TFS Collaboration Providers

Team Foundation Server Collaboration Providers is a new CodePlex Project that targets Community Contribution for Collaboration providers for different IM and VoIP integration as the TFS 2008 Power Tools enables rich integration with other team members via IM and VoIP chat.

The Power Tools integrates with Live Communicator and Windows Live Messenger Out of the Box.

Skype Provider Initial version is now available as the first Collaboration Provider in the project with more to come ...

VSTS 2008 TFS Power Tools - October 2008 Release

The TFS Power Tools October 2008 Release is now available for download on Microsoft Download Center

New in the October Release

Team Members (NEW!)

• Adds a new node under each Team Project to the Team Explorer called "Team Members" that identifies people who work on the project.
• Serves as a "pivot point" for information about and operations on people and teams.

Windows Shell Extension (NEW!)

• Allows core version control operations within Windows Explorer without using Team Explorer.

PowerShell Support (NEW!)

• Provides a PowerShell pipeline and cmdlets for TFS. Initial support is for basic version control operations.

TFPT (Updated)

• tfpt searchcs - the Search Changesets Power Tool brings up a dialog from which the user can search for changesets that match specific combination of criteria including server path, committed date range, committed user, check-in comments and check-in notes.
• tfpt unshelve /undo - finds all pending changes in your workspace that match the changes in the shelveset and undoes them (including deleting the local files for pending adds).

Team System Web Access 2008 SP1 Power Tool Released

A new release of the Team System Web Access Power Tools have been released on Microsoft Donwload Center.

New With Service Pack 1

• Work item only view for users without a client access license. [Previously known as Work Item Web Access (WIWA) feature]
• Run a single instance with multiple languages (CHS, CHT, DEU, ENU, ESN, FRA, ITA, JPN, KOR, RUS).
• Create work items with initial values by using a URL.
• Share ad-hoc work item queries by using a URL.
• Find and view Shelvesets.
• Improved work item search syntax.

Features in Team System Web Access

• Direct links to work items, query results, diffs, changesets and more.
• Display custom controls on work item forms.
• View queued or completed builds, queue or stop builds.
• Add new work items or edit existing ones.
• Work with any type of work item, including custom ones.
• Add new work item queries or edit existing ones.
• View, download, upload, check-in and check-out documents on SharePoint team portal.
• View reports, export as PDF or Excel.
• Browse items in version control, download source files, view changesets, diffs, history, and annotated views.
• Search for keywords in work items.

Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Foundation Server Power Tools

Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Foundation Server Power Tools is a set of enhancements, tools and command-line utilities that improve the Team Foundation Server user experience. It can be found on MSDN

New in this Release

• Find in Source Control tool is an addition to the Team Explorer menu that provides the ability to locate files and folders in source control by the item’s status or with a wildcard expression.
• Open a selected folder in Windows Explorer straight from Team Explorer. This feature allows you to jump straight to the mapped folder location from within Source Control Explorer.
• Quick Label feature that allows labels to be easily applied to a given selection of files and folders in the Source Control Explorer.
• Build Notification tool that runs in the Windows task bar notification area monitoring the status of the build definitions you have specified. It can be configured to show notifications when builds are queued, started, or completed for multiple build definitions spanning multiple Team Foundation Servers.
• Additional TFPT.EXE commands for configuring Team Explorer connection settings (tweakui) and for destroying Work Items and Work Items Type Definitions (destroyWI, destroyWITD).
• Updates to the TFS Best Practices Analyzer for use with a Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Foundation Server deployment.
• The Process Template Editor is updated for use with Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Foundation Server. It also has several improvements, including: the ability to launch standalone w/o a Visual Studio installation, performance improvements, improved discoverability and bug fixes.
• Bug fixes and removal of Power Tools that are now included within Team Foundation Server:
• Annotate and Treedif are now included in Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Explorer; however, Annotate remains is still available in the command-line tool (TFPT.EXE).
• TestToolsTask is included in Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Foundation Server as part of Team Foundation Build.

Visual Studio Team System Web Access 2008 Power Tool

Visual Studio Team System Web Access 2008 Power Tool is available to download from MS Downloads

Team System Web Access is a free download that will be incorporated into a future release of Visual Studio Team System. You may install it with licensed installations of Team Foundation Server. You must be a licensed user of Team Foundation Server to access Team System Web Access.

Features

• NEW: Direct links to work items, query results, diffs, change sets and more
• NEW: Display custom controls on work item forms
• NEW: View queued builds new, queue new builds
• Add new work items or edit existing ones
• Work with any type of work item, including custom ones
• Add new work item queries or edit existing ones
• View, download, upload, check-in and check-out documents on SharePoint team portal
• View reports, export as PDF or Excel
• Browse source control repositories, download files, view changesets, diffs, histories, and annotated views
• View build results, start or stop builds
• Search for keywords in work items

TFS 2008 Power Tools

According to Brian Harry below is the TFS2008 Power Tools Plan.

The week of 11/26

VSTS Web Access - They released a CTP that is compatible with the TFS 2008 object model a couple of months ago. This build will continue to work against the TFS 2008 RTM. Next week they will release a "final" TFS 2008 compatible TSWA. In addition to the bug fixes done, it also includes:

• A set of easily accessible urls to various information - work items, queries, file history, etc. for easy linking from other applications
• New custom control samples
• More efficient memory management
• Documentation
• And they are now set up to start producing localized versions (although they will come out over the next couple of months).

Mid December
MSSCCI Provider - They've updated the MSSCCI provider (that enables TFS access from VS 2003, VS 2002, VS 6 and a host of other IDEs) to use the TFS 2008 object model. In the process they've fixed as many bugs that have been reported as they could. The updated MSSCCI provider will be available in Mid-Dec.

TFS Power Tools - The main TFS Power tools package will be released in mid-Dec. They are currently shooting for the week of the 17th. It will be compiled against the new TFS 2008 object model and all of the VS addins will work against the VS 2008 IDE.
Note, the add-ins will not work against the VS 2005 IDE - in September, they shipped the final version of the Power Tools that target VS 2005.
From here forward, all Power Tool releases will target the VS 2008 client or later. Of course, keeping consistent with our TFS 2008 compatibility goals, the old and the new Power Tools will both work against either a TFS 2005 or a TFS 2008 server. So you can continue to use the Power Tools that are compatible with your IDE against whatever version of the server that you have.
In addition to VS 2008 IDE compatibility, this new Power Tool release includes:

• Build Notification Tray app - They're releasing their first Power Tool version of the build notification tray app. This tool allows you to monitor the current status of automated builds easily. You can be notified immediately when a build fails (or succeeds even) so that you can address it promptly.
• Process Template Editor - They've made bug fixes and small improvements to the Process Template Editor that include:
  - Making it more discoverable by moving it to the VS Tools menu
  - Substantially improved the performance - particularly when there are many states
  - Fixes for all of the serious bugs that users have reported.
• Best Practices Analyzer - The Best Practices Analyzer is a tool we first released in September that is designed to help diagnose problems with TFS installation and help you quickly correct them. In this Power Tools release, we have updated it to support TFS 2008 and the wide array of addition configurations that TFS 2008 supports.
• WI & WIT Destroy - We have added support to the tfpt command line to enable permanent deletion of work items and work item types. We added server side support for it in TFS 2008 but did not have time to get the client side support done. So until that makes it into an official release, that support will live in the Power Tools.