A Developer's Life » Software Development, 42, and everything in between

01 Mar 2008

PowerCommands for VS 2008

Add-ins & Extensions, Utilities, Visual Studio

A short while ago I wrote a post about the MSDN Code Gallery. For all intents and purposes I liked what I saw with a few exceptions (nothing major). I even posted a simple Send Email Message snippet just to try it out. Today, I noticed a new post that I think will prove to be very useful to many Visual Studio 2008 users - PowerCommands for Visual Studio 2008. This is a set of extensions for the Visual Studio 2008 IDE that offer various types of functionality, including: Collapse Projects Copy/Paste Class Copy/Paste References (this will be hugely popular…

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…

18 Feb 2008

So, what’s the deal with $, @, and % anyway?

Team Build, Team System, TFS

So, you've decided that the default build script that's built by the "New Build Type" wizard doesn't quite do everything that you need it to do. So, you click on over to the Version Control Explorer, check out the TFSBuild.proj file, and dive in!At first glance, everything looks simple enough, you have various combinations of Targets, Tasks, and Properties. Things start to get a little interesting as you explore the concept of Item Groups. However, you start to notice a subtle difference with how various properties (or at least what look like properties) are accessed - e.g. some begin with…

08 Feb 2008

MSDN Code Gallery

Code Snippet

Although it's been about two weeks since Microsoft launched its new MSDN Code Gallery, I am just now getting around to checking it out. At first glance, it appears there are quite a few similarities between the MSDN Code Gallery and Microsoft's CodePlex site (another open source site provided by Microsoft and hosted on top of Team Foundation Server). So, what are the differences between the two sites? Basically, it boils down to project management: Microsoft's CodePlex site is suited for open source projects requiring some level of project management whereas the MSDN Code Gallery is mainly an on-line repository…

07 Feb 2008

Working with the BuildStep Task

Team Build, Team System, TFS

One of the new convenience tasks added to Team Foundation Build 2008 is the BuildStep task. This task allows you to add custom messages to the build reports created when you run a team build. For example, you may want to display the message "Publishing web site" while your build script is updating some files on a web site. Having the ability to "see" what your build script is currently executing is not only useful but can also be a great debugging tool (the messages are also logged as well as being displayed). The BuildStep task accepts the following parameters:…

06 Feb 2008

10 Reasons for TFS with Small Teams

TFS

Over the past year or two I've read and heard, on multiple occasions, comments along the lines of "our team is not big enough to justify Team Foundation Server" or "we don't have the need for TFS". Contrary to these perceptions, Team Foundation Server can provide a lot of benefits - even for small development teams.Here is a list of ten reasons for using TFS with small development teams (in no particular order):Version Control - no matter how small or big your development team and/or project is, everyone eventually loses source code for one reason or another (e.g. power/network outage,…

05 Feb 2008

Displaying Quality Indicators

Articles, Team System, TFS

A few days ago, I put an article together for Paul Hacker's TFSTimes. The article, Displaying Quality Indicators on your TFS SharePoint Site, discusses usefulness of the Quality Indicators report that ships with Team Foundation Server and how to add it to your project's SharePoint Site. The article also describes how to modify your build types to automatically run all unit tests as well as how to include code coverage statistics with your build. You can read the article on-line here until the next issue is posted. The archived PDF version is available here.

26 Jan 2008

Omaha Team System User Group

Team System, User Group

The first Omaha Team System User Group meeting is, as they say, history! The feature presentation, What's New in VSTS 2008, was presented by Bill Maurer (a Microsoft Developer Technology Specialist). He also covered some of the new features coming in "Rosario". The presentation was very interesting and information and was well received. Our first meeting was held January 22nd and was sponsored by Farm Credit Services of America. It was very well attended with 75 attendees. Our next meeting has not yet been scheduled but I am looking forward to working with fellow Team System enthusiasts in the Omaha…

11 Jan 2008

TFS/MSBuild Sidekicks Updates

Add-ins & Extensions, TFS, Utilities

The Attrice corporation has been hard at work updating their set of Sidekick Utilities for VSTS/TFS 2008 (I know I'm excited!). I've been using these tools for quite some time now and have been waiting for the upgrade ever since we updated to VSTS 2008 a month or so ago. First in line are the Team Foundation Sidekicks which includes the following features: History Sidekick - provides various functionality for viewing the history of items within version control. Status Sidekick - (I use this one a lot) - allows you to search and view pending changes for items based on…

21 Dec 2007

TFS 2008 Power Tools Released

Team System, TFS, Visual Studio

The Team Foundation Server 2008 Power Tools has been released and is available for download here. There are several tools/features included in this release - some new, some old: Team Foundation Power Tool command-line tool (TFPT.EXE) - contains some new commands for configuring Team Explorer connection settings (tweakui) and for destroying Work Items and Work Items Type Definitions (destroyWI, destroyWITD). Process Template Editor - updated for use with Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Foundation Server. It also has several improvements, including: the ability to launch standalone without a Visual Studio installation, performance improvements, improved discoverability and bug fixes. Custom…