Episode 2 – BC-Fall Release Wave II | Checking Your Extension

Before we dive into the list of (breaking) changes that I’ve discovered so far, I will first explain how to check your extension against the preview of the fall release.

This is mostly interesting for those who are on AppSource or partners who have refactored their IP into On Prem extensions. I’m going to assume all of them have access to the Ready to Go program. If not, send me a message and I’ll help you onboard.

In another episode we’ll dive deeper into making your own Base App run on System.

So assuming you have a running service tier (on Docker or via de DVD on your machine) we need to make a few changes to the App.Json.

NOTE: You first need a new VSIX compiler. Download this from the Docker or DVD.

Plaform & Application

The Platform version needs to be changed to 15. The application needs to be removed. There is no more application.json file with symbols.

Now the dependencies need to be set. There are (most often) two apps needed here

BaseApp

Not really a “Marketing Friendly” name for the whole old Navision solution converted to AL code, but that’s it actually.

GUID =  437dbf0e-84ff-417a-965d-ed2bb9650972

Version =  "15.0.0.0"

Essentially you’ll get the same information as in previous versions with the app.json file generated by the finsql.exe but the .app file contains source code. I’ll get back to that in next episodes.

System Application

No consistency here. You would expect it to be called SystemApp, or BaseApp to be called Base Application. 😉

This is not to be confused with the platform .app file you’ll still get too. This still contains the 2 billion system objects that just are magically there (I think still maintained by finsql.exe when generating the database)

The new System Application is actually what you can find here on GitHub. But this seems not to contain source code. Again, more in a next episode.

Some examples of application parts that are moved to System Application are

• TempBlob
• Language
• Tenant and Azure AD management
• DotNET stuff
• Etc.

GUID =  63ca2fa4-4f03-4f2b-a480-172fef340d3f

Version =  1.0.0.0

Your app.json file will now look something like this

Delete Old Symbols

It’s always a good idea to remove old symbol files before moving on. The compiler always looks at the latest version but here it might get confused because of all the moving parts.

Download new Symbols

Now just get the new symbols and your window will look something like this and starts showing you the warnings and errors.

Please note this is the result after some cleaning up. I’m not finished. I’ll write more about TempBlob and other refactoring challenges later.

See you in the next episode.