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 Set up AL Extension

2023/12/30 • 3 min. to read

In this topic

• app.json
• Page-level
• Related information

So that the online help can be called from a Business Central Extension by the user, the links to the online help must be specified in the app.json of the Extension. To assign extension calls to a help project, the AppID parameter must be specified in all links. This AppID is assigned by the NAVAX App Team or has to be coordinated with the NAVAX App Team and must be set up on the server. NVXYZ is assigned to the Abracadabra sample extension, for example. As soon as an AppID is assigned and set up, a call with the GUID of the extension is also possible. But this method should only be used for special internal calls.

app.json

The following information must be added at the App-level in app.json:

• "help": "https://www.navax.app/help.php?AppID=TODO",

• "contextSensitiveHelpUrl": "https://www.navax.app/contextSensitiveHelpUrl.php?AppID=TODO&L={0}&ObjID=",

Important

TODO must be replaced by the AppID of the extension.

• "supportedLocales": [
    "en-US", "de-DE", "de-AT", "de-CH"
  ],

  supportedLocales defines for which languages the help is generally planned or which languages Business Central should explicitly send with the online help call. The first specified language (here en-US) is used as the default value and should be set to en-US even if no help is planned in English. All other languages must be specified afterwards so that Business Central sends the corresponding language in the online help call as well.

Note

Whether the help is actually available later in the requested language does not matter here. The only question here is which languages Business Central should generally take into account when calling up the online help. In the setting used here, for example, all German languages are also defined. This results in the following:

• If the user has set the language German (Austria), the online help is called with the parameter de-AT.
• If the user has set the language to Danish (Denmark), the online help is called with en-US, because da-DK is not part of the supportedLocales.

Page-level

The following information must be added at Page-level:

• ContextSensitiveHelpPage = 'TODO';

  The ContextSensitiveHelpPage property in the page or requestpage objects establishes the connection to the individual help topics. TODO must be replaced by the file name of the help topic and is given as ObjID parameter when the online help is called. It is recommended to use the name of the page (or the object name) for ContextSensitiveHelpPage (and thus for the file name of the help topic). Example: If the same help topic is to be called from different pages, topic redirections should be used. Although it is possible to specify the same name in the ContextSensitiveHelpPage property in all pages, but it is not recommended. The advantage of topic redirections is that they are resolved on the server and thus independent of the extension. If it later turns out that the pages needs different help, this can be changed later at any time (without changing the extension) and all customers have immediate access to the changed/extended help. For more information, see Write Help, Basics, Topic Redirections.

Related information

• Write Help, Basics, Topic Redirections
  Redirections of help topics can be realized by specifying another help file in the first line of a help file. In order for the Help Builder to recognize the redirection, the file extension .nchb must be specified...