Unicode and Applocale in Navision

gabep

We are currently in the midst of a large Navision migration. From the start, one of our requirements was that multi-language ability be available. This included languages such as Japanese and Chinese. We were reassured by our VAR that this would not be an issue.

Over time and after a great deal of research on our part, it has become clear that Navision is not Unicode compatible and that an existing solution may not be available w/o a significant amount of work on our part.

The typical solution of running Navision on different clients will not work for us b/c we use Citrix. Therefore, the idea is that all users will interact with Navision through a Citrix server farm. Maintaining different servers for different languages would be an endeavor we would all like to avoid.

Searching for solutions revealed the non-supported application named “Applocale”. In fact, there is even an existing version which has had the start-up warning (“This application is not supported and may not work with all applications…..) removed. This application bypasses the requirement that the computer be restarted after switching the non-Unicode setting in Windows.

However, a quick search of the forums reveals that this application may not work properly with Navision. Specifically, I am referring to the following post.

http://www.mibuso.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... =applocale

What exactly will not work using this application? What is meant by the comment that Navision “using some strange and stupid basic UI library” and that it “sometimes doesn’t work”?

I have been able to enter and see Japanese when using this solution. However, it sounds like it would be a mistake to rely on this as a solution for something as important as a financial package. Can anyone expand on the limitations of this solution?

Any input would be greatly appreciated.

kine

When I tried the Applocale for Russia (azbuka) characters, I just saw strange characters in the client (menu, captions) and it was not possible to use it. But it was few years ago, may be that the application is better today.

But still, if you are using one database for more codepages, you will have problems. The clients with different language will see different things when they open records created by other users...


And I assume that you are using MS SQL, else you will have problem with native backup/restore...

idiot

It's sad to see another being mislead by VARs.
If Navision is still not implemented yet my advise is move to some other ERP which supports Unicode.
These are some of the problems faced with Navision SQL:
1. It's not possible to have multiple languages in one server due to OS limitation hence it's not possible to have multiple languages for Navision, while displaying everything correctly, in the same server.
2. "Save as HTML", Copy & Paste does not work. The double-byte characters become garbage or ????????. This creates interesting security & data input/output issues.
3. Double-byte characters are stored as "garbage" in SQL which makes integration with other applications more interesting.
4. Sourcing for other compatible applications to translate or decrypt is also interesting & the time can be better invested.
5. If not using Citrix some applications on workstation becomes a nightmare due to the unicode translation.

The above defeats the portrayed image of low cost of ownership / quick implementation...
Life should be dull sometimes.