Earlier in Dynamics AX 2012, the IDE was called MorphX, which is built as part of the AX Windows client. It includes tools for designing, editing, compiling, and debugging code in Microsoft Dynamics AX. Certain development scenarios, such as SSRS reports and enterprise portal development, required Visual Studio for development. In AX 2012, the development environment was tightly coupled with the runtime environment Application Object Server (AOS) and database. The source code, as well as the compiled code, was stored in the SQL server database as a model store.

The following screenshot shows the MorphX development environment in Dynamics AX 2012:

As shown in the screenshot, on the left, the Application Object Tree (AOT) represents all the metadata and code in the tree structure. You can design forms using the form designer, as shown in the the middle. The code can be written using the code editor, as shown in the right window. On the top, you have all the other tools available in the toolbar.