blogs.conchango.com

Whilst surfing this morning I found this website: http://browsershots.org 

"Browsershots makes screenshots of your web design in different browsers. It is a free open-source online service created by Johann C. Rocholl. When you submit your web address, it will be added to the job queue. A number of distributed computers will open your website in their browser. Then they will make screenshots and upload them to the central server here."

Once you've submitted the site, you can view the results as they come in, and download all the screenshots in a single file.  Very neat.

• We've finally got rid of our demons and are now using the 'Iteration Path' to define the hierarchy of Project/Release/Sprint. This means that those ambiguous Sprint numbers are not required, and items on the backlog can easily be moved from one release to another (especially easy with the Excel integration).  It also means that when you 'Add Related Work Item' - the Sprint name is copied to the new work item.
  
  

• We've added support for using User Stories and associated terminology in the backlog, for example you can specify 'Conditions of Acceptance' in the Product Backlog with an estimate in Story Points or Days.
  
• We've added a 'Ready for Test' state to the Sprint Backlog Item to allow for better workflow between developers and QA on the project.  This should minimise the number of bugs/defects that aren't related to tasks for this sprint.
  
• A new work item type 'Bug' is modelled on the Product Backlog Item and allows for capture of bugs/defects that are raised 'out of sprint' - such as those raised by a UAT cycle, or a bug that isn't critical that the Product Owner can help prioritise.  The Bug work item type also allows for input of Replication Steps and other details you would associate with bugs (and of course you can add your own fields to capture more if you desire).
  
• The project portal has been updated, and we allow management of the 'Teams' and 'Environment' lists using this interface.  This means there are no longer any client tools required to setup the project.  The Project Portal now only runs on WSS 3.0 and we've included some WSS 3.0 features such as the Wiki and Team Discussion by default in the template.
  
  

• Backend services have been completely rewritten for efficiency.  We still have the service running to keep the Work Remaining in sync between the Product Backlog Item and its related Sprint Backlog Items, and have added a service that automatically sets Product Backlog Items 'In Progress' when related Sprint Backlog Items are being worked on.

We've selected a subset of the refreshed reports for this early release, including the Sprint and Product Backlog, Product Backlog Composition and Sprint View (aka Sprint Wall). We've also incorporated a large number of community suggestions from our Feature Request forum, and will continue to do so where we have the capability within the platform.

It has been a busy time here at Conchango as we've been making plenty of changes to get Scrum for Team System working on Visual Studio 2008 Team Foundation Server and also incorporating changes driven by community feedback and usage of the plugin on our own development projects.

We should be ready to release after we have tested all the components on the RTM of Visual Studio 2008 Team Foundation Server and Team Suite.

I'll be writing more about the release in the coming weeks but here's a press release, going out today to whet the appetite:

At the Scrum Gathering this week, Conchango is announcing that Scrum for Team System v2.0 Standard Edition will be made available to download free of charge from http://www.scrumforteamsystem.com to coincide with the general availability of Visual Studio Team System 2008.

Community feedback has driven much of the enhancements, which builds on the success of the first version.  The enhancements include:

• A new Release and Sprint model.
• Sophisticated bug resolution workflow.
• Multiple release views of the Product Backlog.
• Day by day Release Burndown report.
• Support for User Story format in the Product Backlog.
• Support for estimates in Story Points or Days in the Product Backlog.
• Improved reporting functionality and performance.
• Compatibility with Visual Studio Team System 2008.
• Compatibility with Windows SharePoint Services 3.0.

We are still working on tasks for release, and will make further information available as soon as the template is released publicly.

I'll hopefully be demoing Scrum for Team System v2.0 at the Agile Development Practices conference in Orlando on December 6th 2007.  Watch this space for more information.

This one comes up frequently in our development teams, especially those who have transitioned a project off VSS and into Team Foundation Server.  The question usually goes something like:

 "Someone has installed VS 2005 + Team Explorer on an existing Windows XP box.  They login using their domain credentials open VS 2005, they have access to TFS via Team Explorer. When every they try to view the source control everything is grayed out?
 
Source Control Explorer has not created an work space but on their Vista machine they have access and an work space, do you know what can be the problem?"

Well, the most likely problem is that their VS is not setup to use Team Foundation Server as the source control plugin.  To resolve this, visit Tools > Options > Source Control and select "Visual Studio Team Foundation Server" from the list.

Visual Studio Rosario August 2007 CTP (including TFS) is available here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=8450EFF5-24AD-44C3-AB91-1ED88EF2F4F0&displaylang=en.  As the installation/setup is not complete, only a VPC is being provided.

Remember you will need a Base image.  If you downloaded any of the Orcas CTP's - you already have it on your machine.  Otherwise get it from here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=8450EFF5-24AD-44C3-AB91-1ED88EF2F4F0&displaylang=en

Downloading the rest of these CTP's can be a tedious task.  Microsoft send all requests through a single hostname: download.microsoft.com - and because of the built-in restriction to 2 connections per server in WinInet, based on the HTTP 1.1 specification - you cannot download more than two of the parts of Rosario at the same time.  The KB article tells you how to increase the limit. 

My preferred way though is to use a port of the unix tool wget (download from: http://pages.interlog.com/~tcharron/wgetwin.html) and provide it the list of URL's.

For convenience, here is the list of URL's for Visual Studio Rosario August CTP:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/e/e/9/ee94ab2d-2093-4a9b-a74c-21c5be4feda4/Aug2007RosarioCTP_TFSVSTS_9PartsTotal.part01.exe
http://download.microsoft.com/download/e/e/9/ee94ab2d-2093-4a9b-a74c-21c5be4feda4/Aug2007RosarioCTP_TFSVSTS_9PartsTotal.part02.rar
http://download.microsoft.com/download/e/e/9/ee94ab2d-2093-4a9b-a74c-21c5be4feda4/Aug2007RosarioCTP_TFSVSTS_9PartsTotal.part03.rar
http://download.microsoft.com/download/e/e/9/ee94ab2d-2093-4a9b-a74c-21c5be4feda4/Aug2007RosarioCTP_TFSVSTS_9PartsTotal.part04.rar
http://download.microsoft.com/download/e/e/9/ee94ab2d-2093-4a9b-a74c-21c5be4feda4/Aug2007RosarioCTP_TFSVSTS_9PartsTotal.part05.rar
http://download.microsoft.com/download/e/e/9/ee94ab2d-2093-4a9b-a74c-21c5be4feda4/Aug2007RosarioCTP_TFSVSTS_9PartsTotal.part06.rar
http://download.microsoft.com/download/e/e/9/ee94ab2d-2093-4a9b-a74c-21c5be4feda4/Aug2007RosarioCTP_TFSVSTS_9PartsTotal.part07.rar
http://download.microsoft.com/download/e/e/9/ee94ab2d-2093-4a9b-a74c-21c5be4feda4/Aug2007RosarioCTP_TFSVSTS_9PartsTotal.part08.rar
http://download.microsoft.com/download/e/e/9/ee94ab2d-2093-4a9b-a74c-21c5be4feda4/Aug2007RosarioCTP_TFSVSTS_9PartsTotal.part09.rar

Simply save the above list into a text file (one URL per line), and use "wget -i <filename>".

There are a few things that slow down development of MSBuild-based solutions with Visual Studio.  Typically MSBuild files are named with .proj, .properties or .targets extensions - so when you drag one of these files into the Visual Studio IDE there is no Intellisense.

To get around this, go to Tools > Options > Text Editor > File Extension - and associate these extensions with the "XML Editor with Encoding".

Working with MSBuild and Source Control (for example Team Foundation Server or VSS) can also be bit problematic.  MSBuild doesn't have a project file like C# (.csproj) and VB.NET (.vbproj) projects do - so typically when you need to edit an MSBuild file you need to navigate into the Source Control Explorer, check out the files you want to work on, make your changes, and then check back in using the Pending Changes window.  This is a little tedious, so on a recent plane journey back to the UK from Houston I set about making a Project Template that will make this slightly easier. 

I started with a C# project and played around with the project file in both the IDE and a text editor until it could support the following:

• Executing an MSBuild script when pressing F5. (typically a per-user setting).
• Having "Build.proj" set as the default file with the correct namespace to get Intellisense support.
• Detecting changes to files in the project and automatically checking out the relevant file so it is a Pending Change.
• Showing all files in the project (typically a per-user setting).
• Finally, for demo purpose, integrating an example "HelloWorld" Custom Task assembly to the default MSBuild file.

The initial feedback I got internally was that it was useful, so I've decided to release the project template. 

Usage is pretty simple, first of all download the project template from here http://www.codeplex.com/MSBuildTemplate, then drop the zip file into your Documents\Visual Studio 2005\Templates\ProjectTemplates folder (don't expand it).  Restart your Visual Studio and create a new project.  You should see the "MSBuild Project" template appear under My Templates:

You can optionally add the file to the Source Control of your choice (e.g. Team Foundation Server):

Here's a screenshot of the default structure with all the new files ready to check-in:

When you are ready to debug changes to your MSBuild file, hit F5 to execute the MSBuild script.

I personally plan to use it for the purpose of speeding up the debugging of an MSBuild custom task (by adding a Class Library project, setting that project as a dependency to my MSBuild file and setting the output of the Class Library to go to the /bin folder of my Build project).  There are a bunch of other uses for it I'm sure... if you can dream up some improvements feel free to leave a comment - contributors to the template are welcome.

One thing Powershell has that MSBuild hasn't is a scripting engine that can access the .NET core libraries directly.  For example, in Powershell you could use the following function to get the current day of the week and assign it to a variable:

$a = (get-date).dayofweek

In the MSBuild world we are restricted to writing a custom task to access the .NET core libraries, but I thought I'd have a go at writing a stepping stone when you just want to access .NET from within MSBuild without having to compile anything.  The result is essentially a fusion of a basic MSBuild custom task and CodeDom technology and the source code is attached. 

Here is a simple example of its usage:

This script simply returns the Day of the Week and assigns it to the $(DynamicCodeResult) property so it could be later used in the script.

I realised I needed to add a way of injecting references into the code so it would compile (for example if I wanted to use the System.Xml namespace).  So I added this support, resulting in the following slightly more sophisticated example:

Simply, this piece of code loops through an RSS feed and pulls out the title of each post.  Note the additional "Using" and "ReferencedAssemblies" attributes on the DynamicCode task.  I'm sure you get the idea. 

I've only supported C# and a return type of string for now from the dynamically executed code but the source is attached so feel free to make some customisations and leave a comment on how you are using it.

Just quickly wanted to post one thing that came up in David R. Williamson's excellent session on Testing with the Visual Studio 2008 toolset at TechEd.

He mentioned there would be a "May 2007 CTP" of Visual Studio 2008 which is from the Beta 2 codeline imminently, with Beta 2 following in late summer so depending on how eager you are to try out the tools look out for these!  I'm sure Brian Harry will have the announcements with the feature list in when it becomes available.