Development Matters Blog

The Dictionary Control is one of the features of Advanced Mode from the Support Debugging Tool.

To access the Advanced Mode features, you must have SQL administrator or database owner (dbo) privileges. If you do, then you can open the Dex.ini Settings window by selecting Dex.ini Settings from the Options button drop list on the main window of Support Debugging Tool and enabling Enable Debugger Advanced Mode Features option.

You can open the Dictionary Control window by selecting Dictionary Control from the Options button drop list on the main window of Support Debugging Tool.

Dictionary Control can be used to troubleshoot issues with third party dictionaries. You can effectively remove dictionaries from the system one-by- one until the issue stops. The last dictionary removed can be investigated.

You can use Trigger Status to disable Dexterity triggers for a specific Product in a similar fashion to the Customization Status window in Microsoft Dynamics GP. The added benefit of Dictionary Control is that it can remember the settings and automatically disable the product on the next login.

Dictionary Control can also disable alternate windows for third party dictionaries using the Alternate Status option. This does not change any security settings.

Using Dictionary Control to disable the triggers and alternate windows for a third party dictionary can produce the same effect as removing the dictionary from the Dynamics.set launch file without requiring any backups or manual editing.

The Support Debugging Tool is a Dexterity-based suite of utilities and tools created to assist with the task of supporting Microsoft Dynamics GP.

Some examples of purposes where the Support Debugging Tool can be used are listed below:

• To identify the specific series of events which lead up to an issue or bug in the code occurring.
• To quickly and simply turn on all logging and profiling capabilities without restarting the application. This can be useful when looking at performance problems.
• To find details about dictionary resources.
• To identify resources (forms, reports and tables) causing security access issues.
• To enable and disable third party products or change the order of the products in the launch file.
• To export data from and import data to any table.
• To run SQL or Dexterity scripts without needing Dexterity or SQL Administration Tools installed.
• To capture and email or save screenshots of all open windows and a system status report.

The Support Debugging Tool is installed by copying the Debugger.cnk (self-installing dictionary), Debugger.txt (readme file) and Debugger.pdf (this user guide manual) to the Microsoft Dynamics GP application folder. When Microsoft Dynamics GP is next launched, select “Yes” to include new code. The Support Debugging Tool requires the version 8.00 Dexterity Runtime update 8.00m88 or version 9.00 Service Pack 3 or later. The Support Debugging Tool works with all builds of version 10.00.

Resource Information is one of the Standard mode features of the Support Debugging Tool.

By selecting Resource Information from the Options button drop list on the main window of the Support Debugging Tool, you can open the Resource Information window.

You can use the Resource Information window to show technical, display, and physical names and resource IDs for any form, window, field, table, table group or report resource in any dictionary currently installed in the Microsoft Dynamics GP application.

If you know any information about a resource, you can enter it into the appropriate field and the rest of the fields will be populated with the details for that resource.

For example, entering a window’s display name will identify the window’s technical name and resource ID; or entering a table’s physical name as it appears in SQL Server will identify the table’s dictionary,
technical and display names as well as the resource ID.

This window can be useful when working with table and column names in SQL Server, because it will quickly convert the physical names used in SQL back to the technical names used in Modifier, Report Writer and Dexterity.