First things first to get started with Microsoft Business Central extension development you need VS Code, VS code is a code editor which is used for developing web applications, cloud applications etc.
You can download VS code from here VS CODE.
After downloading the VS Code you can see the following interface of VS code
Go to extensions and download AL Language extension by Microsoft
Now you are set to get started,
You can develop extensions/apps to business central in multiple ways, but most developers prefer to use BC containers for developing the apps.
In order to use containers first we need to have the docker engine service running in our computer. If you install Docker desktop, docker engine will be installed automatically, if you don't want to install docker desktop for some reasons you can with installing chocolatey, and by using chocolatey you can install docker engine.
To install docker engine follow the steps below
1. First install chocolatey by clicking on the following link Install chocolatey
2. After successfully installing Chocolatey we can now execute the command for installing docker engine, you can use the following command to install docker engine
choco install docker-engine -y
3. After installing docker-engine you can go to services in your computer and start docker-engine
To get started with creating BC Container you can read the article BC Container.
If you already have a Powershell script, you can run that script by giving the user name, password, license file etc, these credentials will be used when you are publishing apps to the BC server.
After successfully creating docker container for Business Central, you can open VS Code and start with development, if you are not using Docker desktop you can download docker extension in VS code which will show all the running container in your computer or you can type "docker ps" in your terminal which will show all the running containers.
Now you can open command palette in VS CODE, either you can press Ctrl + Shift + p on your keyboard or go to View --> Command Palette
After clicking on it, it will ask for a path, choose the path where you want to save your project.
Later it will show this pop-up here you need to choose the business central version, the version to which you want to develop extension.
After choosing the version, it will ask you to choose the server
If you are using SaaS environment/ Sandbox environment, you can choose Microsoft Cloud Sandbox, if you are using local host or local containers you can choose your own server.
Now the project is created,
it will have the file HelloWorld.al which is a file create which is created as an example, you can delete this file and start crating your own files.
The app.json file describes the configurations of the app/extension. You can find more information about app.json file in my other blog app.json.
The launch.json file contains configurations of the server. You can find more about launch.json in my blog about launch.json Launch.json
Now you need to download the symbols from BC servers, these symbols are important because we are building applications on top of Business Central. You can find more about this in my Project structure of AL Blog
To download symbols you can open command palette and type Download symbols
After downloading symbols from the server, you are ready to develop your first extension✌️
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