Spring Was Canceled Release 1.2024.4.1

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Canceled? 😱

Swedish spring started awesomely! And then it became a sucky winter again…
Please note – the spring was canceled, and that dreadful weather gave me more time to improve my tools instead of being out in my garden.
That’s why we now have a new release with a few awesome new features! Read on!

New Features

Due to new documentation

After new released documentations and dialog between me and Jim D. at Microsoft we see that we have some new features in the Fetch XML! At least new for me – and now for my tool FetchXML Builder too!

I urge everyone – regarding if you’re a rookie, or if you are experiens and maybe een an Microsoft MVP – to click on that button as you see above. Go read, go learn!

Supports more properties on the fetch node

A few new attributes on the fetch properties. More details on Fetch Attributes.
Some advanced support about Options. Read more: Fetch Options.

Supports filter with link-entity

Link Entity used to only be available under the Entity node, or under other Link Entities.
Now we can add it under Filter nodes to make more complex filters in the query.
How do we do that?? Check here under Filter on values in related records.

Supports comparing from a link-entity

The valueof comparison of values on the same entity a few years ago.
Now we can also compare with the field on another table! This. Is.Totally. Awesome. It opens so many possibilities.
It is written about this feature, but it’s a short section, so don’t miss it! Cross Table Comparison.

Supports new link-entity types

There are a bunch of new “types” on the link-entity node. Many of those are related to Cross Table Comparison.
For the rest, read about Link Type Options.

Supports advanced filter options

This is pretty advanced, but it can help performance. To use this, you have to read the docs: Union Hint.

Improvements

  • There are a gazillion tables (entities) in Dataverse – now we can filter a lot better! Thanks to my colleague Christian P and @DiegoSSJ for your requests!
  • Attributes (columns) will show their types as well. It can still be disabled in the Settings.
  • The columns in the Result View have annoyed me since I introduced Layout XML. Often columns don’t show, up mainly. Now it has been improved… I hope that it now shows what I expect! Issue #1027
  • Handling booleans in Condition and Value properties (previously only a text field, now dropdown).
  • Huge improvements in the Condition properties node. Do you see what’s new…?
  • Better conversion to WebAPI (OData 4.0) than before. Thanks to @MarkMpn!
  • Autocomplete in “manual” FetchXML editor supports all new features (see above). Thanks to @MarkMpn!
  • Possible to show both Friendly and Logical name on entity. Useful when entities have the same display names. Thanks to @AzzaTsy for the report!

Minor

  • The treeview in the Query Builder panel show more info on link-entities, like M:1 / 1:M, type etc. Issue #1034
  • In some cases, a warning will be displayed if 50,000 records are returned. Read more on Microsoft Learn about Ordering and paging.
  • When showing results in Friendly mode, it can now show Principal Object Access (POA) masks as readable, not just numbers.
  • A bit nicer and accepting when unknown errors occur in the Result View. Probably fewer errors as well!
  • Better handling of Alias on attributes in the Result View.
  • I added a lot of tooltips here and there to make it easier to understand what we are doing here and why.
  • In a new Condition, it will default to the first available Operator. Save a second almost every time 🙂
  • With the Friendly mode, it will now show Choices and Booleans properly (previously only the numbers).
  • Opening OData query is now in the selected profile; if it is stored on the XrmToolBox connection.
  • Conditions on date type fields, you can now select the value by a DateTime control.
  • Aliases on attributes are now handled a lot better. Thanks to @trotsallt for the report and your requests!
  • In converting to C# code, using Early Bound Generator by Daryl LaBar, it uses PrimaryIdAttribute and PrimaryNameAttribute constants.

Bugfixes

  • Sorting in Result View works better now.
  • Showing Choice values in link entities couldn’t display as Friendly mode. Now it can. Issue #1000
  • Showing Both columns (raw and friendly) now works for link-entity attributes.
  • Handling possibly duplicated link entity variables in generated C# code. Fixed by @grasshopperhamburger ❤️
  • Converting to C# failed if the query has link-entity with or-filter. The problem is now fixed. Thanks to @jjkoran24 for the report!

Internal

Using Rappen.XTB.Helpers for all RetrieveMultiple, so I don’t need duplicated code. Due to this use, I made RetrieveMultipleAll method to support Cancelling too.

Using a new control type released in Rappen.XTB.Helpers: TriCheckBox.

Contributions

The Creator and Developer is still Jonas Rapp, since 2014. See me on GitHub, Twitter, LinkedIn.

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