_{BC AL Journey #9}

So far in the BC AL Journey Series we have been doing everything by hand. It is important to know how things work before we automate away some of the tedious steps. Visual Studio Code has a plethora of plugins to help with AL code, and it is about time that we use them.

Back in BC AL Journey #3 we installed AZ AL Dev Tools/AL Code Outline.

This toolset has a great feature that will help you create tables and pages much faster. Simply right click on a folder header and select “New AL File Wizard”. If you noticed this was there, clicked it and have been using it already, I won’t hold it against you.

That will trigger a menu to popup of all the different wizard templates it knows about.

I’ve configured the .vscode/settings.json file in the Template to best match the recommendations from Microsoft for file naming and other settings. As always, there is more to explore and configure to your liking.

The different types of Wizards do Wizard things, and I encourage you to explore them and make use of the tools. Given what we have done up to this point, the wizard will be a welcome addition to your tool set.

Do bear in mind that the tools we use, including Wizards, are maintained by mortals. The author, Andrzej Zwierzchowski, is an amazing developer, but Microsoft’s recommend best practices are ever evolving and the Wizards might fall behind. Always verify Wizard code and follow best practices.