Rosario Preview #2 - Team Build

This is the second post in a series about April CTP of Rosario's.

Team Build System Based on Windows WorkFlow Foundation

The new Team Build system in Rosario built on Windows Workflow Foundation, featuring dynamic build machine allocation from a machine pool and distributed build functionality.

 

New Term - “Build Controller”

In Rosario, Team Build uses an agent/controller architecture where the controller is responsible for managing a pool of agents. Notice the notion of “Tags” which let you define metadata for a build controller/agent. Then you can target your builds at agents/controllers that have a specified tag.

Controller that hosts a build execution is the pool of build machines where the build will run. Additionally, the workflow that comprises your build process will run on both the controller and the agent with coordination activities occurring on the controller.

No doubt, Rosario's Team Build introduce interesting issues especially the support in WF - it seems that most of the problems in the area of custom task(s) can be handled by this issue. I'll check it out and post about it later.

Enjoy!!

Posts about Rosario:

• Download Rosario CTP 12 VPC
• Rosario's page
• Rosario's tag

Team System Web Access 2008 SP1 and Work Item Web Access 2008 CTP's Available

Community Technology Previews (CTP) for Team System Web Access 2008 SP1 and Work Item Web Access has just released by Hakan Eskici and TFS team.

Team System Web Access (TSWA) 2008 SP1 (CTP)

• What's new in TSWA 2008 SP1
• Download the CTP for TSWA 2008 SP1

Work Item Web Access (WIWA) 2008 (CTP)

• What's WIWA?
• Download the CTP for WIWA 2008

Rosario Preview #1 - Exciting Enhancements Of The Version Control

This is the first post in a series I'm writing about Rosario's tidings.

The first taster will be about the new enhancements in the Source Control area.

So, what's new there?

• Editable source location field

 

this enables us to navigate to other place in the tree easier, also copy this location.

• Last checkin column

we don't need to open the history in order to know when the file was checked-in.

• Hyperlinks to local working folders

great feature - click on this link opens the local mapped folder .

• Simplified workspace mappings

  • Now you can  cloak folders from the mappings
  • Mapping a folder from the source control itself without opening the workspace manager.

Map to local folder:

Cloak folder:

 

• A new Add Files to Source Control wizard and support for drag and drop from Windows Explorer to Source Control Explorer

We can add files from the tree and a wizard is opened. The wizard helps us to map a folder if it's not mapped and even exclude items.

 

• Enhanced, non-modal conflict resolution experience, integrated into the pending changes tool window

• New history view that shows labels applied to a file

April 2008 Rosario CTP Available

It's here! You can download it !

Jeff Beehler has just announced:

… that the next Community Technology Preview of Rosario (officially known as Microsoft® Visual Studio® Team System code name “Rosario” April 2008 CTP) is now available.  Customers can immediately begin downloading the VPC images from our download page.

 

Here's a list of walkthroughs broken out by product:

Architecture Edition

• Exploring the existing code structure
• Designing process flow as activities
• Designing user interactions with systems
• Designing system functionality as components
• Visualizing and designing types in systems
• Visualizing and designing interaction sequences in systems

Development Edition

• Simplify Code Analysis rule selection with rule sets
• Find and fix a bug using the historical debugger
• Identify the test impact of code changes
• Find a bug on a separate machine using the standalone debugger

Database Edition

• Building and using an off-line representation of your operational database as a “sandbox” development environment.
• Using Data Generation to custom-build data for testing your database application.
• Making and unit-testing schema and code changes in an off-line environment.
• Performing static code analysis of your programmability objects.

Test Edition

• Planning a testing effort
• Executing manual test cases
• Verify the fix
• Automate a manual test and add validation.

Team Foundation Server

• Managing an Agile schedule
• Easier reporting from Excel
• Managing features with the CMMI Process
• A new Add Files to Source Control wizard and support for drag and drop from Windows Explorer to Source Control Explorer
• An enhanced, non-modal conflict resolution experience, integrated into the pending changes tool window
• A new history view that shows labels applied to a file as well as how changes were merged across branches
• A new automated build system built on Windows Workflow Foundation, featuring dynamic build machine allocation from a machine pool and distributed build functionality
• Rollback for a check in (currently only available at the command line)
• Many Source Control Explorer usability enhancements

Feedback in the form of bugs and suggestions can be submitted via http://connect.microsoft.com/visualstudio. Make sure when you submit issues through Connect that you indicate the product version as being “Visual Studio Team System Code Name “Rosario” (April 2008 CTP)”.

My TechED Talk - Slides AND Demo

Yesterday I had the pleasure of presenting at TechEd Israel 2008. It was a great experience!

My Session went very well, if I do say so myself. I talked about controlling your database lifecycle with data dude.

In any case, if you were in my talk, I'd love to hear your comments (good or bad!) about it so that I can either feel good about it, or get better for next time.

Thanks to everyone that wake up for the talk - it was very well attended despite the time (9:00 AM after the midnight party...).

You can download here slides and demo:

My TechED Session Is Over

Thank you everybody who attended this morning (after last night part) to see my presentation. I hope you enjoyed and feel it open your mind.

Feel free to contact me to ask anything. I'll publish the slides and demos soon.

THANKS!!!

Determine TFS Edition: Full, Workgroup, Trial

What version of TFS do you have? The full edition? Workgroup edition? or maybe Trial edition?

To answer this question, open your registry (Start-->Run-->regedit.exe) and navigate to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\9.0\TeamFoundation\Registration

Note: If you have TFS 2005, replace the 9.0 with 8.0

You will find in this key a value named Edition_CT. This value is a string that indicates the edition you have. (This text equivalent to the encrypted key of the Edition value)

Available values:

• Trial
• Workgroup
• Full (The standard edition)