Just use DotNet

Day by day I am moving closer to DotNet programming in Dynamics NAV. More and more of the things I like to do are more easily solved with DotNet than with native C/AL code.

In most cases I can use the standard DotNet types but in some cases I need to build a small DotNet Class to solve the problem.

An example of this landed on my desk yesterday. A colleague of mine needed to be able to print text to the local label printer. Perhaps this can be solved with a simple report but in this case something more was needed. I asked the Internet – how do I print a text file with c# code. Got some answers and selected the one I liked the most.

Normally I rewrite the c# code with DotNet objects in C/AL but in this case I could not. The reason was that I needed the DotNet objects to be executed on the client side, and using DotNet to print requires an event handler. DotNet events are not supported on the client side so I needed to create a class.

I create a c# Class Project in Visual Studio and can use the code I found with only a few modifications.

[code lang=”csharp”] public class NAVTextFilePrinter
{
public void PrintText(string printerName, string fontName, float fontSize, string[] linesToPrint)
{
Font printFont = new Font(fontName, fontSize);
PrintDocument docToPrint = new PrintDocument();
docToPrint.DocumentName = "NAV Text File";
docToPrint.PrinterSettings.PrinterName = printerName;
docToPrint.PrintPage += (s, ev) =>
{
int count = 0;
float yPos = 0;
float leftMargin = ev.MarginBounds.Left;
float topMargin = ev.MarginBounds.Top;

foreach (string line in linesToPrint)
{
yPos = topMargin + (count * printFont.GetHeight(ev.Graphics));
ev.Graphics.DrawString(line, printFont, Brushes.Black, leftMargin, yPos, new StringFormat());
count++;
}
ev.HasMorePages = false;
};
docToPrint.Print();
}
}
[/code]

The class is compiled with DotNet 4.5 and added to the Client Add-ins folder. If you are using NAV version 2015 or newer just add it to the Server Add-ins folder.

Using this in NAV is easy

Microsoft.Dynamics.Nav.Client.TextFilePrinter can be downloaded from here.

I like to use DotNet when I am handling text – in general. The DotNet object System.String has a lot of functions that can be useful. Just use

String := String.Copy(NAVString);

and your NAV String can now be handled with all the functionality available with DotNet.  Good example is the Renumbering Tool I created a few months ago.

Another example here – where I need to create all the directory tree leading to the file I need to copy.

One of my favorite is the Global Variable Store Codeunit, where I use the DotNet Dictionary to store variables globally. This can be used to minimize the footprint of your code changes. For example, if you need to pass a new variable to a function and you don’t want to change the function – just store the variable before you call the function and retrieve it inside the function. It is even possible to pass a whole record this way.

Downloadable Global Variable Store Codeunit