24 Jul 2008

DelayedBuildTask

Team Build, Team System, TFS, TFS API
A few days ago a fellow co-worker asked me if I could create a simple build task that would allow anyone on their team the opportunity to cancel a build, once it has been queued, before the build actually did anything.  The idea was simple: A new build gets queued. The build sends out an e-mail notification (via a custom task) informing the recipients that a new build has been queued.  The e-mail message also has a link that, when clicked, will cancel the build. The build waits a pre-determined amount of time (e.g. 5 minutes) giving the e-mail recipients…
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16 Jul 2008

TFS Power Tools – July 2008 Release

Team System, TFS, Utilities
The July 2008 release of the Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Foundation Server Power Tools has just been released.  Here is a summarized list of what is included with the tools: Command line tool (TFPT.EXE) Team Explorer IDE menu additions Build Notification tool TFS Best Practices Analyzer Process Template Editor Work Item Templates Custom check-in policies TFS Server Manager TFS Users tool Alert Editor One of the more exciting changes, from my point of view, is the new user interface for managing TFS Alerts.  It is going to be nice having this capability available directly from within the IDE.…
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16 Jul 2008

Cleaning Up Old Team Projects

Team System, TFS, TFS API, Utilities
A few days ago a co-worker sent out an e-mail asking if any of several team projects were still in use; if not, then they would be removed from Team Foundation Server. Looking at the list it was easy enough to recognize a few active projects but others would take more investigation.  After sending my feedback I thought a custom utility might be helpful in the future for the next round of potential deletion candidates.  So, I decided to put the TFS Object Model (TFSOM) to use and created TFSunset (see screen shot below). TFSunset uses the TFSOM to query…
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30 Jun 2008

Creating Team Build Types

Code Snippet, Team Build, Team System, TFS, TFS API
I was answering a question related to programmatically creating team build types today and realized there weren’t too many examples on the web.  I didn’t see any examples that included all the details I was looking for – for example: Adding the solution to be built to the new build type Turning on/off test execution Turning on/off code analysis An example containing these details may exist, I just didn’t come across it during my initial search. So, with that said, I decided to post the main part of the example application I put together to test out some concepts.  The…
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18 Jun 2008

TFSExamples.com – A New Site

Team System, TFS, TFS API
As of late, I’ve started working on several Team Foundation Server API-based examples (some of which are starting to show up as blog postings).  Although the Team Foundation Server SDK does include some examples, it’s not always easy to locate the example you need (assuming it’s even there).  There are several blogs containing various TFS API examples, but again, the full details may be spread across several postings or even separate sites. Several months ago, Grant Holliday created the TFSBuild.com site dedicated to MSBuild and Team Foundation Build recipes.  I decided to take a similar approach and registered the site…
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15 Jun 2008

Display Connect to Team Foundation Server Dialog

Team System, TFS, TFS API
Over the past few days I’ve been working on a simple TFS utility that will provide the ability to import and/or export Areas and Iterations.  The overall intent of this exercise is not only to reinvent the wheel but to also gain some experience in writing Visual Studio Add-ins.  At the same time, I am planning on posting “interesting” tidbits of code along the way. Currently, I am still in the phase of writing the utility (it will first be a standalone utility and later, a Visual Studio Add-in) and had the desire to display the Connect to Team Foundation…
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10 Jun 2008

Retrieving Areas from TFS

Team System, TFS, TFS API
As a matter of self-inflicted education I’ve decided to create a simple Visual Studio Add-In for exporting and importing Areas and Iterations.  I’m not sure how much practical use such a utility will receive but it offers several areas for advancing my knowledge and, hopefully, helping a few other people out along the way. Although I haven’t completed the utility yet, I have completed some of the initial utility code.  I thought I would create a few posts as I progress in case anyone can make use of the examples.  For this post, I am posting the code used to…
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28 May 2008

Omaha Team System User Group

Team Build, TFS, User Group
Well, the 2nd Omaha Team System User Group meeting is, as they say, in the books!  We had a great turnout with about 25 attendees that showed up to listen to Mike Douglas speak about TFS build automation and the coolness factor of incorporating (authentic) stoplights into the build process. Mike also demonstrated his latest CodePlex contribution - Team Deploy.  Team Deploy is a set of custom MSBuild tasks that provide functionality for deploying MSI files as well as controlling X10 devices (e.g. stoplights, lava lamps, etc.).  Some of the tasks included are: Install Task - installs an MSI on…
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15 May 2008

VS 2008 & .NET 3.5 SP1 Beta

TFS, Visual Studio
The beta release of Service Pack 1 for Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5 is now available for download.  There are a ton of changes in this update.  Some of the high-level changes include: Performance improvements for WPF-based applications (with no code changes) Improved designers for building WPF applications (can't wait to see this!) Full support for SQL Server 2008 The introduction of the ADO.NET Entity Designer (very cool!) Improvements to Team Foundation Server Improvements for web development Improvements to the C# and VB.NET experience in the IDE For example, one of the interesting improvements on the client side…
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01 Mar 2008

TFS 2008 Setup/Admin FAQ

Team System, TFS
A new forum post has been added to the Team Foundation Server - Setup forum titled TFS 2008 Setup and Administration FAQs.  The intent of this forum post is to deliver commonly asked questions and answers relating to the setup, configuration, and administration of Team Foundation Server 2008.  The post has been "pinned" to the top of the forum so it's easy to find. Here is a list of questions that are answered in the post as of the time of this writing: When installing a new Team Foundation Server, is there a way to use an existing SharePoint Web…
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