NAV2013 Glance 11: LookupFormID, DrillDownFormID, RunFormLink, RunFormView, RunFormLink, SubFormView, SubFormLink, CardFormID

So what do all these properties have in common in the NAV 2013 context?

• LookupFormID
• DrillDownFormID
• RunFormLink
• RunFormView
• RunFormLink
• SubFormView
• SubFormLink
• CardFormID

Well … you might have seen or guessed. They no longer exist now that we fully move to pages. With this move all form related matters have been cleared out and are now replaced by page. So no longer LookupFormID, but LookupPageID. Hence the bulleted list has changed to (underlining is mine):

• LookupPageID
• DrillDownPageID
• RunPageLink
• RunPageView
• RunPageLink
• SubPageView
• SubPageLink
• CardPageID

And also no longer FORM.RUN or FORM.RUNMODAL, but PAGE.RUN(MODAL).

Finish, basta, with the schizophrenic situation of having to select form ID’s when already only building pages! What a relief.

But there’s one down side to this

Have you already done a code compare between NAV 2009 R2 and NAV 2013? Of course thousands of objects have been changed (read my simple statistical report), which of course isn’t that strange. But my spot check showed that there are many objects that are reported as changed, but the only changed they were subject to is that e.g. the property LookupFormID is now called LookupPageID. Should we really reckon this an object change? A change that justifies that the Version List changed from NAVW16.00 to NAVW17.00? Take for example table 24 (Vendor Invoice Disc.). Personally I think the Version List shouldn’t be changed as the object as such did not change. Change a property name is a platform matters and not an application (object) matter. Having the Version List unchanged would make my code-compare-live a lot easier.

From a .txt format perspective (i.e. looking at the .txt object file format), however, the properties are part of the object. Using an external source control system like MS does with Source Depot, or others do with TFS or Perforce, .txt objects is all there is.

Update 2012-07-10

Before you start merging your code (using a three way compare tool or whatever) be friendly to yourself an run the TextFormatUpgrade2013.exe tool as discussed here and that can be found on the product DVD. The tool will change all occurences of the terms as discussed above from …Form… to …Page…