Now Wave2 blogging is allowed, there are many topics that I want to share with you .. really, a lot. Time is not on my side – I’m in full preparation for Directions and NAVTechDays, so let’s see.

Today, while working on my SaaS-deployment-pipeline in DevOps with ALOps, I DID find the time to say a few words on one of the topics I’m quite excited about: Shortcutkeys in the webclient, or in other words: full keyboard shortcut support!

In my “real world”, users (yes, I do have customers, although people sometimes seem to be thinking otherwise.. ) have been asking this for quite some time .. and finally I can tell them: it works like it should!

Obviously you already knew about this, because I already announced it here (and specifically here by Microsoft) – just kidding ;-).

How it works?

Very simple: you have a “ShortCutKey” property on action, where you can set the ShortCutKey like this example:

I guess that doesn’t need too much of explanation, does it ;-)? You can simply do it the same for your actions. And I can tell you: it works! :-).

Knowing this, let’s dive a bit into what Microsoft did…

Did Microsoft apply it to the Base Application?

Absolutely. Even more, at the current version (a bit depending on localization), I found 1370 places where Microsoft added a ShortCut! I can only imagine they were able to convert that from the Base Application ;-).

This made me think though – are there THAT many shortcuts we need to start learning by heart?

I decided to dive a little bit more into it, by analysing all the shortcuts by creating a PowerShell script that loops all al files of the Base Application, and lists all ShortCutKey properties in a csv file. You can find the script here: https://github.com/waldo1001/blog.CALAnalysis/blob/master/ShortCutKeys/GetShortCutKeys.ps1

You can find the output in that same repo, but here is the overview of all shortcuts that I found are implemented:

As you see, not really THAT many, but very useful nevertheless..

Now obviously the next question:

Can we change a ShortCutKey from within an app?

And yes you can! So, if Microsoft has forgotten any, you can add them! Here is an example:

As you can see, in this case, I didn’t just add a ShortCutKey, but I even changed the “ALT+D” to something else. And it works .. . Not sure we should all be doing this – and also not sure if everyone would do this, what would happen with conflicting shortcutkeys (although, I guess the “first of last one wins”?), but now at least, you know it’s possible!

If you want to play with Wave 2, get started here:

https://freddysblog.com/2019/07/31/preview-of-dynamics-365-business-central-2019-release-wave-2/