TFS Auto Shelve - New Visual Studio 2010 / TFS 2010 Extension
- by MikeParks
We've been working with the Visual Studio 2010 SDK and the TFS 2010 SDK a lot recently to create new Visual Studio Extensions. You can find these extensions in the Visual Studio Gallery. If you're a developer/programmer, you should check it out, they have some pretty cool tools out there. I'd be surprised if you told me you went there and couldn't find any tools that could help you.
One of the new extensions Cory and I made is called TFS Auto Shelve. Check out the description and read about it below. If you're interested and you have VS 2010 w/TFS 2010, feel free to try it out and let us know what you think.
You can download it here: http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/080540cb-e35f-4651-b71c-86c73e4a633d
Here's a description and screenshots of what it does:
Automatically shelves the latest version of all pending changes from local TFS workspaces to the TFS Server every "x" number of minutes when solutions are opened.
· Purpose
o Created for Team Foundation Server 2010 and Visual Studio 2010
o This tool is mainly aimed at the Programmer/Developer audience so they can always have the latest copy of their pending changes backed up to the TFS Server while coding
· Functionality
o Menu options become active and automatic shelving begins when a solution that mapped to a TFS Workspace is opened in Visual Studio
o In Tools > TFS Auto Shelve (Running/NotRunning): Automatic shelving can be turned on/off
o In Tools > TFS Auto Shelve Now : Shelve all code can be manually triggered
o Each TFS workspace has its own shelveset which is re-used to save the latest version of pending changes
o Shelvesets are named as Base Name + Workspace Name
o Shelveset comment contains item count
o If there are no pending changes, no shelvesets will be created/updated
o If a solution is opened that is not mapped to a TFS Workspace, menu options are disabled since shelving only works for mapped workspaces.
· Configuration
o In Tools > Options > TFS Auto Shelve Options: Base Name is configurable
o In Tools > Options > TFS Auto Shelve Options: "x" number of minutes is configurable in options
· Logging
o Custom Visual Studio Activity Logging is implemented. If you run into any errors, please startup Visual Studio with the /log switch, re-create the error, then close Visual Studio. You can browse to “%AppData%\Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0\ActivityLog.XML” to view the log. Please feel free to inform us of any errors you see and we can work it out via email.
· Other Helpful Information
o To view shelvesets, open Source Control Explorer, click on File > Source Control > Unshelve Pending Changes
o Workspaces can be modified by opening the Source Control Explorer > Clicking on Workspaces drop down > Click Workspaces… > Click Add / Edit / Removed
Thanks!
- Mike
