked at 04:00. I try not to wake the family, but Jennifer comes outside to wait with me. At 04:15, I called the taxi company, to be told that "their systems were down and they were working on it. Call again in 10 minutes if the taxi has not yet arrived.". At 04:25, Jennifer decides to get dressed and wake the kids, she is going to drive me to the airport. I had added a safety margin when booking the taxi, but that was rapidly disappearing. We left home at 04:35 and made the half hour trip to the airport. On the way, I tried a couple of times to speak to the taxi company to tell them to cancel my booking, but gave up waiting on hold. They must have been too busy handling complaints.

At the airport, the queues had built up because lots of people were running late due Perth's biggest taxi company being offline. I was worried that all the good seats would be gone, but my seat allocation selected the night before via on-line check-in had stuck. I did not think it had worked as the on-line system failed on the final step. I get through security with about five minutes to spare before boarding is called.

Finally at 05:45, I am on the way.... to be continued.

David

Blog lunch table topic during GP Technical Conference 2009

2009-11-06T09:00:00Z

I'm sure we would have double the attendees if I'd have gotten around to getting this blog post out earlier. But there is still time to get your Technical Conference 2009 registration done, last minute travel plans booked, and hotel reservations made.

I wanted to let the people on the blog know that there will be various round table discussions on Nov 10 and Nov 11 around the lunch hour. I'm not sure of all the topics - there will be a list I suspect - but one of the round table discussions will be on the Developing for Dynamics GP blog. Yours truly will be the host. Perhaps David Musgrave might stop by as well depending on his schedule - he's a popular guy.

What will we talk about? We can talk about the new building, the nice November weather we are having (beautiful now that is has stopped raining), and maybe squeeze in a few thoughts on the blog. This will allow us to get your thoughts on:

How the blog is doing?
Are the articles relevant?
How does it look visually? Too much stuff on the main page?
What topics should we have more of? Less?
Is this stuff all obvious? Or too complex? Or just right?
Frequency of postings - too much? (Don't say not enough!)
Anything else you care to comment on.

We were not given any kind of indication of location, number of seats, etc so we'll have to see how it all works out when the day comes.

Hope to see you there.

Regards,
Patrick

Don't miss the Microsoft Dynamics GP Technical Conference 2009

2009-11-05T01:00:00Z

I have spent the last month or so working hard with Mariano Gomez on the preparation of materials and demos for the sessions we will be presenting at the Microsoft Dynamics GP Technical Conference 2009.

Time is running out to get registered and organise your transport and accommodation. See the top ten reasons to attend below:

Top Ten Reasons to attend the Microsoft Dynamics GP Technical Conference 2009

Looking forward to seeing you.

David

Automating or Customizing the Report Destination Window

2009-11-04T01:00:00Z

I have seen this issue come up a number of times. Trying to automate processes which involve reports and wanting to automate the Report Destination window. Sometimes you can add the Report Destination to Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) and sometimes the system will not add the window to VBA. This post will explain the reason for this "weird" behavior.

One thing about "weird" behavior when it comes to computers, is that once the explanation has been discovered, it all makes perfect sense and the computer is just being logical.

The primary fact for this issue is that there are actually two different Report Destination windows:

In the Dex.dic. This Report Destination window is part of the runtime engine and is opened when a report is executed without the destination being specified in the Dexterity Run Report code.
In the Dynamics.dic. This Report Destination window is used by developers to ask for report destination information in advance. This information is then passed to the report writer when the developer calls a report, usually after some sort of temporary file processing.

The first Report Destination window from the runtime cannot be customized by VBA or Dexterity. You cannot add it to VBA and you cannot register a Dexterity trigger against it.

The only interactions that are possible with this window are by using the VBA's SendKeys command to control using keyboard key strokes or using pass through Dexterity sanScript.

The Dex.dic can be referenced as dictionary 1 with the execute() function or the unsupported method of calling Dexterity from VBA via the Continuum Integration Library. Please see the materials in the following posts for more information on these methods:

Cross Dictionary Dexterity Development

Microsoft Dynamics GP Technical Airlift 2008

The second Report Destination window which is part of the core Dynamics.dic application dictionary and can be referenced easily by both VBA and Dexterity.

I hope this explains the apparent inconsistent behavior.

David

Asus Eee PC and Microsoft Dynamics GP

2009-11-02T01:00:00Z

So you have now all heard about the fun I have had getting my ASUS Eee PC 1005HA-H netbook working with Windows 7 with the latest and greatest BIOS and drivers. If you missed out on the saga, please have a look at the posts: Asus Eee PC BIOS woes with Windows 7 and Asus Eee PC BIOS joys with Windows 7.

Since, those articles were written, Asus have released another BIOS update build 1102 as well as some updated drivers and utilities, which I have installed with no issues. Windows 7 runs extremely well on the netbook. Especially now that I have also expanded the memory on the machine to the maximum 2Gb supported by the Atom N280 processor.

Just to see how well it would perform, I have installed SQL Server 2008 SP1 along with Microsoft Dynamics GP v10.0 SP4 and Dexterity v10.0 SP4. Everything works and performs well. I did change the SQL Server service to start manually, so it would not have a negative impact on the system when it was not being used.

I don't think it will replace a full notebook or desktop with a large screen as a suitable machine for a developer or consultant (I like having lots of screen real estate and 10" 1024 x 600 is not enough), but it can be useful if you just want to check something while on the move or do a quick demo.

David

Hybrid - Setting a push button to Hyperspace

2009-10-29T23:00:00Z

Trivia question for today:

Given the following sequence of events:

In Microsoft Dynamics GP, in a control field such as Customer Number, the user types in "AARON". The user then presses the associated lookup button.

What happens?

A. Focus moves to the button causing the field change script to run and validates that Customer Number "AARON" exists.
B. Focus remains on the Customer Number field and the lookup window opens.
C. Both.

Answer:

B. Focus remains on the Customer Number field and the lookup window opens.

Your experienced GP user will know that this is a 'feature' of Dynamics as the user can enter the first few characters to seed the lookup. When the lookup opens, the window will start to fill from the entered characters making it easier to find the "AARONFIT0001" customer they were looking for.

Bonus points then to those who know why this works? A hint is that this seems similar to the CausesValidation property in C# for fields.

If you aren't a Dexterity developer, you probably do not know that this is the Hyperspace property. The reason is that the Modifier/VBA developers might not be as familiar with this property is because in Modifier we do not let you change this property. While I can see perhaps that in general this property shouldn't be changed for existing Dynamics GP buttons, it seems to me that it should be customizeable for a button added by Modifier.

Why would you need to change this property? Strictly speaking; it isn't critical that it must be. However if the developer would like to add their own custom field with validation and a lookup to that field, then you need this. Otherwise when you click the lookup button - focus leaves the custom field causing the change script to run. Because potentially only a few characters were entered; validation would fail potentially giving an error message when the user just wanted to use a lookup.

The solution to this is to use a bit of pass through Dexterity via Continuum to change this property.

Dexterity has a function called Field_SetBooleanProperty() which can be used to set quite number of properties. While every property cannot be set with this function, we're OK because we can set the Hyperspace property with it.

In this example, I'm assuming the user modified the Customer Maintenance main window to add a new local field called "MyButton" to be the new "lookup" button that the Hyperspace property needs to be set.

A good spot for this type of code would be before or after the window opens. The code sample below shows how I would code this type of customization using Modifier to add the local button named "MyButton" and the VBA code to change the Hyperspace value to "True".

Code Example

Private Sub Window_BeforeOpen(OpenVisible As Boolean)
    Dim obj As Object
    Dim ret As Integer
    Dim msg As String, code As String
    
    Set obj = GetObject(, "Dynamics.Application")
    'Switch context to Modified Dynamics window
    obj.CurrentProduct = "Micosoft Dynamics GP!Modified"
    code = "Field_SetBooleanProperty('(L) MyButton' of window RM_Customer_Maintenance of form RM_Customer_Maintenance,FIELD_PROP_HYPERSPACE,true);"
    ret = obj.ExecuteSanScript(code, msg)
    If ret > 0 Then
        MsgBox "sanScript error: " + Chr(13) + msg
    End If
    Set obj = Nothing
End Sub

Note: This customization uses a method of executing Dexterity sanScript code from VBA which is unsupported by Microsoft.

Regards,

Patrick

Dynamics GP Developer Support

Asus Eee PC BIOS joys with Windows 7

2009-10-28T00:00:00Z

This post is a (little late) follow up to last week's post where I explained the fun I had with upgrading and then downgrading the BIOS ROM in my ASUS Eee PC 1005HA-H netbook. And this post is a happy one, full of praise for ASUS.

If you have not read the previous post, have a quick read using the link below:

Asus Eee PC BIOS woes with Windows 7

For the days around the Windows 7 launch, I was watching the download page on the ASUSTeK support website for my netbook model. Between the start of October 22^nd (Windows 7 Launch Day) in Asia Pacific and the end of the day in the USA, ASUS updated the downloads available to include all the drivers and utilities needed for Windows 7. So by the end of the Windows 7 launch day, everything needed for true Windows 7 compatibility was available. Well done and thank you.

Now that the Windows 7 drivers and utilities were available, on the 23^rd I decided to try again. This time the drivers should support the latest 0905 BIOS version.

If you upgrade your BIOS first, you will get the same error as last time until you have un-installed the old drivers and installed the new ones:

Missing ASUS ACPI Driver, Please install ASUS ACPI Driver

I did it the other way around, I un-installed the old drivers and installed the new ones. This causes the following error from the Hotkey driver (new ACPI driver), but I was expecting some sort of message:

ASUS ACPI Service: Can't get WMI ASUS Management Object

I then use the AFUDOS tool to upgrade the ROM BIOS to the 0905 build and rebooted and the error no longer appeared. I then finished installing the rest of the drivers and everything works perfectly. Once the drivers and the BIOS match there is no issue.

Interestingly enough, Windows 7 decided that the machine had changed enough that it asked me to re-activate windows. A short automated phone call and all was resolved.

Thanks to the updated BIOS, the Super Hybrid Engine 2.0 driver and better support for Windows 7 power saving functions I now get somewhere between 10 and 13 hours battery life.

Also, as a bonus, the Windows Experience Index has increased from a rating of 2.0 to 2.2. Due to the better graphics performance of the new drivers.

David

Top Ten Reasons to attend the Microsoft Dynamics GP Technical Conference 2009

2009-10-26T00:00:00Z

If you are not already registered to attend the Microsoft Dynamics GP Technical Conference 2009 and you need some help making your decision to come visit Fargo, the center of the Microsoft Dynamics GP world; then the video below will have you clicking on the link above to register in no time.

Say no more... Just click to register.

Hope to see you all there.

David

Trouble with pass through sanScript

2009-10-23T02:00:00Z

Here is another post about an interesting support incident. I kind of like sharing these interesting cases with you in this format, so I think I will try to keep doing that. I hope you enjoy these cases.

This case came in as a problem when running pass through sanScript. The error that was coming back was basically "Syntax error ;". Now, if you have done a lot with pass through sanScript before, especially large blocks of code, it usually takes a few tries to get the syntax to the point where it compiles properly. A missed semi colon or comma is all it takes to produce this message. The message is usually what we have here, "Syntax error ;" or sometimes it shows a comma instead of a semi colon.

I called the developer and this got a little more complicated because what he had was some pass through sanScript and inside of that, he was doing a COM_CreateObject() to access a COM interop .net dll that they also had developed. It's more complicated because we are using COM in Dexterity in pass through sanScript. You can't step through that like you could in straight Dexterity code.

So the first thing that we did was add in a warning statement so we could see the pass through code that was running. We looked through that and it sure looked OK - of course there was a lot of code to look through. We made a couple of minor changes but it still didn't work.

There was a large amount of pass through code so then we started to narrow this down by taking out code in the pass through to see if we can pin point the problem. Well, we got down to the local variables and the COM_CreateObject(). That wouldn't even run. So we basically have one line of code that fails. I checked and rechecked and the syntax was correct.

There are a couple other details that I should mention here. This code is failing on a VPC image, Dexterity is not installed on the VPC, but the dll that they are trying to use and GP and his third party are installed. The developer had previously taken the full pass through code and put it into a plain Dexterity script on his development machine and it did compile fine.

At this point, I had the developer send me the .dll, .tlb and .reg files that he was trying to integrate with and I loaded them on my machine. The I created a quick plain Dexterity script to access the COM object. It worked and compiled fine. Then I took the same code and moved it into pass through sanScript code. Again, it worked and compiled fine. I sent him my exact script, and it wouldn't work for him. Same error, "Syntax error ;". So now I'm baffled, we are about an hour or two into this. Now, it has to be something on the VPC environment, it has to be. The error is pointing to a syntax error - but it can't be.

We then changed the code to use the imports statement instead of the COM_CreateObject. Just to see if that makes any difference. Now the error comes back as "Bad import directive". OK, so the message changed, so that's something. I change my pass through code do use the imports statement and that works fine.

So now, the problem is pointing to the dll. Maybe dexterity can't find the dll on the VPC image, even though it is in the GP directory. So we go to Process Monitor. The VPC did have internet access so we downloaded process monitor and fired it up. We ran the pass through sanScript and then turned it off again. The developer sent me the log file.

In the log, it appears that dexterity can find the dll, but we see a problem in the registry access section. In the log, dexterity is trying to read the following key:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\TypeLib\{GUIDNUMBERHERE}

The GUID number is the GUID for the Class that we are trying to import or create an instance on. There is an error reading the key, it is coming back as "NOT FOUND". I run the Process Monitor on my system that works and it can access that key fine. So this has to be the problem, the dll isn't registered on the VPC image even though it is there.

The developer checks the registry and that key is definitely not there. They register the dll again using regasm, check the registry and now that key is there, and bingo, everything works.

What was throwing me off the whole time was the syntax error that the pass through sanScript was returning. Once we got the bad import directive, then we got pointed more in the right direction. In hindsight I might have done some things differently, but we got it to work in the end.

Best Regards,
Dave Dusek

Windows 7 Releases Today

2009-10-22T00:00:00Z

Windows 7 launches General Availability (GA) today, being 22^nd October. Yes, it is already release day in the Asia Pacific region. If you want information on what is happening, check out:

Windows Team Blog: Windows 7’s Big Day Tomorrow + New Offers Announced!

Microsoft.com: Welcome to Windows 7

And if you are hungry for more Windows 7, try this ...

Enjoy.

David

Asus Eee PC BIOS woes with Windows 7

2009-10-21T00:00:00Z

This issue is not related to Microsoft Dynamics GP, but caused me a lot of frustration and wasted time. I decided to post about it on the blog to hopefully make life easier for anyone else "out there" who has the same problem and is searching for answers. This is a bit of a saga, so bear with me.

Introduction

I have an ASUS Eee PC 1005HA-H netbook (in piano black) and I love it. It is a beautiful looking machine with a 10" screen, long battery life and a reasonable amount of power for running Office applications and browsing the internet, etc. You can check out the overview and specifications on the ASUSTek site.

It came with Windows XP and the first thing I did was to install Windows 7 Ultimate onto it. Windows 7 had drivers for everything except one unknown device. Eventually, Windows 7's Problem Report utility suggested that I download a driver for the ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface). Once this driver was installed the Device Manager had drivers for all the components of the hardware.

However, I noticed that the multi-touch and scrolling functions of the touchpad as well as the keyboard function key controls for volume, etc. were not working. By installing the Windows XP versions of the drivers for the touchpad and audio card as well as the Super Hybrid Engine software I was able to get all the function key controls working.

Note: The Super Hybrid Engine software controls CPU and FSB clock speeds and optimises battery life.

At the time of this initial installation, I also saw that ASUS released a 0703 ROM BIOS upgrade and so I downloaded the ASUS Update windows based tool and the ROM image and upgraded the BIOS. Everything was fine with the machine working perfectly.

Windows 7 runs like a dream on the machine, even with Aero transparency turned on.

The Problem

OK, so "If it ain't broke, don't fix it"..... Nah, I am a nerd and want the latest and greatest. So when I recently saw that there was a couple of new ROM builds 0801 and 0905, I installed the ASUS Update tool again and installed 0905. I had previously updated the BIOS and all was well that time. Newer is always better, isn't it? What could go wrong?

Rebooting the machine, I checked the BIOS version. Everything looked great. Restarted Windows 7, logged in and the following error message appears:

Missing ASUS ACPI Driver, Please install ASUS ACPI Driver

Every time you click OK to dismiss the error, a new window with the same message appears. If you try to re-install the ACPI Driver, it will just roll back and fail. If you remove the driver entirely all the function keys and power control functionality stopped working. Then again, while the error was popping up, all that functionality is broken anyway.

After a bit of research on the font of all knowledge (Bing Search), it seems that the only way to fix the issue is to roll back to the 0703 BIOS. It appears that the 0801 and 0905 builds change something that breaks the ACPI Driver for Windows 7. Windows XP works fine with the new BIOS builds. We are going to need a new ACPI Driver for Windows 7 before we can use the new BIOS builds.

So now I knew what was required to fix the issue, but Murphy's Law was working against me.

The Solution

I already had a copy of the 0703 build of the ROM BIOS, so I tried to use the ASUS Update windows tool to roll back the BIOS. It told me that it would only work on ASUS machines and that it needed the ASUS ACPI Driver installed first. Great... it is because of the failure of that driver that I want to downgrade the BIOS.

Next idea, use the DOS level AFUDOS.EXE tool. I already have USB drives set up to boot into Windows 98 command prompt and Windows Vista PBE (Pre Boot Environment) command prompt. So I use the Windows 98 drive and copy the AFUDOS tool and the ROM image to the drive and reboot. It takes a few goes to get the machine to allow me to select the device to boot from, but I eventually get a Windows 98 command prompt. Relieved, I run the tool ... only to be told that the BIOS I want to install is older and cannot be installed.

After more research and a few downloads, I managed to get a special Engineering Edition of the AFUDOS tool which with a couple of extra command line parameters will allow an earlier build to be installed:

AFUDOS /ixxxx.rom /pbnc /n where xxxx=name.rom

Running this version of the ROM update tool (attached), I was finally able to restore the BIOS to version 0703 and everything is sweet again.

After the panic and stress was over, I tried looking again for information on what had happened and found this blog post:

Windows 7 on my ASUS EEEPC 1005HA and its ACPI Adventure

I wish I had found this earlier as it would have saved me a heap of time.

Oh, well .... we live and learn.

David

23-Oct-2007: ASUSTek have released new Windows 7 drivers which now work with (in fact, require) the 0905 BIOS, see follow-up post: Asus Eee PC BIOS joys with Windows 7

Hybrid Development and Continuum

2009-10-20T00:00:00Z

In the past, I was known for my pioneering work with and promotion of Cross Dictionary Dexterity Development. More recently I have been talking up the benefits of Hybrid Development and Developing Outside of the Box.

With all the tools available to the Microsoft Dynamics GP developer, and each tool having its strengths and weaknesses, it just makes sense to use whichever tool is best for a particular job. Even if that means using multiple tools for the one solution.

As Mariano Gomez and I have been preparing for the two sessions we will be presenting at the Microsoft Dynamics GP Technical Conference 2009 in Fargo on the 9^th-11^th November 2009, we have been working with a variety of tools. Mariano has written a great post that discusses hybrid development and why it is becoming so important. Check out:

Developing Microsoft Dynamics GP hybrid integrating applications

Mariano has just posted a great hybrid solution to showing the total of a transaction in words. Check out his solution using Visual Studio Tools to call the RW_ConvertToWordsAndNumbers() report writer function to get the amount in words. Here is the link:

VST - Amount in Words on SOP Entry window

For other ways to get the most out of the RW_ConvertToWordsAndNumbers() function, see the following posts from this blog:

Hybrid - Cheque Amount in Words Example

RW - Getting RW_ConvertToWordsAndNumbers() to work with multi-currency

RW - Getting RW_ConvertToWordsAndNumbers() to show cents in words

It seems fitting that in the same week, Mohammad Daoud should publish a post showing how the Continuum Integration Library can be used to control the Microsoft Dynamics GP application interface as well as execute pass through sanScript. Check out:

Practical Example on Dynamics Continuum Integration Library: GL Transaction Entry Integration

If you are running this code from VBA, the control of the interface can be handled with native VBA. However, this technique can be used from external VB applications. Even though I would probably then use Visual Studio Tools instead.

Mohammad is also doing his bit for increasing the size of the Microsoft Dynamics GP consultant community with the birth of his son. Congratulations. Here is his post:

Father of my baby boy!.

Note: The use of the Continuum Integration Library to execute Dexterity scripts from VBA is not supported.

David

Windows 7 is almost here

2009-10-19T00:00:00Z

Windows 7's release is just around the corner and there have been some interesting happenings discussed around the blogsphere.

First is that Microsoft and Fox are collaborating together on some Family Guy promotions of Windows 7. Check out the clip below:

There is more Family Guy content on the Fun link on http://www.win741.com/

Also, if you use twitter and need some assistance with Windows 7, why not ask using the new @MicrosoftHelps twitter account.

Enjoy.

David

[Edit] More information at Microsoft PressPass.