Images in AX forms - image

In Dynamics AX, we use a large number of images and icons for various purposes in our custom forms. We're currently having to individually install image/icon packs on every client machine in order for everything to work.
Is there a way (or best practice) for handling images and icons in Dynamics so an install on every single client is not necessary?
Ideally, I'd install all images and icons in one place on the server and reference everything from there, but I'm open to any suggestions available.
Thanks

You have to deploy the files to each client but this deployment can be done automatically by the AOS. You have more information in this thread of the community:
https://community.dynamics.com/forums/t/26444.aspx
Using the SysFileDeployment class is quite easy and works fine to send icons and files to the clients from a shared location, for example, in the AOS machine.

Related

Loading dynamic images on local devices

I have a cross-platform solution which is written in C# and VS using Xamarin.Forms. At time being, the PCL project is using the WebRequest class with asynchronous mechanisms to fetch images directly from remote server. The PCL project also applies the UriImageSource class to cache a particular image for the first time when it is requested. However, the solution depends on the speed status of Internet; sometimes it is fast, sometimes it is slow.
Image is not static. It can be changed.
I'd like to change my project in another way. But I am not sure the following way is the right way to go and whether it is possible:
(1) Writing some codes to schedule mobile device (iOS, Android and Win phone) to sync/download images from the server and save images on local mobile device folder (outside embedded folder in the PLC project) dynamically. But is this possible?
(2) If I have images loaded on local mobile devices, how can I fetch such images using methods like ImageSource.FromStream() or ImageSource.FromFile() to show them on Xaml pages? If possible, how can I code?
(3) I am not sure this. If I let image folder of the PCL project to store (assume it is possible) images, then how can I dynamically mark downloaded images as "Embedded Resouce" (Build Actions set). Anyway, I prefer (2) above.
Thank you in advance.

InnoSetup - how to make setup.exe into 875kB? So that users download it faster and on download it will download another one?

Using InnoSetup i prepared my maininstaller.exe which is very large such as 90Mb when user downloads it, it take sometimes ages.
as a result often user ignores it and my setup is incomplete because of not user friendly.
Now i have compared Google Chrome/Canary web browsers concepts, they are also large in size, but they used 2 types of installer one is very tiny small size installer, which is just to download quickly and execute, to download the second large main installer, this method is more friendly to deploy large installation, and mostly accepted by many users.
Now, How can i do such (like Google Chrome web browser installer) with Innosetup? one first_setup.exe which is very tiny in size, so that user can quickly download it, but once that is executed it will go to internet and download my maininstaller.exe and make sure its downloaded correctly then execute it.
Is this possible? any idea.
Yes. You can build some sort of online installer which will e.g. download only components that the user chose during the setup wizard. For downloading component files or component setup files you can use e.g. the IDP plugin which I would prefer, or InnoTools Downloader.
Martijn Laan even considered to build in downloading feature for installed files in this issue.

Team Development of HTML5 PhoneGap App

First, I don't know if this is the right place to make this question but, I don't see any other place where to put it.
I would like to know how could I develop a mobile HTML5 App (using PhoneGap) with another friend, without need to have a copy of the project in more than one PC.
Could I somehow host the Code on a FTP Server and then we both could work on it for example, on Eclipse?
You need to look into using a source control system of some kind. Source control comes in many flavors, but in general it allows software developers to sync code between many servers, and allows developers to work concurrently without breaking each other's environments (imagine I have to take a component offline for many hours to code on it, but other people rely on it to do their work).
The two most common source control solutions are SVN and Git. Both of these work on Mac/Linux/PC and are documented thoroughly online.
without need to have a copy of the project in more than one PC.
How should that be possible? When want to view view something on your local computer, you must have it available on your local computer. But I think I know what you are looking for, three suggestions:
Use a cloud-based IDE. Cloud9 for example is one of the best. However, all of them tend to be slow and buggy.
Just synch the files between your computers. One of the best hosted services is Dropbox, or you can install ownCloud on your own Server.
Use a version control system. This is pretty common for software development as you can easily reproduce who made which change when and why. The best option is git and Github for hosting.
I know this is months late, but check out Adobe's Phonegap Build. Build and deploy in the cloud. They also allow you to assign a development team.
www.adobe.com/PhoneGap

Coverting VB.Net applications to services

I have a basic VB.Net application that gets data from some websites and then send them to a MS-SQL database automatically. I have developed it as a desktop application with a WinForm front end with logs writing to the WinForm continuously.
Now, is it possible to convert the Winform to a Windows services so that I do not need to keep it opening in front of my PC and watching the logs, instead, it runs quietly in the background and the data gets logged into the system log viewer?
Many thanks!
In Visual Studio choose File->New Project and in the Windows templates you'll see Windows Service. Choose that option and then start migrating your code. If you kept most to all of your non-UI code in a separate DLL it will be easy because then you can have your service reference that library.
The following MSDN link has step by step instructions on how to get started with Windows Services but the answer is it not possible to convert your application but you can create a new windows service and copy your code across. This should be quite trivial.
If you have a specific interval to run the project, then you can use windows schedular to have the executable invoked as per your requirement and interval. However, as answered earlier, to convert your project to win services, you need to create the windows services from scratch and what you can do is, keep your business logic classes seperate and have objects created from the component classes.

Automatic download/upload

We are going to develop a client-server application with web interface which will store office documents on server.
When we use browser as a client we need to perform these three steps to edit a document:
download document to the local machine;
open it in office program and edit;
upload document to the server.
It is very inconvenient. Sometimes it is hard to find where a document was downloaded to, when we need to upload it. Customers will also forget to upload document after editing.
Is there any way or technology to upload document automatically?
Or just any ideas how to make this process more convenient.
Thanks in advance!
I would, suggest, if applicable to store all documents as HTML then allowing editing in a web page powered by CKEditor or a similar tool.
If your documents must be in another format, like Office formats, you might start thinking at Office 365, or use ActiveX controls in your web application, something I believe should be deprecated but works in small (better restricted) enterprise environments.
These are just a couple of ideas.

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