New DRB version, Web API and Postman

Two days ago I released Dataverse REST Builder (link) and I received many feedbacks about it, developers inside the Power Platform community found this new tool useful (and as I wrote before it would not exist without CRM REST Builder).

DRB generates Xrm.WebApi and jQuery/XHR code, the goal in my mind is to assist when writing JavaScript code, probably targeting a Model-Driven app. However I am well aware that not everybody works as I do and maybe they will use the tool in a different way.

When I was developing the tool I often checked the official Microsoft documentation regarding Web API (link) to understand some specific options and how the endpoint works but one section I noticed is Use Postman with the Web API. Postman is a tool I personally use but not too much for Dataverse, if I can use C# I prefer the official SDK and for JavaScript Xrm.WebApi is usually enough.

However Postman was a big inspiration, the idea to load/save a collection (and the possibility to create folders and requests at any level) is from there, I can't deny it.

After the first release I checked if it was possible to export a collection created in DRB to Postman, my json data structure holds more data but in a different format, however the generation code for jQuery/XHR is very similar to a Web API call: the url is exactly the same, differences are on how the headers are stored and how the body (for POST and PATCH requests) is written.

After some changes in my code I released the 1.0.0.1 version:

Beside the new "Export as Postman Collection (2.1)" functionality I also fixed a bug inside the "Create" and "Update" requestes for jQuery/XHR code generation.

The Postman collection is structured in a different way from the Microsoft tutorial, there are 4 variables and they are connected to the collection and not to an environment, the Authorization type is OAuth 2.0 and you need to generate a valid token after you imported the collection.

If you use a different authentication method and you think DRB can be expanded to include some settings during the export, open an issue and I will be happy to discuss there, I can't make promises (as this "Export as Postman Collection" is a totally separate functionality) but I am always interested on how people use the application.

The code is separated but some existing functions are still called during this export (for example the $filter clause for Retrieve Multiple is the same) so if something is not working inside Postman will be useful to know if the same problem happens inside Xrm.WebApi/jQuery/XHR or not.