VS 11: And Microsoft decreed: You shall search..

It seems that Microsoft took some time to “search enable” a lot of the previously “un-searchable” areas. Some of the notable areas include the toolbox, error list, solution navigator (before VS power tools), etc.

For example, on the “Error List” – not that I would ever like to be faced with more than a few lines of errors/warnings, you have the search box present.

You may also notice a “filter” option on the left hand side that comes in handy, allowing you to show errors in the currently open document, all open documents, and the current project.

A nice little feature that some of these searches have is a shortcut key. For example the solution navigator shortcut key is “Ctrl” + “;”. This puts the cursor in the search criteria box and you are A-for-away to start typing your search.

So there has been a distinctive focus on making things searchable. The pièce de résistance in my mind is what I can only consider an attempt to reduce the large number command bars and have commands accessible to the developer when we need them. The Visual Studio team brought in – wait for it - yet another search. This one is a bit different though – it is called a “Quick Launch”.

What this little gem allows you to do is a search across all the commands available in Visual Studio and in your current context (e.g. saving the current open document). No more searching one menu after the other to find a command that is hidden away 2 or 3 levels deep… I think of all the searches this must be the one that will save me the most time.

Until next time…

Visual Studio 11 & .Net 4.5 Beta Imminent

Finally the BETA release for Visual Studio 11 has been announced. I wonder if it is going to be a good or bad omen, releasing it on the 29th !?

In addition to this Brian Harry has also covered an Express version of TFS making it easier for smaller teams to start adopting TFS. This should also make the decision a lot easier for start-ups considering version control systems that will be able to grow with them.

If that was not enough, another BIG bonus is that Visual Studio Express will be able to integrate with TFS!

For a list of links and announcements around this development check this out…

Things are starting to heat up now!!!

Visual Studio vNext or VS 11

I started playing around with TFS 11 and Visual Studio 11 shortly after the announcement of the Developer Preview. Unfortunately (or fortunately) things started getting pretty busy with the business and the time disappeared.
Finally I have been able to polish off some of the posts that I started and will be posting these as time allows. So let’s start at the beginning:

 

Convert Project

The first thing most people do (I’m sure) is to open a solution, and the first difference shows itself. Thinking back, conversion from one version of Visual Studio project file to the next became a “blind” next, next, next operation. The new dialog almost took me by surprise. The standard csproj or vbproj files does not need to be converted (this is actually a feature in VS 11) and the smaller projects that I opened worked fine. Obviously something has changed with the Modelling Project and the Database Project (I’ll get to that in a later post).

 

Solution Navigator Explorer

Once your project files are up to date, the next thing you will notice is that Solution Explorer has changed a bit. Anybody familiar with the “Visual Studio Productivity Power Tools” would recognise this as the “Solution Navigator”.

Finally the “Collapse All” is a standard feature (It took long enough ). Other nice features include the search box, the ability to navigate “into” the file, class and method definitions and the Back and Forward “Navigation” buttons allowing you to “navigate” from one search result to the next.

Welcome 2012

WOW. I woke up and realised that we have officially started 2012.
Now if this is our last year on earth or not, I wish everyone a prosperous and fulfilling year ahead.
Some of the things that I’ll be looking forward to this year:

• Windows 8
• TFS & Visual Studio vNext
• C# 5
• Delving deeper into WP7
• And then scratching around Silverlight 5 as well

Have a good one!
Now to remember to put down 2012 instead of 2011!

Visual Studio and TFS extensibility

I came across this post by David Baliles listing a whole range of add-on’s to TFS and Visual Studio.

Whenever I speak to anyone that will listen I keep on re-emphasising the extensibility of TFS and Visual Studio. It really opens up the potential that lies within the applications, making it available to people and environments that no-one would ever have thought possible.

Together with this there are the people that actually take the time to solve their problems and then make their solutions available to the world. I really commend these individuals for their passion and effort.

David’s list just emphasises the extensibility and the community that surrounds it.
Have a look – it is a really interesting list, I’m sure you may find something that you have been struggling with…

Customising TFS Work Items

Work Items in TFS forms one of the primary “abilities” that Team Foundation Server exposes. A work item is a generic object that you use to record various “things” in TFS. The type, structure and workflow is defined as part of the process template as a work item definition or type. The MSF for CMMI process template has different work item definitions than for example the Scrum template would have. Work item definitions is also the closest that TFS will get to “exposing” or modelling a methodology.

In my business I often get requests to change or adapt work items to include fields that are important to the customer or to alter the workflow to better represent the process that is used internally in the customer’s team.

The work item definition is at its heart an xml schema containing fields, rules, form layout and workflow associated to the specific work item.
If you have a good xml editor you can export the work item definition using the witadmin utility, make your changes and then import it back into TFS using the same tool.

Of course if you don't feel like wading through all those angle brackets you can get hold of the TFS power tools and use the process editor.

After installing the power tools, select “Tools –> Process Editor –> Work Item Types” from the Visual Studio menu. You have the option of importing or exporting work item types (WIT),  editing types directly on the server or locally (using an exported WIT).
Good advice would obviously be to first export a WIT, make changes and then import the changed WIT if you are using a production  instance of TFS.

A note: As mentioned previously, the different types of work items are defined as part of the process template. For example the MSF for Agile template would yield the following work item types:

After selecting a work item the work item editor will open

You are now free to add new fields, change the work item form and alter the workflow.

It is simple enough to change the work item definitions using the process editor but you still need to take note of the following:

• Make sure you know the difference between the a Dimension, Measure and Detail when setting the “Reportable” field
• Make sure that you have a good understanding of, and cover all paths when changing the workflow for the work item
• When customising a work item it is important to remember that if you change the work item definition on a team project, the change will not be reflected on other team projects unless you manually update them. One way to overcome this is to alter the process template and include the changed work item definition in the process template. Next time you create a new team project those changes will be present.

 

Working for yourself…

I have been working for myself for over a year now and looking back I have concluded the following:

1. A pay check is the easiest (legal) money you'll ever make
2. I have never in my life worked so hard for so little
3. I am by far the worst boss I have ever had

Working for yourself is not easy, and is definitely not everybody's “cup of tea”.

Would I consider changing ?
Hhhmmm…..