Run a Table in NAV

One of the things we developers and consultants miss the most from the “Classic Times” is the ability to run a table to edit the data. Sure we can run a table from the Developement Environment but we are not always working with direct access to the SQL database.

My solution is to have a Page running on the object table (Table2000000001). From the page I can start Pages, Reports, Codeunits and XML Ports directly with a simple line of code, but to start a Table is more complex.

The first solution was to use HYPERLINK on the result from the GETURL function. That works fine in a local environment, but when you have installed multiple Dynamics NAV versions or running Dynamics NAV from a ClickOnce installation things start to break.

To fix this I stop using HYPERLINK and start the Dynamics NAV client with arguments to run a table. First step is to find the current client path. This path can be the usual System Drive path but it can also be a User Application Path if using ClickOnce. The function to locate the client path uses DotNet.

[code] PROCEDURE GetClientPath@1100408003() : Text;
VAR
ClientAssembly@1100408001 : DotNet "’mscorlib, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089′.System.Reflection.Assembly" RUNONCLIENT;
ClientPath@1100408000 : DotNet "’mscorlib, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089′.System.IO.Path" RUNONCLIENT;
BEGIN
ClientAssembly := ClientAssembly.GetExecutingAssembly;
EXIT(ClientPath.GetDirectoryName(ClientAssembly.Location));
END;[/code]

And based on the client Path I look for the ClientConfiguration.config file and start the client with the GETURL results.

[code] LOCAL PROCEDURE ViewRecords@1100408000();
VAR
AddinMgt@1100408000 : Codeunit 10000207;
PathHelper@1100408008 : DotNet "’mscorlib’.System.IO.Path";
ClientFileHelper@1100408007 : DotNet "’mscorlib’.System.IO.File" RUNONCLIENT;
ClientProcess@1100408005 : DotNet "’System, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089′.System.Diagnostics.Process" RUNONCLIENT;
ClientProcessWindowStyle@1100408004 : DotNet "’System, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089′.System.Diagnostics.ProcessWindowStyle" RUNONCLIENT;
ClientProcessStartInfo@1100408003 : DotNet "’System, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089′.System.Diagnostics.ProcessStartInfo" RUNONCLIENT;
StartCommand@1100408002 : Text;
ArgumentList@1100408006 : Text;
ClientPath@1100408001 : Text;
ClientConfigurationPath@1100408009 : Text;
BEGIN
ClientPath := AddinMgt.GetClientPath;
ClientConfigurationPath := PathHelper.Combine(ClientPath,’ClientUserSettings.config’);
IF ClientFileHelper.Exists(ClientConfigurationPath) THEN
ArgumentList := STRSUBSTNO(‘-settings:"%1" ‘,ClientConfigurationPath);
ArgumentList += GETURL(CLIENTTYPE::Windows, COMPANYNAME, OBJECTTYPE::Table, ID);
ClientPath := PathHelper.Combine(ClientPath,’Microsoft.Dynamics.Nav.Client.exe’);
ClientProcessStartInfo := ClientProcessStartInfo.ProcessStartInfo(ClientPath);
ClientProcessStartInfo.Arguments := ArgumentList;
ClientProcessStartInfo.WindowStyle := ClientProcessWindowStyle.Normal;
ClientProcess := ClientProcess.Start(ClientProcessStartInfo);
END;[/code]

To repeat my last comment, just use DotNet 🙂