When viewing a List Page in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, users can view the page in List or Tile view. The tile view shows records as tiles instead of rows. By default, the fields displayed in the Tile are the first five fields as defined on the list page.

Users can switch between the List and Tile views by selecting the View layout options icon in the action bar of the page. If tiles contain a media field, users can choose between Tiles and Tall Tiles. The same information is displayed in both views, except with tall tiles, images are displayed larger at the top of the tiles.

Developers can specify the data shown in the Tile view by adding a fieldgroup named ‘Brick.’ There’s no limit on the number of fields you can define in the fieldgroup. However, it is recommended that tiles be limited to five data fields and one image field. The following code shows an example of defining a Tile for a Table.

table 50100 Widget
{
    Caption = 'Widget';
    DataClassification = CustomerContent;

    fields
    {
        field(1; "No."; Code[20])
        {
            Caption = 'No.';
        }
        field(2; Description; Text[50])
        {
            Caption = 'Description';
        }
        field(3; "Description 2"; Text[50])
        {
            Caption = 'Description 2';
        }
        field(4; "Unit of Measure Code"; Code[10])
        {
            Caption = 'Unit of Measure Code';
            TableRelation = "Unit of Measure";
        }
        field(5; "Unit Price"; Decimal)
        {
            Caption = 'Unit Price';
        }
        field(6; "Color"; Code[10])
        {
            Caption = 'Color';
        }
        field(7; "Blocked"; Boolean)
        {
            Caption = 'Blocked';
        }
    }
    keys
    {
        key(PK; "No.")
        {
            Clustered = true;
        }
    }

    fieldgroups
    {
        fieldgroup(DropDown; "No.", "Description") { }
        fieldgroup(Brick; "No.", Description, "Unit of Measure Code", "Unit Price") { }
    }
}

When working with Tiles:

• Field 1 appears in small font in its row of the Tile.
• Fields 2 and 3 are shown in a large font and appear in the same row under primary field 1.
• The remaining fields appear in rows of two.
• A verbose field appears at the bottom of the Tile, separated by a line.
• Tiles support the Style property and StyleExpr property as set on the page field control.

Read more about the Displaying Data as Tiles for Lists tiles here.

Note: The code and information discussed in this article are for informational and demonstration purposes only. This content was created referencing Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2024 Wave 2 online.

In the AL language for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, the Dictionary data type represents an unordered collection of keys and values optimized for fast lookup of values. In a Dictionary, each key is unique and is used to access its corresponding value. The dictionary data type allows you to store key-value pairs where there is a logical association between the pairs or when you need fast data retrieval based on a custom key. Unlike lists indexed by a range of numbers, dictionaries are indexed by keys.

It is important to note that every key in a Dictionary must be unique. A key cannot be null, but a value can be null when the value type is a reference type.

To create a new Dictionary that contains the same values as the original Dictionary, you perform a shallow copy by iterating through the keys of the original Dictionary and adding them to the new Dictionary.

The Dictionary data type does not support holding instantiated records. For this purpose, a developer should use a temporary table instead.

Add

Adds the specified key and value to the dictionary

 procedure AddDictionaryEntry(SalesDictionary: Dictionary of [Text, Decimal])
    begin
        SalesDictionary.Add('10000', 1234.56);
        SalesDictionary.Add('20000', 9564.22);
        SalesDictionary.Add('30000', 789.12);
        SalesDictionary.Add('40000', 456.78);
    end;

ContainsKey

Determines whether the Dictionary contains the specified key.

    procedure ContainsKey(SalesDictionary: Dictionary of [Text, Decimal])
    var
        ContainsKey: Boolean;

    begin
        ContainsKey := SalesDictionary.ContainsKey('10000');
    end;

Count

Gets the number of key/value pairs contained in the Dictionary.

    procedure KeyCount(SalesDictionary: Dictionary of [Text, Decimal]): Integer
    var
        Count: Integer;

    begin
        Count := SalesDictionary.Count();
        exit(Count);
    end;

Get

Gets the value associated with the specified key.

    procedure GetValue(SalesDictionary: Dictionary of [Text, Decimal]; dictkey: Text): Decimal
    var
        dictvalue: Decimal;
    begin
        // Get will error if the key does not exist
        // You can use contains to check if the key exists
        if SalesDictionary.ContainsKey(dictkey) then
            SalesDictionary.Get(dictkey, dictvalue);

        dictvalue := SalesDictionary.Get(dictkey);

        exit(dictvalue);
    end;

Keys / Values

Gets a collection containing the keys / Values in the Dictionary.

    procedure GetKeysValues(SalesDictionary: Dictionary of [Text, Decimal]; KeysList: List of [Text]; ValuesList: List of [Decimal])
    begin
        KeysList := SalesDictionary.Keys();
        ValuesList := SalesDictionary.Values();
    end;

Remove

Removes the value with the specified key from the Dictionary.

    procedure RemoveKey(SalesDictionary: Dictionary of [Text, Decimal])
    begin
        SalesDictionary.Remove('40000');
    end;

The Dictionary data type is optimized for lookups, allowing for efficient storage and retrieval of values without the need to query the database repeatedly.

Overall, the Dictionary data type in Business Central is not just a powerful tool but a crucial one for efficiently storing and retrieving key-value pairs. It is an asset for developers, underscoring the significance of their work with data structures in AL code.

Read more about the Dictionary Data Type here.

Note: The code and information discussed in this article are for informational and demonstration purposes only. This content was created referencing Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2024 Wave 1 online.