VSTS Web Access for TFS 2008 Updated

MS released a new version of VSTS Web Access.

This release is a Community Technology Preview (CTP) of what will ultimately be the 2008 version of the VSTS Web Access Power Tool.

This release (and the final 2008 release) can be used with either a TFS 2005 or a TFS 2008 server. In either case, you will need to install a TFS 2008 Team Explorer on the machine you install Web Access on.

Since TFS 2005 did not support build queuing, that functionality will not be available when this and future versions of Web Access are used with a 2005 server.

The only things left to do for the Final Web Access Power Tool release for VSTS 2008 are publishing some documentation, producing the localized builds and going through the final release process. The final version will be released about the same time VSTS 2008 is released.

The big advances in this update include:

• Built against the TFS 2008 object model - In previous versions of Web Access you had to install Team Explorer 2005 on any machine you were installing Web Access on. With this version, you will now be installing Team Explorer 2008 instead. In some future version, we hope to remove the requirement to install any version of Team Explorer.
• Custom control support - We've added support for web based work item custom controls and have included a folder of documentation and samples on how to create them.
• Build queuing - We added UI for the new TFS 2008 feature of build queuing. You can start new queued builds and view the build queue (in addition to the preexisting abilities - like viewing build details).
• Localization support - We've added support for localizing the web interface and are preparing to hand off our text to the localization team so they can begin preparing localized versions for the final 2008 Power Tool release.
• Bug fixes & Performance improvements - We've received a number of reports and done more testing ourselves on the last version of the Power Tool that we shipped and we have fixed everything we know of.

VSTS for DB Professionals SR1 Power Tools

VSTS for DB Professionals SR1 Power Tools is now available on MS

The Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Database Professionals Power Tools is a set of enhancements and tools that compliment and improve the user experience of Team Edition for Database Professionals

This release includes 5 new refactoring types, a new dependency viewer, additional data generators and editors, 2 new MSBuild tasks for Schema and Data Compare as well as the introduction of the TSQL Static Code Analysis feature

TSQL Static Code Analysis

• Static Code Analysis - A precursor to the functionality that will be in future versions of VSTS that will allow you to perform Static Code Analysis on T-SQL code.

Refactoring

• “Move Schema” Refactoring - Allows a user to right click on an object and move it to a different but existing schema
• SP Rename Generation - Generate a new script that will contain sp_renames for all rename refactored objects that the user can then execute.
• Wildcard Expansion - Automatically expand the wildcard in a select to the appropriate columns.
• Fully-Qualified Name Support - Automatically inject fully-qualified names when absent in a script
• Refactoring extended to Dataset - Refactor into strongly typed dataset definitions

MSBuild Tasks

• Data / Schema Compare Build Tasks - MSBuild tasks that can generate scripts as if the user had run the Data / Schema compare UI

Schema View

• API Access to Schema View - Insert / Update / Delete to schema View and list schema objects and their associated files

Dependency Tool Window

• Dependency Tree - Show the dependencies ( incoming / outgoing ) for selected schema objects in a new tool window

Miscellaneous Tools

• Script Preprocessor - Expand SQLCMD variables and include files and command line version (sqlspp.exe) & an MSBuild version ( wraps the command line version )

Team System Web Access Power Tool Available!

Team System Web Access Power Tool is released the as the first "official" power tool release of Team System Web Access. It can be downloaded from here.

When Microsoft first acquired DevBiz, they provided v1.0 of TeamPlain for download. Based on customer demand, they uploaded a preview of TeamPlain 2.0. Neither were supported by Microsoft customer support but both were available for download by all TFS licensed users.

With the release of the Team System Web Access Power Tool, several things have changed.

This version is based on the TeamPlain 2.0 code base but a great deal of work has gone into it since March.

Although, it is still not yet an officially released Microsoft product it has taken some great strides, including:

• Microsoft Customer Support Services will now support it.
• The code has been run through the Microsoft release process which is an extensive gauntlet of checks that help ensure quality. Among the more important ones is a security review to make sure the code is not susceptible to attack.
• MS have tested it to a moderate degree (including internally dogfooding it for a couple of months).
• It contains numerous bug fixes beyond what was in the last available download. Some notable ones include:
• Because of dogfooding they have made substantial additional performance improvements - particularly on first page load and work item load and save.
• They have re-branded it as Microsoft Visual Studio Team System Web Access
• They have improved some of the graphics and visuals.
• They removed all of the old licensing code that required separate keys to be entered.
• Improved error logging and added Dr. Watson support so reports of any crashes you experience can be sent to MS for investigation.

It also includes most of the features originally on the TeamPlain 2.0 feature list, including:

General Improvements

• Better, faster and easier with the new Ajax user interface
• Dramatic performance improvements for large team projects with a lot of work items, queries, area paths, and people
• Theme support for the user interface (and a new Olive theme)
• Manage alerts, subscribe to custom alerts
• Home page customizations
• Many dialogs open in their own window now, such as the work item editor, report viewer, file viewer and build results

Work Item Tracking

• Ajax style design to avoid page reloads and to provide live feedback about the status of the work items
• Work item type icons
• Context sensitive menus for work items
• Improved web controls to handle large datasets better
• Improved query editor with grouping
• Edit multiple work items at once (bulk editing)
• Add related work item
• Create copy of a work item
• Send work items and query results as email
• Copy queries between team projects

Build

• There is a new "Build" tab in this release, allowing to manage team builds.
• View the list of builds, and apply filters
• Start a new build
• Monitor build progress live
• View build logs, errors or warnings
• Stop running builds
• Delete a build
• Change the quality of a build

Source Control

• Faster browsing
• Visual Diff for text files
• Annotate (a.k.a. Blame)
• Download the latest or a previous version of a file

Viewing Other Users' Pending Changes in VS

You can always view other users' Pending Changes by Running "tf status /user:* $/ /r" but it's not that neat and appealing to everyone.

Ekobit released a new free VS Add-In that allows you to directly see other users' Pending Changes from withing VS2005.

Check it out!!

Using the List Pending Changes browser is relatively simple. You can access
the browser from the View menu -> Other Windows -> List Pending Changes
menu item. In order to list checked out files you must fill out the Path input
field. Path input field represents the root of your search and it must be in
Visual Studio Team System source control path format (example: $/MyProject).
Beside entering the path manualy you may use the Path field as a combo box and
select the path from the given list of paths.

TFS Work Item Management Outlook Addin

The SRL Team has released an Addin for MS Outlook that connects to TFS.

You can generate a Work Item right from MS Outlook. You can view queries, you can search your work items, you can even generate a work item based on content from an email.

Subject can be mapped to task title, body to description, or any field can by mapped to anything else.

VSTS Add In - Search Work Items

Finally a great Add In that provides keyword search to be searched across all fields in all workitems.

The tool does the search whil giving thought on performance impact and providing a template to reduce such impact.

Check the Search Work Items Add In on Noah Coad's Blog post.

TFS Event Subscription Tool

The Team Alerts dialog lets you subscribe to basic email alerts on a Team Project such as:

• My work items are changed by others.
• Anything is checked in.
• A build status changes.
• A build completes

But the dialog is severely limited; the full richness of the email subscription mechanism in TFS isn't available. To set up advanced subscriptions, you needed to use bissubscribe.exe.

This is problematic, because the command-line syntax is complicated, and also because bissubscribe.exe is only available on the TF Server.

To address this deficiency Naren posted a GUI tool that lets you create Work Item Event Subscriptions in July 2006. The tool was modified later by jatwood so that it supports all event subscriptions, along with a bunch of other enhancements The new Team Foundation Server Event Subscription Tool is up on CodePlex now.

Some examples of subscriptions you might want to create are:

• Email me when any new work item is created.
• Email me when any work item moves to the resolved state.
• Email we when a specific field changes in a work item.
• Email me when someone checks source code into a specific folder.
• Email me when someone overrides a checkin policy.

TFS Power Tools Video

Ed Hintz, development lead on the TFS team, gave a demo of the newly released Team Foundation Server Power Tools v1.2.

Ed demonstrates a new tool for monitoring the status and uptime of TFS as well as a new Process Template Editor for visually customizing work item forms, workflow, and more.

The video is available on Channel 9

TFS Power Tool - Feb 2007

The Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server Power Tool (formerly known as Power Toys) is a set of enhancements, tools and command line utilities that improve the Team Foundation Server user experience.

This release includes two new command-line tools for the developer and three non-command line tools: a set of custom check-in policies, a build test task, and a process template editor. This version (1.2) includes some bug fixes to the Team Foundation Power Tool and adds the following functionality:

• Workspace Command (tfpt.exe) - Use the workspace command for additional workspace operations not supported in the currently shipping Team Foundation Server command line (tf.exe).
• Treeclean Command (tfpt.exe) - Use the treeclean command to see and optionally delete files in the current directory and all sub directories that are not under version control.
• Team System Process Editor - A tool integrated with Visual Studio that provides a convenient method of viewing and customizing process templates. When connected to Team Foundation Server, you can use this tool to customize work item type definitions and global lists on an active project.
• Check-in Policy Pack - A set of handy check-in policies to address needs customers have expressed.
• Build Test Tools Task - A tool that allows running unit tests by simply specifying the DLLs, or by specifying a file name pattern in TfsBuild.proj, instead of using .vsmdi files to specify tests to run.

A great addition to TFS. The Process Editor is really a great addition, you can check it's Forums here.

TeamRM ... Robust Work Item Management Tool

TeamRM, a Visual Studio 2005 plug-in that enables more robust work item management and visualization by allowing the user to create and manage Parent/Child and Link relationships between Team Foundation Work Items is now available in Team System Rocks Files Area. This is a fully functional pre-release version in need of your feedback. Please use the file comments or forum to send them your feedback.

IE Add-In for Submitting Web Bugs to TFS

Check this post (Automatically raise bugs from IE) on the Microsoft Developer Tools UK Sales Team blog for information about an Internet Explorer Add-In Neil Kidd developed for submitting Web Pages bugs with all the necessary accompanying information to TFS.
It can be downloaded from GotDotNet.

I've written an addin for IE to allow users to easily raise a complete bug
report. When the user indicates that there is a problem on the page, the
addin
will create a new Team System Work Item and populate it with the
following
information:

• A screenshot attached to the work item.
• HTML source of the page and any frames and IFrames attached to the work
  item.
• Any style sheets referenced by the page attached to the work item.
• Any script files referenced by the page attached to the work item.
• Details about the user's machine and browser (OS version, browser version,
  screen size, ...).

TFS Admin Tool 1.2 Released

Joe Morel just announced the latest release of TFS Administration Tool 1.2 on his blog, which can be found on CodePlex

This release adds the ability to administer TFS installations configured to use only SSL.

TFS Permission Manager 1.0

Leon, a VSTS MVP developed a TFS Permission Manager that can provide the following features

• Add or remove TFS group membership, Reporting Services role membership and SharePoint role membership.
• Set Server and Project-level permissions.
• Set AreaPath and Source Control permissions.
• Create new TFS users with permissions identical to those of specified existing user.
• Save user permissions as template and use it later to create new or update existing users.

TFS Permission Manager can be downloaded from here

TeamWord, a New TFS Add-In

TeamWord, a new TFS add-in created to allow Work Item tracking integration to Microsoft Word 2003.

Check it out here, and you can download it here.

TeamWord is add-in created with .NET 2.0 for Microsoft Word 2003
to enable users (analytics, programmers, project managers etc.) that
use Microsoft Team Foundation Server for work item tracking to use Word as the
front-end for editing work items. TeamWord allows user to insert work item
directly in an existing document, thus allowing tracking work item status from
the place of their origin.

VSTS Design for Operations Integration Kit

The Visual Studio 2005 Team System Design for Operations Integration Kit furthers Microsoft’s Dynamic Systems Initiative (DSI) by integrating and automating the communication and management of unhandled (non-instrumented) application errors and performance bottlenecks between operations and development for any custom .NET application. With this Integration Kit, application faults and performance bottlenecks automatically generate work items/trouble tickets in Visual Studio 2005 Team System. The result: both operations and application support/development teams have clear insight into the behavior and health of .NET applications in production, better equipping both to quickly identify, isolate, and resolve application issues, and save unnecessary costs.

It can be downloaded from Microsoft Download Site.

Team Foundation Sidekick V1.1

Attrice has released a new version of their Team Foundation Sidekick, a TFS plugin including features as follows:

• The ability to edit build definitions more easily inside Team Explorer
• An option to have the history window track the selection in the Source Control Explorer
• A feature to search for files in the Source Control tree by doing a filename wildcard search

Team Foundation Sidekick is available to download from here.