The Dexterity programming language was designed in the early 1990s for the implementation of platform independent

Cross-platform

In computing, cross-platform, or multi-platform, is an attribute conferred to computer software or computing methods and concepts that are implemented and inter-operate on multiple computer platforms...

 graphical accounting software

Accounting software

Accounting software is application software that records and processes accounting transactions within functional modules such as accounts payable, accounts receivable, payroll, and trial balance. It functions as an accounting information system...

. Dexterity itself is written in the C programming language

C (programming language)

C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....

 http://www.devnewz.com/devnewz-3-20040827GreatPlainsDexterityProgrammingOverviewforDevelopers.html. It was used in the development of Great Plains accounting software.

Microsoft Business Solutions

Microsoft Dynamics

Microsoft Dynamics is a line of enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management software applications developed by Microsoft. Microsoft Dynamics applications are delivered through a network of reselling partners who provide specialized services...

 GP, formerly Great Plains Dynamics and eEnterprise, is a Dexterity-written application. Microsoft's small business line: Microsoft Small Business Manager and Small Business Financials were also written in Dexterity and use the same code base

Source code

In computer science, source code is text written using the format and syntax of the programming language that it is being written in. Such a language is specially designed to facilitate the work of computer programmers, who specify the actions to be performed by a computer mostly by writing source...

 as Great Plains.

History of Dexterity

Great Plains Dexterity is a proprietary programming language

Programming language

A programming language is an artificial language designed to communicate instructions to a machine, particularly a computer. Programming languages can be used to create programs that control the behavior of a machine and/or to express algorithms precisely....

 and technology, designed in the early 1990s with the goal to build a platform-independent graphical accounting package - Great Plains Dynamics. Dexterity itself is written in C (with the hope that C would provide platform independence). You can install Dexterity from the Dynamics GP CD #2 and it allows custom pieces to be seamlessly integrated with the Dynamics GP interface.

Features

Native Dexterity Cursors:

Dexterity was designed as a platform-independent programming language. If you want code to be operable on all currently supported Dynamics GP databases, use Dexterity ranges and loops to manipulate the records

Dexterity with SQL Stored Procs:

Currently, most Dynamics GP installations have been moved to MS SQL

Microsoft SQL Server

Microsoft SQL Server is a relational database server, developed by Microsoft: It is a software product whose primary function is to store and retrieve data as requested by other software applications, be it those on the same computer or those running on another computer across a network...

 Server - so you can use Dexterity for custom forms drawing only and make the buttons run SQL stored procedures.

COM Object calls:

Beginning with version 7.0, Dexterity supports COM objects - register them as libraries in Dexterity. Refer to the manual as to how to do this. This technique allows you to call such things as web service

Web service

A Web service is a method of communication between two electronic devices over the web.The W3C defines a "Web service" as "a software system designed to support interoperable machine-to-machine interaction over a network". It has an interface described in a machine-processable format...

s across the internet.

Dynamics GP Alternate Forms:

These are modifications to existing forms – the ones found in DYNAMICS.DIC. The most popular customizations are made on the SOP Entry form. Alternate forms are not recommended by Microsoft as they make version upgrades more difficult. Customization usually has to be redone.

Some restrictions:

Dynamics GP is actually an integration of multiple dictionaries: DYNAMICS.DIC, ADVSECUR.DIC, EXP1493.DIC, etc. In your Dexterity customization you can generally deal with only one dictionary - DYNAMICS.DIC. Integration with other dictionaries is supported but is difficult.

Dynamics GP macros can also be recorded in Dexterity. The ability to handle branches

Branch (computer science)

A branch is sequence of code in a computer program which is conditionally executed depending on whether the flow of control is altered or not . The term can be used when referring to programs in high level languages as well as program written in machine code or assembly language...

does not appear to exist in these macros.