TL;DR
There is now a pre-release version of the AL Test Runner extension for Visual Studio Code. It will have the latest (and possibly unstable) features.
Pre-Releases
VS Code recently added support for pre-release versions of extensions. You can install a pre-release by clicking on the “Switch to Pre-Release Version” button from the extension details within VS Code. See https://code.visualstudio.com/updates/v1_63#_pre-release-extensions for more details.
Up ’til now I have typically packaged a new version of the extension and used it myself for a week or two to check that it isn’t horribly broken before I push an update to the marketplace. Having a pre-release version will give me a better way to use the extension myself but also get feedback from anyone who is interested in being a beta tester. GitHub issues are the best place to log requests or bugs.
What’s in the Pre-Release?
There are few things which are currently in the pre-release but not in the release version.
Debug All Tests
Bit niche, but I have actually found it useful on a couple of occasions. There is an icon at the top of the Test Explorer view and a command in the command palette to debug all the tests, so I decided to add support for it in my extension.
A new version of the Test Runner Service app is required to support this. Install with the "Install Test Runner Service" command from inside VS Code or download the latest version from here: https://github.com/jimmymcp/test-runner-service/raw/master/James%20Pearson_Test%20Runner%20Service.app
Publishing Apps using PowerShell
There is a new setting to publish apps to the container using PowerShell (the bccontainerhelper module) rather than the publish command in VS Code.
Why? A couple of reasons.
- I can’t know whether the app has compiled and published successfully when using the AL: Publish command. If publishing the app fails then VS Code is left thinking that the tests are running when in reality they never started. You need to manually cancel the test run before you can start another from the Test Explorer. Publishing from PowerShell gives a little more control
- I’m toying with the idea of automating test runs in the background while developing, something along the lines that Luc suggested here: https://github.com/jimmymcp/al-test-runner/issues/42. This would require a more reliable to compile and publish the app(s) than just triggering the AL: Publish command and hoping that it worked
testRunnerCodeunitId
There is a new key in the AL Test Runner config.json file to specify the id of the test runner codeunit id to use. It defaults to the codeunit isolation runner but you can override with another if you like.
Various
Various other improvements – updated Pester tests, updated GitHub actions. Take a look on GitHub if you are interested.
James Pearson 