Dynamics365-MetaDataExplorer

(c) 2018, Stefan Ebert

Explore, validate and visualize Metadata of a "Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Operations" packages folder.

Purpose

This program is a developer tool to provide a fast overview of packages, models, versions, references of a so called "PackagesLocalDirectory" folder. A separation is done into the Core functionality, which is consumed by either the rich Windows client or the command line version.

Milestones and goals

At time of project ramp-up, I see following implementation steps.

MS1 - Project setup

• Build project template.
• Prototype some core classes for demo data usage.
• Have a debug form in UI application to view dump data.

MS2 - Core implementation

• Data model implementation.
• File system parser and loader.
• XML content wrapping into data model.
• Quick structure data model (without model elements).
• Full structure data model.

MS3 - Windows application implementation

• Load functionality.
• Tree control implementation.
• Tree node detail implementation.
• System/custom filtering.
• Search in packages and models.

MS4 - Console application implementation

• Implement a serialize/deserialize functionality for caching between multiple commands.
• Search for and use a cool command line parser.
• Have the "load and validate" operation (which in verbose mode, visualizes to std-output).

MS5 - Get things completed

• Export functionality for potentionally graph visualizer.
• Complete outstanding issues and temporary solutions.
• Complete source code documentation (xml style).

MS6 - Release

• Provide output in a way simple for others to import and use.
• Have download and install instructions.
• Have a documentation.

Progress

During the implementation, I'll "check" the progress to see this board as the current state.

Environment

IDE used is Visual Studio 2017. Programming language is C#.

License

Licensed under the MIT License.