I am pleased to announce the completion of designing the first training course in TFS 2012 (Team Foundation Server 2012) for Marvel ALM, this course will be the first one for an ALM training track that provided by Marvel ALM, the ALM training track will provide the capabilities and ability to prepare for MCSD|ALM Certificate, this course also will prepare all attendees to understand and start working with ALM using Visual Studio 2012 and TFS 2012 (Team Foundation Server 2012).
Only the first course of the track is available now and we are working on the remaining courses, we expect and hopefully this track to be ready and available at the second quarter of 2013.
About 2401A ALM Using Visual Studio 2012 and TFS 2012
Course Description:
This course is a foundation for Visual Studio and TFS 2012 that helps all team members working efficiently with Microsoft’s Application Lifecycle Management solution based on Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2012, in this course we will go through the real meaning of ALM or Application Lifecycle Management and how the new tool for Team Foundation Server 2012 eliminate the boundaries between Development and Operation, this course also introduce the basics to understand how to work with team project and team project collection, process templates, work item tracking and the basic of customizing them, it also cover, Agile Planning, Version Control, Build Automation, Test Management, Test Automation and many other software best practices.
Course Audience:
This course for all team members, Project Managers, Developers, Testers, DBs, Admin, QA, Business Analyst.
We can use BPA or Best Practices Analyzer for different scenarios, for example, check existing installation to enhance it’s deployment, before upgrade or configure new components of existing environment, it will also help us to gather a lot of information quickly and from one place because it get all the need information from registry, WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation), DB, SharePoint and other components.
Start Best Practices Analyzer (BPA)
Select the check type
Run the scan
The scan completed
Analyze the issues and solve them, get the info that you need to take the needed decision.
Get information from issue in order to to solve it.
Get information from info in order to collect the current configuration and status.
In this series I will start introducing what’s new in Visual Studio 11 and Team Foundation Server 11 ( TFS 11) or as we expect to be Visual Studio 2012 and Team Foundation Server 2012 (TFS 2012)
As you may already know, there are many clients for TFS (Team Foundation Server) like, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Project, Team Web Access, and many other clients including Team Explore. The Team Explorer considered as the primary client for TFS. It is an add-in on Visual Studio 2012 or can be installed as a separate application. There are a lot of change, new and merged features in the new Team Explorer and Visual Studio 2012 ex. the Pending Change Window merged within Team Explorer, also there are new windows added to the Team Explorer, ex. there is a new window called My Work, it just introduced in TFS 2012.
In this post I will try to focus on the Team Explorer itself and delay any explanation and speaking on any new or merged windows on upcoming posts, so any talk about any new or enhanced feature will introduced as an example of the new capabilities of the Team Explorer itself that mostly apply for many other features.
Team Explorer Enhancements
Architecture (Web Based)
Navigation and Extensibility
Work item search
New and Merged Windows
On Demand Data retrieval (paging)
Smart commands and Context driven
Reducing Modality
Performance and Async Operations
Rollback in the UI
The following is a step-by-step video that cover the entire topic.
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1. Architecture (Web Based)
Navigation and Extensibility
Work item search
Navigation and Extensibility
Old Team Explorer
New Team Explorer
The old version of Team Explorer was based on Tree/Nodes architecture which was very limited for new extensions, so whenever any extension or feature needed the only way to add it, is to add new node which makes the tree more complex than expected. In the new version, the architecture is based on web navigation style, the Team Explorer is like a main container that has multiple pages and each page is a container that has multiple sections and each section carry one window with many commands.
There is a navigation bar to go home (main container) at any point of time and also there are back and forward buttons to move between pages and sections as you visit them. This architecture gives Team Explorer richer extensible model, so we can extend it as the following methods:
Add new page to the navigation structure
Add a new section to an existing page
Add a top-level link to the Home page
Add a secondary link beneath an existing top-level item in the Home page
Work item search
There is a work item search that we can search inside the work item no third party tool needed, we expect this feature to be more complex for different release of the Visual Studio and TFS, there are some search syntax that can be found here,Work Item Search Syntax.
2. New and Merged Windows
There are new windows introduced in TFS 2012 and new windows merged to the Team Explorer ex. My Work is a new window introduced in TFS 2012 and Pending Change Window merged in Team Explorer.
3. On Demand Data retrieval (paging)
In the old version of Team Explorer when we open team project we had to wait for all files to be loaded and download like (Reports, SharePoint documents) and so on but in this version of Team Explorer noting will be loaded until you need it’s like the paging concept when we displaying a lot of records, once we requesting the next page it will connect and bring us what we need.
4. Smart commands and Context driven
There are a lot reducing of right click and choose commands by exposing them and being intelligent, ex. the check in policy violation section will not show up if we don’t have violation but if we have? It will show up and appear, so there are a lot of command will not appear if there is no need for them.
5. Reducing Modality
One of the things that we really hate are modal dialog boxes, they show up and don’t let us do anything while they are there. There are a lot of improvements to reduce modality as much as possible ex. The check in pending change will not be modal anymore, so we don’t need to wait for all our files to be checked in so we can start to use our Visual Studio, so now we can use the Visual Studio while the code checked in.
6. Performance and Async Operations
To enhance the performance, Microsoft worked hard to move long-running tasks to background threads wherever possible, also there are a lot of improvement of operations response so we can achieve responsiveness UI, this made by increasing the number of Async Operations that interact with the TFS with the Reducing Modality feature which introduce a very responsive UI.
Old and already Async Operations:
History
Annotate
Source control explorer
New Async Operations:
Checking in
Editing a file
Find shelveset
Sheveset details and changeset details
File compare
Open the work item
7. Rollback in the UI
It’s not part of the Power Tool as a third part library anymore, it now become in the box.
The project settings now also looks different
Summary: Team Explorer one of the major change of the TFS 2012 and there are a lot of new features and enhancements that can’t be cover in one or two posts, as a summary, Team Explorer has different experience with a lot of change so this post just highlight the main and significant changes of the new experience introduced in Team Explorer.
In this post I will describe everything about the Storyboard Authoring Tool or as it is knowing now Storyboard Shapes so let’s see the Agenda, you can also see the following Step-By-Step video for the whole post :
Agenda
Agenda
In this post I will try to answer the following questions:
What is the Storyboard Authoring Tool?
Why use the Storyboard Authoring Tool?
How to use Storyboard Authoring Tool?
A demo on how to create Storyboard with and without Storyboard Authoring Tool.
The main tasks of the Storyboard Authoring Tool are to Build Storyboard and Import Storyboard Shapes to the shapes gallery in the add-in.
So let’s see why we need to use the Storyboard Authoring Tool and why we don’t use the Storyboard GUI.
We didn’t use the GUI for authoring Storyboard shapes because we can’t edit our shapes gallery if we work on another one, I already open a bug on Microsoft Connect about this issue, Nathalie one of the TFS Product Team told me that in the meanwhile I can use Storyboard Authoring Tool (Storyboard Shapes) and they closed the bug as deferred as we can see because they plan to do it, so it’s on their backlog.
To use Storyboard Authoring Tool to create shapes we need:
Create PowerPoint Presentation with specific steps and metadata in the notes
Run Storyboard Authoring Tool Command Line and choose build and give it the PowerPoint Presentation
Produced the .sbsx file that can be imported from the same tool or the GUI if we want
To create shapes using Storyboard Authoring Tool we will do the following:
Create the PowerPoint presentation, we will leave the first slid empty and just put the following metadata in the note
Reference Name: M.RadwanTools
Title: M.Radwan Tools
Type: Category
Expanded: False
Version: 1.0
Remember the reference should not has any space but it’s OK with the title, the type can must be Category because this is the first slid, the Expanded is a Boolean property that represent if we want the library be expended when we open the storyboard shapes or not.
We will create a slid for each shape and enter the following metadata with different values of course.
Reference Name: BlueText
Title: Blue Text
Type: Shape
We can also create a slid for each shape preview and make the type as Shape Thumbnail so it can be displayed in the shapes preview.
Run Storyboard Authoring Tool command line and pass it the presentation to produce .sbsx file
Now you have the .sbsx you can import it from the command line or the GUI as the following:
I’m speaking at Microsoft Startup/Bizspark event, I will talk about Visual Studio 2012 and Team Foundation Server 2012, this talk include how to leverage the Visual Studio tools to help Startup achieve maximum value and continues delivery for their projects.
Startup/Bizspark event
Event ID: 1032529578
Four Seasons Nile Plaza
1089 Corniche El Nile – Garden City
Cairo Egypt
Microsoft Bizspark is a global program that helps software startups realize their plans, projects and ideas by giving them access to tools and connecting them with the right people.You’re cordially invited to the Bizspark MEA Event – and exclusive opportunity for you to share your aspiration and golas and see how Microsoft can support them with empowering tools like Windows Azure, Windows Phone, Windows 8 and Visual Studio.
HandsOnVisualStudio.com is a website that we created based on Brian keller’s Virtual Machine and HOLs. My idea is to take this web site to the next level by:
- Translating the 20 available HOLs to other languages and creating videos and DemoMates to explain them (So far, we have the English and Arabic ones only)
- Creating more HOLs to address extra topics and scenarios like Source Control Features, Team Build, SSDT, GIT Integration, Team Explorer Everywhere, Building Java Projects, Customizing TFS Work Items and Workflows and more)
I’m sure that by teaming up on this we can create 100+ HOLs
Please vote
That’s great idea, Ayman… we really need labs that cover tasks on daily basis, I faced many problems of resistance to change from software companies and teams for adoption of the Visual Studio and TFS because the issues they faced and they don’t know how things work. They don’t want to pay for a lot of consultation
I faced a lot of people don’t want to investigate in the MSDN and read a lot of posts to just know how it works, they just need a video that can address their issue of knowledge in a very direct way.
And here is the problem, most of the existing labs and videos just cover the new features only it’s not cover the issues that the developers, testers or build engineers may face.
I think people need two main things for fast adoption:
• A step-by-Step installation of TFS (Team Foundation Server)
• Hands on Labs documents and Videos for all possible daily tasks
• A step-by-Step installation of TFS (Team Foundation Server):
We already created our first version of TFS installation guide with detailed steps, well-defined screenshots and videos, and we will continue to support and update it.
On the day of the Visual Studio global launch, I enjoyed the event with our MEA ALM Community team, we celebrated together with the launch and we launched our MEA ALM Community website (Hands-On Visual Studio)
Hands-On Visual Studio is a great website that will provide videos, labs and many other things with multi-lingual support, I believe it will become one of the primary resources for developers all over the world in the next years, stay close and tuned there will be update everyday…..
Visual Studio global launch meeting and Hands-On Visual Studio launch too.
Organizations that are able to move forward with velocity on realizing value opportunities through such modernization investments as Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) stand to attain a competitive advantage in the industries they serve. Organizations that are first to realize such opportunities stand to establish ground as domain leaders. We are excited to announce the release of a new Visual Studio 2012 Launch Event, to help you capitalize on this opportunity immediately.
Rise to new opportunities with Visual Studio 2012
Date: 26th of September 2012
Time: 8:30 AM
Place: Four Seasons Nile Plaza – Nile Meeting Room
We hope you’ll join us for this Visual Studio 2012 launch event.
I’m speaking at Microsoft about what’s new in Visual Studio 2012 and Team Foundation Server 2012, if the registration is full, you can join online, waiting for you
Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 is a powerful application development environment that ensures quality code throughout the entire Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) which is a proven set of tools and processes that helps organizations manage the entire lifespan of application development, reduce cycles times, and eliminate waste. ALM integrates different teams, platforms, and activities, enabling a continuous flow of business valueIn this session we will introduce the major new features and improvements in Visual Studio 2012. Expect to see the new enhanced User Interface, Agile Planning Tools, Requirements Gathering Tool, Stakeholder Feedback Tool, Updates to the Developer and Tester Experience, Version Control Improvements, and DevOps Integration.Please join us at the “Development using Microsoft Visual Studio 2012″Date: Monday September 10, 2012
Time: 10:30 AM – 12:30 PM Session: “Development using Microsoft Visual Studio 2012” Speaker: Mohamed Radwan Venue: Microsoft building – Smart VillageNow, you can join the session online through the below links:
Note: please make sure that you are using good internet connection
