ALM with VS & TFS 2013 - Overview Session - Sri Lanka .Net User Group

I did an overview of ALM with VS & TFS 2013 session @ Sri Lanka .Net User Group today. Crowd seem to be enjoying the details.. :)

It was an awesome experience for me to try out the TFS 2013 & VS 2013 RC. For doing this session got lot of inspiration from

TFS 2013 - Power Tools Now Available

Good news! TFS 2013 Power Tools are available @ http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/f017b10c-02b4-4d6d-9845-58a06545627f and even VS 2005 version control compatibilty (TFS 2013 MSSCCI Provider for VS 2005) is also available @ http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/06c8e056-7f77-4a5c-9b8b-49318c143df8

Still 64 bit version of TFS 2013 MSSCCI Provider for VS2005 not available but will be available sooner @ http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/22d38324-051c-4f04-9379-ff78e7116c8d

If you come across the error
"The Windows Shell Extension component cannot be installed side-by-side with previous versions. In order to continue, you must deselect that feature, or cancel this installation, uninstall the previous Windows Shell Extension, and restart this installation."

while installing TFS 2013 Power Tools you can folow the steps I have specified to get the installation going.

1. Go to control panel -> Uninstall a Program and look for the latest TFS Power Tools version that you have installed. In my case it is TFS 2012 update 2 power tools. Click on change.

2. Select Modify in the wizard

3. Remove Window Shell extension feature and proceed.

4. Now retry installing TFS 2013 Power Tools

7. Reboot your machine.

8. All good and your TFS 2013 Power Tools are good to go with VS 2013 RC

TFS - How to Restore Deleted Files

Have you ever wanted to find a deleted file in TFS and Restore/Undelete it? Is it possible? Yes. It is. Let me show in few quick steps how you can restore a deleted file in TFS using Visual Studio Source Control Explorer.

1. Your VS Source Control Explorer would normally look like below and will not show the deleted files.

2. Go to Tools --> Options in Visual Studio menu and open the options. Select Source Control --> Visual Studio Team Foundation Server and tick the option "Show deleted items in Source Control Explorer" and click OK.

  

3. Now you can see the deleted files appear in Source Control Explorer. Right click on the Folder/File you want to restore and click "Undelete" to get it restored.

TFS 2012 - Build/Release Notes with Community TFS Build Manager

Community TFS Build Manager is really useful add-on to VS 2010/2012/2013 to  create Build/Release Notes automatically.

You can download this free from Visual Studio Gallery  and this project source code can be found here at codeplex if you want to further customize.

Once you install Community TFS Build Manager you can see a new link appear in VS Team Explorer as below.

Launch this tool and select the builds.

Right click on the build which you want to generate a release note, and click on "Experimental Build Note".

Set the necessary information.

Click "Generate" and there you go...

Awesome. Isn't it?

For information on getting the necessary changesets associated to a build see my post TFS 2012 - Get a Release Build With Changesets Associated From a Given Changeset

TFS 2012 - Get a Release Build With Changesets Associated From a Given Changeset

If you have created a new release build definition with TFS for an application that is already in Production (which is deployed to production without a TFS build), you may want to do the next release build with changesets associated from a given changeset (from the last changeset delivered to Production).

To make it clear have a look at below source control history in my demo app. My changeset 87 has already gone into Production. Now I am creating a new TFS release build definition and when I queue a build in this release build I want it to get associated with chagesets 93 to 97.

If  I queue a build with will build for latest sources in the TFS and no changesets get associated to the build.

To get my changesets 93 to 97 associated to build first I need to build for changeset  87. Then I can build for latest solution and it will associate from 93 to 97.

I can specify the changeset to build by advance options "Get Version" when I queue a build like below.

 Now when I queue the build it builds for changeset 87.

Now I queue another build with not specifying a changeset. This will build the latest sources

This build will associate the changesets from 93 to 97 as I expected

 

If it is necessary I can repeat the same steps to do another build from this definition to associate set of changesets that I would like to associate with it.

I will explain how to generate a Build Note with TFS build in my next post.

There are few types of parameters that can be send to "Get Version" of advanced options of queuing build. For details check http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg490833.aspx#VersionSpecs

TFS 2013 - Team Explorer - Undock Pending Changes & Build windows

A much awaited capability to have "Pending Changes" window outside of the Team Explorer, like what we had in VS 2010, is added by MS in TFS 2013 Team Explorer (and in VS 2013). This will be a very good news for the developers who did not like the pending changes inside team explorer in VS 2012. (Including me as a matter of fact).

Cool thing about this is anybody who wants "Pending Changes" inside Team explorer, like in VS 2012, still can have it. People like me can switch it to a separate window.

Let me show you how to do this "Undock" of "Pending Changes" window from team explorer.

1. You can get "Pending Changes" window inside Team Explorer by clicking Pending Changes in Team Explorer Home.

2. Click on the top right hand side arrow as shown below.

3. There you go... now your Pending Changes appear as a separate window, you can dock it in VS as you like and unpin,pin works as all other windows.

4. If you hide it it will appear in the position you dock it in VS. You have the option to dock it back in Team Explorer by clicking the menu option or by closing the Pending Changes window.

5. Same behavior exists for Build explorer window as well.

ALM - Productivity Enhancements - VS 2013 Peek Definition (Enhanced "Go To Definition")

How many time you lost the code segment you were looking at, when try to "Go To Definition" (F12) few time with VS Text Editor (Code Window)? Upcoming VS 2013 going to have a great feature enabling us much more..and a BIG thank must go to MS for giving us this cool..great feature called "Peek Definition" (Alt+F12).

To explain what it is, I am going to use a very simple and doing nothing application. The application contains Class Library and Window Form app which is referring the class library.

Class Library has two classes, Class1 and Class2. The Class1 has a method "GeMgs" calling "GetMessage" method in Class2.

The windows application button click event is calling Class1 "GetMgs" method.

Lets close all other code windows except the code window of Form1 which is having the button click event. Click on GetMsgs method and press "Alt+F12". New feature "Peek Definition" is in action and you can see you current code shifts down and the Class1, "GetMgs" appears in a preview window.

Can we peek definition inside preview window opened? Yes we can. Let's click on "GetMessage" and press "Alt+F12".

Class2 "GetMessage" appears in preview window and you can see navigation buttons also appear in the window.

By clicking navigation buttons you can navigate back and forth.

Great, isn't it?

Awesome !!! The enhanced scroll bar preview, I explained in my previous post, even works inside the Peek Definition preview window.

Amazing thing about this new feature is that we have not gone out of the code segment we were originally in. In this instance we are still in the Form1 button click, and once you hit "ESC" (escape) button Peek Definition preview window will disappear.

Full list of keyboard shortcuts of Peek Definition feature  and more information available at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/vstudio/dn160178%28v=vs.120%29.aspx

Await for more productivity enhancements in VS 2013.. and enjoy coding with VS 2013..

ALM - Productivity Enhancements - VS 2013 Enhanced Scrollbar

Enhanced Scroll bar is simple, but very useful feature included in upcoming VS 2013. Lets have a look what we can do with this.

To enable this feature you can right click on the scroll bar of the text editor -- > Select Scroll Bar Options.

You will get the below window where you can set the options as per your preference.

 

Once you enable Medium or Wide mode you can see the break points, bookmarks and lot of other information.

You can preview the areas of code that is not visible using the preview tool tip option by moving your mouse over the scroll bar.

Once you click on scroll bar you will be navigate to the code you previewed. Still you can see the cursor position in original place you left as in below image.

Once you click on code the cursor position correctly indicated in scroll bar.

Explore more with enabling and disabling options in Scroll Bar Options window... and enjoy VS 2013...