Several terms specific to Dexterity Utilities are used in this manual. You may want to familiarize yourself with them before beginning to use this application.
Block A block is the smallest element of a dictionary. All of the resources in the dictionary and internal information about the dictionary are composed of blocks.
Chunk dictionary A dictionary that contains only portions, or “chunks,” of information from a complete dictionary. Chunk dictionaries allow large dictionaries to be divided into more manageable pieces for delivery to customers. The runtime engine “unchunks” or merges the chunk dictionaries to recreate the complete dictionary. Chunk dictionaries are also used to update dictionaries.
Compile To run a script through a compiler. A compiler translates script instructions into a language that the computer can understand. Once the script has been compiled, the instructions within the script can be completed.
Compress The process of removing unneeded information (such as script source) and unused blocks from dictionaries. Dictionaries are typically compressed before being sent to customers.
Core module A group of related resources in a Dexterity dictionary that are used by several parts of the application. Resources such as fields, data types or strings are stored in core modules.
Core resources Resources such as strings, data types or global fields that are used by several parts of the application.
Destination dictionary The dictionary to which resources, strings and messages, windows, and dictionary modules will be transferred.
Dictionary module A group of related resources, such as those for a form or a report, that make up a subset of a larger dictionary. There are three types of dictionary modules: core modules, form modules and report modules.
Editable dictionary A dictionary that you can access in a read/write manner.
Extract To copy the resources created for a third-party application from the Dynamics.dic dictionary to a new dictionary, excluding any main product resources.
Extracted dictionary The dictionary that is created when third-party resources are copied from the development dictionary to a new dictionary.
Resource An independent object such as a field, table, window or form, used to create Dexterity applications.
Series A means of grouping tables, table groups, forms and reports into categories. Dexterity Utilities allows you to generate reports and specify resources to work with based upon series.
Series resources Lists containing the names of forms, reports, tables and table groups in an application dictionary. These lists are used for security, the Work menu, palettes and table maintenance.
Synchronize The process of checking all relationships between resources in a dictionary and recalculating buffer sizes.
Source dictionary A read-only dictionary that is used as the source when transferring resources to a destination dictionary or generating dictionary reports.
Transfer To copy specified resources from a source dictionary to a destination dictionary.