Hello All,
We are trying to use Source Analyzer and Compare and Merge tools for NAV development effort. I downloaded and installed the Developer’s Toolkit for Dynamics NAV. The version is 2.00 sp3. I imported the development tool fob file into our dev database. When I am trying to connect to the development database (SQL Server NAV W1 5.0 SP1) I get an error 52006 with no error description.
Its because NDT only talks to db’s in 4.0 format. You will need download and set up Nav 4 on another machine, create a blank db from there and restore the ndt backup from there. You can then connect to the db from your normal machine using ndt.
I’ve notice that the native db runs quite a bit faster than the c/side db. You will need to pre size the db to about 500mb per config you import - yes 500mb
Ian
Thanks Ian. I was afraid that the version conflict was the case. I planned to use NDT to analyze the object dependencies and help with identifying the changes for the add-on based on NAV 5.00 SP1 but it seems I won’t be able to do it as I would have to “downgrade” our 5.00 SP1 database down to 4.0? If that’s the case what is the tool of choice for this version of the database?
Dmitriy
This is all in the documentation, but let’s go ahead anyway…
You don’t import the NDT objects into your development database, they are supposed to into their own database, without any of the NAV application objects. You create an empty database with 4.0 SP3 exe’s, the NDT program doesn’t recognize anything out of later versions. You can do this in C/SIDE or SQL Server, they both work. Then you import the toolkit objects into it. You save a copy of this database for future reference, because you will want to have a quick NDT database in the future, trust me [Y]. Now it’s a matter of connecting to this database with the NDT, initialize the company, and from there you read more about how to get database objects in there for analysis.
Two important things for you to understand right now: 1 - the NDT database is a C/SIDE database (native or SQL) WITHOUT NAV application objects. 2 - the NDT database must be created with 4.0 exe’s, you don’t have to downgrade your installation.
I’ve already been through this route just recently. It wasn’t until after getting ndt to work my problems really started. Its buggy and crashes all the time, even when not being used, i.e left in the background doing nothing. The output is occasionally corrupted by excluding whole parts of text and generally mangling the output. The resulting txt files I produced mysteriously didn’t include all the objects even though I was working with cronus 5.0, cronus 5.0sp1 and our 5.0 db with lots of added objects. It should be able to compare the three and produce a differences file - it didn’t. On top of all that its impressively slow. I’m not sure what posessed them to write a Diff tool in Nav.
In short I gave up. If you look on mibuso.com you will find some of my pleas for help. The recommendation by others was to use a product like beyond compare and to integrate the changes manually.
Do what DenSter mentions regarding taking a copy. Once you import a config into ndt there’s no way to get rid of it. Until you get used to it you’ll mess it up a few times, best to have a db which you can just copy back over the work one so you can start again. Creating the db from scratch takes some time. For that matter, once you get it working and have imported your base Cronus5.0, cronus5.0sp1, etc take another copy. That way you don’t have to waste another few hours recreating the base db and reimporting the code bases. As I said above - its slow.
I have yet to give it a try but there is also the MergeTool which some people recommended. http://www.mibuso.com/dlinfo.asp?FileID=408 Unlike ndt it is being actively maintained by Per Mogensen.
Ian
I agree, I merge everything manually. I used to have a NDT database with all base versions to analyze object dependencies, but haven’t used it for almost 2 years. Frankly I haven’t missed it at all.
From what I heard about the merge tool is that it works very well, but takes a lot of practice to get to know. If merging objects were an every day task for me, I would probably invest some time into learning that tool.
Daniel, Ian - thanks for the help and your recommendations. At this point we used just the standard NAV client for the development effort and it was quite manageable. I outputed the entire database into the text file and do most of my dependency analysis there. So naturally I though there’s got to be a better (faster) way to see where the file filed etc is used. Also I was looking for some type of the source control and team development functionality.
Your posts and my first impressions with NDT so far convinced me that we most likely won’t be using the tool for our development effort and just continue with our initial approach, may be enhancing it as we go.
Thanks again,
Dmitriy
You can’t use the NDT for development anyway, it’s not meant to be used for, and it’s not even possible to write code in the NDT, there’s no editor in there (have you ever seen it work or are you making assumptions?). You could make a case for keeping track of builds, which is sort of a source control, but you won’t be able to use it as a source depository such as Visual Source Safe. IMO the best feature of the NDT is the where used analysis, but becasue that is not always complete, you can’t really trust it 100%.