Effortless Layout Editing in Business Central
Business Central Designer Mode enables drag-and-drop field editing through Visual Studio Code by pressing F6 instead of F5, automatically generating AL code from the visual changes made to pages without requiring manual coding.
post Aardvark Labs
"With F6 the system starts in Designer Mode."
Key points
- Pressing F6 in VS Code starts Business Central in Designer Mode; F5 starts the debugger
- In Designer Mode you can add fields with drag and drop, change field properties, show or hide actions and set importance
- Stop designing, save with Download Code checked, then press Alt+F6 in VS Code to pull the generated AL into the page extension
- Triggers and other advanced page logic cannot be handled in Designer Mode
- Lets developers adjust layouts together with end users and see the results right away
Quotes
- “With F6 the system starts in Designer Mode.” (This is the key command to activate the visual layout editing feature in Business Central)
- “This also lets you work more collaboratively with an end user, allowing you to move and visualize the results in real time.” (Shows the practical benefit of Designer Mode for non-technical stakeholders to participate in layout design)
AL objects mentioned
As named in the post. A name that matches one object page by exact type and name links to it; the others stay as named.
- page 21 “Customer Card”
- other “pageextension ARD_Customer”
- table 18 “Customer”
- other “tableextension ARD_Customer”
Context
- Features: Designer Mode, Drag-and-drop field editing, Field property editing, Action management, Auto code generation from visual changes, Collaborative layout design
Source: Aardvark Labs, community blog. Summary, key points and quotes are derived (CONTENT-NOTICE.md); read the original for the full text.