Basics of Development in Microsoft Dynamics AX 7

We have heard many things about much awaited Microsoft Dynamics AX Product which is AX7. While AX7 still packs the punch of its previous versions, there are some new interesting things about AX7 Development that you should know.

Now in AX7 we don’t have MorphX/AX Development workspace anymore. Instead, for AX development Microsoft has now given us Visual Studio.

AX7 is based on few terminologies, which are as under:

• Element: Element is any Object residing in AOT. E.g. Base Enumeration, EDT, Table etc.
• Model: A Model is a group of elements, which we have in previous versions also.
• Packages: A package is deployable unit, which may have multiple Models.
• Project: Projects are the logical containers for everything that’s needed to build your application.

With arrival of AX7, now we can perform development in AX using two methodologies:

Overlaying

Overlaying means if you customize any element in upper layer, it will override its definition, in lower layer. This is what we were doing till AX2012 to customize AX. It basically allows customization of metadata and source code in a higher layer.

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Extension

It refers to the concept of extending existing elements, without overriding those present in other layers. That means, elements will not be customized, instead elements will be extended. By creating extension elements, all of the customizations and code are stored in a separate assembly. It only contains the code that was added or changed in the extension file.

Before working in Visual Studio we need to do few settings which will make the development experience with AX a little smoother.

Step 1:- Go to AX 7 Options
Step 2:- Set Projects Options
Step 3:- Set Text Editor Options
Step 4:- Set Best Practice Options

Hope this helps make your experience of MS dynamics AX7 more rewarding. Learning the Development Basics of Microsoft Dynamics AX7 from Koenig will introduce you to many more possibilities and a whole new world of opportunities you never thought existed.

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