TFS & Visual Studio ALM - by Neno Loje

Posters can make complex things easy to remember

Willy-Peter Schaub [1], a fellow VSTS MVP [2], is our "king of Posters" when it comes to visualize complex things from Microsoft recommendation and best practices papers into nice and easy-to-remember posters!

• Microsoft Team System Branching poster [3]
• Microsoft Team System Security Mapping
• Microsoft Team System Single Server Deployment
• Microsoft Team System Source Control
• Microsoft Team System
• Microsoft Team System Process Overview
• Microsoft Team System Source Control
• Microsoft Team System Single Server Install
• Microsoft Team System Security Mapping
• and many more (also not VSTS/TFS-related)

You can download them under Posters at www.drp.co.za [4]  and after you discover all the posters you like you probably won't have any free spot on the wall left. :-)

Happy "Wall-Filling"!

[1] http://dotnet.org.za/willy/default.aspx

[2] https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/communities/mvp.aspx?product=1&competency=Visual+Developer+-+Team+System

[3] http://dotnet.org.za/willy/archive/2007/04/24/0202-microsoft-team-system-branching-poster-beta2-posted-on-www-drp-co-za.aspx

[4] http://www.drp.co.za/Media/Posters/tabid/73/Default.aspx

[Web Tests] Debugging Web Tests

Did you know that you can debug web tests you created with Visual Studio 2005 Team System?

Instructions:

1. Place breakpoints in your ASP.NET code you want to test.
2. Run ASP.NET website (with debug enabled and debugger attached).
3. Run Web Tests (right-click the test project in Solution Explorer: Debug » Create new instance, if it's in the same solution file).

Screenshot:

 
Screenshot: A Web Test during a Debug session

For more detailed information over the debugging of Web Tests take a look at this excellent post by Sean Lumley.

[Tip] Shortcut Key for Pending Changes Window

Can't find a window anymore? That's no problem since you can find all the tool windows in the corresponding menu in Visual Studio.

Looking for Windows in VS

It's under the View menu:

Well, sometimes also unter the View » Other Windows menu:

If it's one of the test windows (Test View, Test Results, Test Manager, Code Coverage Results, Test Runs) you better start looking at Test » Windows (instead of View):

And last but not least there is of course the Window menu. But you can't find your windows here unless there are already open.

Use keyboard shortcuts

Now a quicker solution is to use keyboard shortcuts to tool windows more extensively. In our scenario we want to be able to open the Pending Changes Window.

You can specify or customize keyboard shortcuts in the Tools » Options dialog in Visual Studio:

From the treeview select Keyboard, enter "View.TfsPendingChanges" in the "Show Command containing" text box and the desired shortcut into the Press shortcut keys box (just press the keys you want to map) and finally hit Assign.

In this example I mapped the combination Ctrl + P, Ctrl + C (which stands for Pending Changes) to the View » Pending Changes command.

Note: You should consider to use nother shortcut since Ctrl + P usually maps to File.Print.

Rewarded as MVP for Team System and I became MCTS: TFS

The week starts with two good things for me.

Microsoft rewarded me as MVP for Team System, which I'm very happy about because my MVP collegues are are great and smart community of TFS experts that I am always happy to talk with.

And I passed the beta exam on TFS Configuration & Deployment and may call myself now a Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist.

Congratulations to all the new MVP-collegues as well as the other guys participating in the beta exam. 

Get the free unlimited TeamPlain Web Access license

Wow, now where TeamPlain Web Access is free for all TFS customers [1] you need to 'upgrade' your license to the unlimited license.

The creators - DevBiz - describe the process (which is as easy as downloading a ZIP file and placing it to a specific directory) in their blog at [2].

Enjoy! :-)

-Neno

P.S. BTW: If you've bought TeamPlain Web Access within the past 30 days before the Microsoft you can reclaim the money, but you need to do it asap since it is only a short time offer (see [1]).

[1] http://blogs.msdn.com/bharry/archive/2007/04/02/update-on-devbiz-acquisition.aspx

[2] http://dev.devbiz.com/blogs/teamplain/archive/2007/03/28/unlimited.aspx

stpBA: A Storyboarding solution for Team System

stpsoft ltd., "The Software Requirements Company", created an interesting Visio add-on that let's you storyboard your scenarios withint Visio and post them back into Team Foundation Server.

That's what the producers say:

"Capture, elaborate and validate software requirements in Team System projects, and generate storyboards, specifications, work items and test scripts."

Overview - Team System Edition

Screenshot

Quick Tour - Team System Edition

Installing TFS SP1 in a dual server configuration

Do you want to install the TFS SP1 in a dual server configuration and ask yourself questions like:

• Which would be the correct installation order?
• Do I need the Quiescence patch on both tiers?

The answers are:

1. There is no required order.
2. The Quiescence patch is required on both tiers (before SP1 is installed).

Thanks to Edward Psyk at Microsoft to helping make things clear.