30 Dec 2015

VSTS/TFS Feature Index

TFS, Visual Studio Online
While the Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS)/Team Foundation Server (TFS) 2015 Feature Index has been out for a little while now, I’m not sure how many people actually know about it. If you’re somewhat familiar with VSTS/TFS then you are aware that you can use the VSTS/TFS platform to manage your source code, track work items and even run automated builds and deployments. But are you aware of everything else that can be accomplished with VSTS/TFS? You might be surprised!I am not going to detail everything the index covers because there is simply too much. However, here’s a high-level list…
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29 Dec 2015

Personal Access Tokens & VSTS

Visual Studio Online
If you happen to be using Git-based projects in Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS – formerly known as Visual Studio Online) then you might have already encountered Personal Access Tokens – or, PAT, for short. If you are not familiar with PATs in VSTS then read on… :-)As you are already aware, you can sign into VSTS using a Microsoft Account or, if your VSTS account is tied to Azure, an Azure Active Directory account. This approach works great when using the web-based interface for VSTS or when using Microsoft tools such as Visual Studio, both of which provide inherent…
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28 Dec 2015

App Studio–Where’s it at Now?

Development, Visual Studio 2015, Windows 10
Nearly a year and a half ago I wrote about Windows Phone App Studio. In that article, I walk through the basic steps of creating a simple Windows Phone app that uses my blog site RSS feed to list and display articles. Nothing too fancy or even complex but it was enough to show that you could create an app that does “something” relatively easy and have it up and running on your devices very quickly.Fast forward 16 months and Microsoft’s App Studio is now simply, App Studio and is still designated as “Beta”. It is no longer Windows Phone…
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16 Oct 2015

Custom Build Task Permissions in VSO

Team Foundation Build, Visual Studio Online
Following up on my Custom Build Tasks in VSO post I wanted to quickly show how you grant a VSO user permissions to upload build tasks into your VSO account. On Microsoft’s Build Tasks web page, it states that you need to be in the top level Agent Pool Administrators group to manipulate tasks. To view the Agent Pool Administrators: Sign in to your VSO account. Click on the Settings (gear) icon on the upper-right side of the page: Click on Agent pools and then Roles: Notice the Agent Pool Administrators group under Roles. This is NOT the group you…
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25 Jul 2015

Window Layouts in Visual Studio 2015

Visual Studio 2015
One of the many nice new features in Visual Studio 2015 is custom Window Layouts. For example, on a smaller screen, you might want a simple window layout something like this: There is a minimal number of windows in this layout and the ones that are there are fairly narrow. To save this layout as a custom window layout, such as “Small Screen”: Click on the Window menu and then select Save Window Layout. Enter the layout name and click OK. Now let’s create another window layout for larger monitors, such as this one: Notice this layout has more windows…
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24 Jul 2015

Enabling Verbose Output in Team Foundation Build Logs

Team Build, TFS, Visual Studio Online
There are a lot of great new features available in the new Team Foundation Build (formerly knows as Build v.Next) such as version history, web-based build definitions, open source build tasks, and much, much more. However, sometimes you simply want to accomplish something that you’re currently doing with your “old” XAML builds such as setting the logging verbosity to diagnostic. In TFS this was a simple property you could set when queuing a build. However, that property is nowhere to be found in the new Team Foundation Build system. There is, however, a way you can set logging verbosity to…
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23 Jul 2015

Updating Your Team Foundation Build Agents

Team Foundation Build, Visual Studio Online
One of the many improvements with the new version of Team Foundation Build is the ability for the build agents to self-update. This is a HUGE time saver for anyone that has lots of build agents spread across multiple build servers! There are a couple of ways to trigger an update to your build agent(s): The build agent gets updated automatically when a build task demanding a newer version of a build agent is executed. For example, if a task demands the build agent be from sprint 84 or higher (more on that in a moment) and your build agent…
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19 Jul 2015

Team Foundation Build References

TFS 2015, Visual Studio Online
As I’ve been working with the new “vNext” version of Microsoft’s build technology, I’ve collected a few links along the way to some useful resources. You can probably find everyone of these links using your favorite search engine but sometimes it’s nice to be able to see them all in one place. That said, here’s a few links you might find useful… Read All About It If you’re looking to read about the new build system, check out these links: Team Foundation Build (on MSDN) – from here, you can get to information on deploying build agents (on Windows and/or…
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17 Jul 2015

Understanding Pools and Queues in VSO

Visual Studio Online
If you have just started making use of the new builds in Visual Studio Online (VSO), or even if you’ve been using them for a while, you might find the new concept of pools and queues a bit confusing – especially if you are used to the relationship between build controllers and agents in Team Foundation Server 2013 (and earlier) and the limitations that come along with them. It is exactly these limitations (e.g. allowing only a single build controller per project collection) that the pools and queues aim to eliminate. Not only does the new architecture resolve these issues…
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17 Jul 2015

Visual Studio 2015 RTM-Join the Fun!

Events, Visual Studio 2015
As announced last month Visual Studio 2015 will be released (and available for download publically and via MSDN subscriptions) on Monday, July 20th – mere days away! If you would like to learn more about the features being included in Monday’s release then you will want to join Microsoft’s Visual Studio 2015 Final Release Event! You do not need to register for the event, just show up here on July 20th at 3:30pm UTC (10:30am CDT) to watch the online event.   Agenda 10:30 – 12:15 - Keynote: Visual Studio 2015 – Any app, Any developer 12:15 – 12:35 -…
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