AL Runner README

AL Runner allows you to compile and publish your application and run a NAV / BC AL page object using Alt+P for the object in the current selection or Shift+Alt+P for the first object in the file. It also allows you to just run (no compile and publish) a NAV / BC AL page or report object using Alt+R like in good old (actually bad old) C/SIDE for the object in the current selection or Shift+Alt+R for the first object in the file. The second part of AL Runner allows you to parse a JSON object and generate AL objects from it (leaning heavily on AJ Kauffmann's Github repo, thanks for that!) The third part of AL Runner gives you a quick and easy way to get started with the NAV / BC Connect API (see commands "ALRunner: Go API on Azure!" and "ALRunner: Generate an API client for Business Central") The fourth part helps you to generate a valid xlf file (see command "ALRunner: Convert generated xlf to real one")

Features

Provides a couple commands:

• "ALRunner: Run selection" or Alt+R which runs the object in the currently selected line, if that is a page or report object
• "ALRunner: Run object on first line" or Shift+Alt+R which runs the object on the first line of the current file, if that is a page or report object
• "ALRunner: Publish and run selection" or Alt+P which publishes your extension and runs the object in the currently selected line, if that is a page object. Note: This changes your launch config
• "ALRunner: Publish and run object on first line" or Shift+Alt+P which publishes your extension and runs the object on the first line of the current file, if that is a page object. Note: This changes your launch config
• "ALRunner: Generate objects by parsing a JSON object from a URL" asks you for a URL, which should return a JSON file (authentication currently not supported) and then for the name of the entity represented by that JSON file. It then generates a table structured like the JSON file, a page showing that table and a codeunit with a function to refresh that data
• "ALRunner: Generate objects by parsing a JSON object in the current selection" does the same as the previous command but uses the currently selected text as data for parsing. This als asks you for a URL, which is only used for generating the AL code do download data and then for the name of the entity represented by that JSON file. With this command you code download a JSON object using authentication and then put the result into VS Code, select the relevant part and let generation run. For nested objects you could do the same but would need to handle linking parent and child objects
• "ALRunner: Convert generated xlf to real one" takes a generated projectname.g.xlf file and copies the source tags into target tags so that the file becomes a valid xlf file. Keep in mind that this is really only the starting point for translating your extension
• "ALRunner: Go API on Azure!" asks you to log in to your Azure account and select the subscription and resource group you want to use. It then uses an ARM template to create a Azure Container Instance for Business Central with enabled Connect API and generates a sample client for it
• "ALRunner: Generate an API client for Business Central" does the last part of "Go API on Azure!", i.e. it generates a sample client after asking for URL, username and password
• "ALRunner: Export diagnostics" exports all diagnostic information (errors and warnings) from all extensions to a CSV file called diagnostics.csv for analysis using e.g. Excel. An existing file will be overwritten

Requirements

• You need to have the Microsoft AL Extension up and running (easiest way to get to that point is here)
• It depends on the REST Client Extension by Huachao Mao
• opn ^4.0.2
• request ^2.83.0
• download-file ^0.1.5
• azure-arm-resource ^3.1.0-preview
• ms-rest ^2.3.0
• ms-rest-azure ^2.5.0
• copy-paste ^1.3.0

Known Issues

• Only supports page objects for "publish and run" as the AL Extension launch config also only allows to set those object types as startup objects
• Only supports page and report objects for "run" as the NAV / BC Web Client also only allows to run those object types directly
• Only works for the first configuration in your launch config
• Generating objects for JSON doesn't support authorization and ignores nested structures. You might use the "parse current selection" feature to work around those limitations

Future ideas

• Run the current object even if the selection is somewhere down the object
• Run an arbitrary object
• Find out which base page object a pageextension changes and run that
• Allow to configure if full, tablet or phone Web Client is run
• Support authorization and nested structures in JSON

Release Notes

Notes for the released versions

3.3.1

Use | as CSV separator instead of ; for fewer clashes with error message texts

3.3.0

Add action to export diagnostic information to CSV file

3.2.1

Fix a bug where the sample API client wasn't generated when the database had no default company

3.2.0

• Use letsencrypt certs when creating an ACI
• Add posting of journal lines through a bound action to the sample API client
• Allow generating a sample API client against an arbitrary backend without creating an ACI as first step

3.1.1

Fix bug where only the first source element was considered. Thanks to Luc van Vugt for bringing it up!

3.1.0

Add xlf conversion

3.0.0

Add the ability to create a running Azure Container Instace for Business Central with enabled Connect API and generate a sample client

2.4.1

Add double quotes around field names

2.4.0

Add support for parsing the current selection additionally to downloading it

2.3.0

Slight problems with vsce...

2.0.1

Fix missing dependency for request

2.0.0

Add support for JSON parsing and AL code generation (thanks a lot to AJ Kauffmann for the AL base code!)

1.1.1

Documentation fixes

1.1.0

Add the ability not only to publish and run but also to directly run. This also adds the ability to run Reports

1.0.2

Documentation fixes

1.0.1

Add functionality to run a page or pageextension object in the first line of the current file ("ALRunner: Run object in first line", Shift+Alt+R).

1.0.0

Initial release