AX2012 : Adding text translations to entities using X++ [Technical walk-through]

Hi Friends,

Microsoft dynamics AX provides text translation possibilities on some standard entities like products, ledger accounts, financial dimension and few more. Text translations are displayed on documents where a language code is applied for example packing slips and invoices. Also, when the system language for the user corresponds to the translations, the translations are displayed in Enterprise Portal for Microsoft Dynamics AX.

A simple way to store the translations is to open the translations form , select the translation language and then save the translated text. For example to store translations for a product name, open the translations screen from product list page as shown below :

Select the language from the drop down which comes on clicking on the + button

Enter and save the translated text.

There can be instances where you want to extend this capability to other existing or new entities in the system to make your solution flexible and rich. From technical point of there is a standard AX class called SysTransalationHelper which provides capabilities to achieve this. In order to understand how we can use this class, let's do a quick walk-through and extend the standard AX's Questionnaire entity to have ability to set-up text translation.

The standard AX form for questions can be found at Home >> Common >> Questionnaires >> Design >> Questions

PS --> For demonstration purpose, I am just creating the minimum required methods and objects. In real time make sure you follow development best practise recommendations. I will be prefixing new objects with DEM_ to distinguish from standard AX objects.

Step 1 : Create a new table. I called it DEM_KMQuestionTranslation. Now add 2 foreign key relations as shown below, one relation with KMQuestion table and another with LanguageTable. KMQuestion table stores the Questions information and the Language table is used to store list of all languages available on the system. Additionally add a Description field. The table structure should look as shown below:

Add the below 2 methods in this table:

createOrUpdateTransalation() --> This method is used to create or update a question translation record. The implementation is quite straightforward. Refer to standard AX method \Data Dictionary\Tables\EcoResProductTranslation\Methods\createOrUpdateTranslation() to view a similar implementation.

findByQuestionLanguage() --> This method is used to find the specified record in the DEM_KMQuestionTranslation table by using the specified question language. Similar standard AX method implementation can be found at \Data Dictionary\Tables\EcoResProductTranslation\Methods\findByProductLanguage()

Step 2: Now we need to add below line of code in standard AX KMQuestion table insert() method. This is to create a default translation record in our new table whenever a new question record is created in the system.

Step 3 : Now we need to create a new class. Let's call this class DEM_QuestionnairesTranslationHelper  and add couple of methods as shown below:

Class declaration , declare two variables as shown below

Create parm methods to get and set the values

Now here comes the interesting part. Create a method to construct a new object of SysTransalationHelper class and use the tablenum of the main entity table and the new table which is storing the language translation details as shown below

Secondly create a method to launch the translation detail form. To do this we need to create a method as shown below which uses SysTranslationHelper class object as a parameter and calls it’s launch translation form method:

The last method required in this class is to instantiate the class . To do this create a new method as shown below:

Step 4 : Now we create a new menu item for this class

Step 5 : Plug this menu item on the questions form as shown below:

We are done and ready to test drive this. Now on opening the Questions form we can see the transalations button . When we click it,system launches the translation helper form where we can store our translated texts using all standard AX functions as shown below:

You can also download the XPO from  HERE to have quick access to code.

So in this post we saw how we can make our solutions flexible and more intuitive by adding the translation texts capabilities to any existing or new entities.

Thanks for reading the blog.