63
A

"Go to definition" more than once when you are in the base App

Andreas Glöckner on 9/26/2019 9:05:36 AM
When we are using "Go to definition" it works fine as long as I am moving in my own objects. When I use "go to definition" on a "Base App" or "System App" object, a .dal-file is opened, which is fine in the first place, but in many cases I want to navigate through other objects of the Base/System App to explore the way how a feature is implemented. However, I can't jump into the next object, because "no definition found [...]"...

Just to clarify what I mean:
1. Creating an .al object and an instance of my customer record
2. Press Go to definition
3. Want to Analyze the procedure "GetTotalSales"
4. The Problem: I would like to analyze the called procedure "CalcAmountsOnPostedInvoices" (in GetTotalSales) of "CustomerMgt". I try "go to definition", but "no defition found [...]".

What I need to do now? I need to create another instance of my CustomerMgmt in my file (step one) and press go to definition again. That's not practical!
The VSCode extension "Al Object Designer" helps a bit, but the same problem here. You only can enter the first object.

Please let us move to more than one object.
Category: Development
STATUS DETAILS
Completed
Ideas Administrator

Business Central Team (administrator)

Thank you for your valuable feedback. We have decided to deliver this idea and make it available with Business Central 2020 Wave 2, as well as Business Central 2020 Wave 1 CU2

Up until now Go-to-Definition (F12) has relied on retrieving sources from server, and to support multiple configurations, we added  a defaultLaunchConfigurationName setting to indicate which connection to use. This caused unwanted side-effects, so we have restructured F12 to rely on local dependency applications for resolving the source of a reference symbol for apps with runtime versions >= 5.2 (2020 Wave 1 CU2).

This implies that DAL file symbol source navigation support multiple steps/depth as long as symbols are present. There is no support for going a step back again though, i.e., Alt+Arrow Left will go back to starting point. Also, note that F12 will use local symbols which might not reflect server versions - this is relevant when using F12 to navigate into, e.g., a referenced extension to set breakpoints.

For versions <= 5.2 Go to Definition will work as before defaultLaunchConfigurationName, i.e., no source file for reference symbols on a Go to Definition if more then one debug configuration is defined.

Your help was greatly appreciated,  
Peter Borring
PM, Microsoft