Development environment in AX 2012

It wasn't easy to decide from what to start. There are so many new features and they are so important and interesting! However, there is one feature that every AX 2012 developer will use for sure.

In AX 2012 the new development environment was introduced (click on the picture to enlarge).

Now IDE is separated from the application. That means more space because of missing navigation pane, no interfering content pane that can be removed only using some tricks and the development-specific main menu.

You can also notice the beautiful visual studio-like code editor and compiler output window.

Development tools are now much more accessible. Version control parameters, for example, do not require navigating 3-levels deep menu.

Development workspace can be started by typing
ax32 - development
from command line, or by
Ctrl+Shift+W
combination from the application or another development workspace.

An easy way to find an exact label

If you need to find the label "Item" you will probably find out that it's not so easy from the Label Editor, since all the labels that contain word "item" will be found. For example, "According to item group". And thousands of others. To find an exact label quickly just open the code editor, write the desired label, select it and press Ctrl+Alt+Space.

Hiding content pane in AX 2009

A small trick can be done to hide content pane in AX 2009. Any list page should be opened and then content page can be hidden by pressing Ctrl-Q.

Selecting vertical text blocks

To select vertical text block in X++ code editor press Alt+O and then start selecting as usual using keyboard or mouse. Vertical text block will be selected. Vertical text block can be copied, pasted, cut and deleted.

Navigating methods in X++ code editor

To move to the next\previous method in X++ code editor use Ctrl+Tab and Ctrl+Shift+Tab correspondingly.