Team Foundation Server tool dump workspace details

I juggle around with a lot of workspaces. The reason is .NET Compact Framework is consumed in a whole bunch of things like Windows Mobile, Xbox, Zune, Nokia and most of them are on different source branches. On top of this active feature work happens in feature branches and there are other service branches to frequently peek into.

So the net effect is I need to sometime go to different folders and see what it's source control workspace mapping is or I need to dump details of workspaces on other computers and see if I can use that workspace as a template to create a new workspace.

The thing I hate here is to run cd to that folder and do a tf workspace to bring up the GUI and then dismiss the UI. I don't like GUI when things can be done equally well on the console. So I quickly hacked up a tool that dumps workspace details onto the console, something as below

d:\>workspace.exe NETCF\F01
Name:      ABHINAB2_S60
Server:    TfsServer01
Owner:     Abhinaba
Computer:  ABHINAB2

Comment:

Working folders:

Active   $/NetCF/F01/tools     d:\NETCF\F01\tools
Active   $/NetCF/F01/source    d:\NETCF\F01\source

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This tool can be used either to see the mapping of a folder or given a workspace name and owner dump it details. It uses the exact same format as show in the tf workspace UI.

Source

The source and a build binary is linked below. It is a single source file (Program.cs) and you should be able to pull it into any version of Visual Studio and even build it from the command line using CSC

1. Source
   
2. Binary

Using the tool

Build it or use the pre-built binary and edit the .config file to point it to your TFS server and you are all set to go.

Auto generating Code Review Email for TFS

We use a small command line tool called crmail to auto-generate code review email from shelveset. I find the whole process very helpful and thought I'd share the process and the tool (which has some really cool features).

Features

1. Automatic generation of the email from the shelveset details
2. Hyperlinks are put to TFS webaccess so that you can review code from machines without any tools installed, even without source enlistment. Yes it's true!!! The only thing you need is your office's intranet access
3. You can even use a Windows mobile phone :) and even some non MS browsers. Ok I guess I have sold this enuf
4. This is how the email looks like with all the details pointed out
   
5. Effectively you can see the file diff, history, blame (annotate), shelveset details, associated bugs, everything from your browser and best thing is that all of these takes one click each.
   This is how the fill diff looks in the browser
   

Pre-reqs

1. Team System Web Access (TSWA) 2008 power tool installed on your TFS server
2. Outlook installed on the machine on which the email is generated
3. Enlistment and TFS client installed on the machine on which the email is generated
4. For reviewers there is no pre-req other than a browser and email reader.

Dev process

1. The developer creates a shelveset after he is done with his changes. He ensures he fills up all the details including the reviewers email address ; separated
2. He runs the tool with a simple command
   crmail shelvesetname
3. Email gets generated and opened he fills in additional information and fires send
4. Done!!

Reviewers

Ok they just click on the email links. Since mostly these are managers what more do you expect out of them? Real devs will stick with firing up tfpt command line :)

Configuring the tool

1. Download the binaries from here
2. Unzip. Open the crmail.exe.config file and modify the values in it to point to your tfsserver and your code review distribution list (if you do not have one then make it empty)
3. Checkin to some tools folder in your source control so that everyone in your team has access to it

Support

Self help is the best help :), download the sources from here and enjoy. Buck Hodges post on the direct link URLs would help you in case you want to modify the sources to do more.

Woohoo - Rosario November CTP is out...

...and I can finally talk about what I'm working on for the last so many months.

First things first, for more information on Microsoft Visual Studio Team System code name "Rosario" November CTP release head on to Jeff Beehler's blog

A small bullet in the list of features is Manual Test execution. What it means is that you can now record you manual tests and play them back. Yes, it means you have a UI record and playback feature in the Manual Test Runner!! It's not a full fledged UI automation solution for now. It is mainly targeted to speed up manual testing so that the manual tester can zip past the part which she is not interested in testing. E.g. the manual tester can record the login, purchase pages so that she can play them to directly land in the final checkout page and do manual actions/validations on it.

The solution works for web-UI (IE pages) and also has very limited support for Win32 applications.

I work as a part of the team that develops the record and playback (RnP) framework. It's been an excruciating working on a great technology but not being able to publicly talk about it. Thankfully that time has ended :)