RadioTFS is going to be doing a series of shows on the new Features in Visual Studio Team System 2010 – In this edition they catch up with Habib and the developer features!

Habib is a Lead Program manager on the VSTS Development group.  His main responsibilities include the Visual Studio debugger, profiler, code coverage and pretty much anything related to troubleshooting and diagnosing applications.  He joined Microsoft in 2000 and has been in Developer Division ever since.  Before joining Microsoft, Habib studied computer science at the Australian National University in Canberra.  While not at work, Habib spends his time playing with robots, shooting hoops or chasing that elusive Yellowfin.  One of his favorite possessions is a Washington state license plate with the label "RUNTIME".

Microsoft has officially named the Visual Studio Team System Code-name ‘Rosario’ suite of tools to “Visual Studio Team System 2010” in an announcement on 29-Sep-2008.  They have also posted information on MSDN and Channel 9.

The 2010 release will be a huge step forward for the tools in the ALM space. The new architect tools look great, the build system will be improved, the tools for project management will (finally) get support for hierarchical structures, test management… The list just goes on and on…

The complete announcement can be found here.

And Brian Harry of course has some more to add about this in this post.

Here are some links to the announcements, feature sets, goodies and articles:

• Microsoft PressPass - Microsoft Unveils Next Version of Visual Studio and .NET Framework
• Brian Harry’s Blog - Shining the Light on Rosario
• MSDN - Visual Studio Team System 2010 Overview
• MSDN - Visual Studio 2010 and the .Net Framework 4.0 Overview
• Channel 9 - Norm Guadagno: Announcing Visual Studio Team System 2010
• Channel 9 - Visual Studio Team System 2010 Week on Channel 9!

Brian Harry also posted also that there would be another CTP this fall.

It was a great honor to host all of you in the meeting.

Our next meeting will be at November 10 2008 – we will talk about Team System extensibility.

You can download Eran’s presentation about Camano from yesterday’s meeting.

Maor

Visual Studio Team System Code Name “Rosario” Test Edition provides new functionality that lets you easily create, manage, edit and run manual tests. Read about manual tests here.

The new Tester Edition is great that address the needs of the UI testers.  This post is a preview of the main features in this edition.

(Click on images to enlarge)

Planning a Testing Effort

Camano is a standalone application that allows users the ability to author, plan and manage a testing effort from a simple UI specialized for displaying test artifacts.  Planning a testing effort gives you the ability to manage your manual testing efforts and report on your progress. By using this functionality, you can create test plans that show what you plan to test for a specified period of time. Also, you can create test configurations that specify the test environments for your tests.

Camano’s main window

Test Case Planning

Test Suite

The manual test cases you create are associated with a specific team project. You can add test steps, validation steps, and parameterized data to the manual test case.

You organize the manual tests into test suites, and then you create a test plan to define which test suites will be run on specific test configurations. You can select the tests you want to run from the test plan.

Executing Manual Test Cases

When you run a manual test, you can optionally make a video recording of the test case. You can add comments, screenshots, and other files as you run the test. If the test fails, you can create a bug. This bug is automatically populated with any of the following information associated with this specific run of the test case:

• Test steps
• Validation data
• System information
• Video recording
• Screenshots
• Log files
• Action log

Because this functionality is integrated with the other parts of the Visual Studio Team System, you can publish the results to your Team Foundation Server.

Automate a manual test & add validation

Suppose we asked to convert the test into a coded UI test that can run in un-attended mode, we can generate the code from the background recording & then adds validation code using Visual Studio:

Create new UI Element

Adding validation code

Related posts:

• Download the VPC.
• Preview #1 - Source Control Features.
• Preview #2 - Team Build
• Preview #3 - Development Edition

In addition to my previous post about influencing on TFS future, the TFS team has just uploaded two of the new Rosario Specifications:

• Organize team queries and my queries using a folder hierarchy and
• Team Foundation Server Bug Submission Portal.

To post feedback or ask questions about these Forums please use the forum located at: Discuss and Provide Feedback Here

1. Resolve Improvements
2. Core Linking Work Item Tracking
3. Send Mail from TFS
4. Add to Source Control
5. Enterprise Team Foundation Server Management
6. History Improvements
7. Improved Label Dialog
8. Organize team queries and my queries using a folder hierarchy
9. Team Foundation Server Bug Submission Portal

BDW, You can taste Rosario here!

The 3rd preview of Rosario’s April 2008 CTP will focus on the Development Edition. This edition has some great features, my favorites are: Historical Debugger, Standalone Debugger and Rule Sets for Code Analysis.

(Click on image to enlarge it)

Historical Debugger

Visual Studio Historical Debugger captures and records what the application does while it is running. When an error occurs, you can quickly find the root cause by investigating the information that was recorded by the Historical Debugger. At any time during debugging, you can go backward and forward in time to determine where an error occurred.

Historical Debugger increases debugging productivity by reducing the time it takes to reproduce and diagnose an error in your code.

Code Analysis with Rule Sets

We are presented with a list of built-in rule sets when we configure Code Analysis. We can either use the minimum recommended rules, or we can select alternative rule sets that relate to our project type. In either case, the rule sets can also be customized to fit your project requirements
For example, you can select a rule set that is suited for scanning code for a publicly available API.

Available Rule Sets

Debugging with the Standalone Debugger

Visual Studio Stand-Alone Debugger is a lightweight, stand-alone debugger that allows you to quickly diagnose problems in development, test, and production environments.

Visual Studio Stand-Alone Debugger (VSSD) does not require setup or configuration, which makes it ideal for situations where it is important to have minimal impact on the environment. In addition, deploying Visual Studio Stand-Alone Debugger is as simple as copying a few files. We can carry Visual Studio Stand-Alone Debugger on a USB thumb drive for “Just-In-Time” troubleshooting….

Creating the Standalone Debugger

Wizard …

This is the wizard’s product - folder which contains the debugger…

And the debugger!!

Once the Standalone Debugger is running, we can click the “Attach: Process” link on the start page to start debugging.

Additionally, the VSSD does not touch the system’s registry. The VSSD uses most of the features that are available in the Visual Studio Debugger.

Summary

The development edition  has several new features, most of them in the area of the debugging and testing. I’m sure that the productivity of the developers and the quality of code will increased.

Enjoy!!

Posts about Rosario:

• Download Rosario CTP 12 VPC
• April 2008 CTP page
• Rosario’s tag

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

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

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)”.

If you interested in influencing the next version of VSTS, the product team has released a new set of specifications for the upcoming release of Visual Studio, code named Rosario. These are provided to the community to allow us the opportunity to provide feedback and thereby helping shape the next release .If you are interested in submitting feedback, visit the public feedback area.

New Specs:

• TFS Bug Submission Portal
• Send Mail from TFS
• Core Linking Work Item Tracking

Previous Specs:

• Add to Source Control
• History Improvements
• Improved Label Dialog
• Resolve Improvements