Visual Studio 11 UI Changes Coming…

When Visual Studio 11 Beta was released a few months back there were some drastic changes to the overall user interface (UI) within Visual Studio.  Namely, the UI was pretty much devoid of all color (short of various shades of gray).  Needless to say there was a tremendous amount of feedback provided to Microsoft pleading for a little color in their beloved IDE (as well as fewer ALL CAPS VERBIAGE).

Well, as it turns out, Microsoft has listened to the feedback and have posted some screenshots of the upcoming Visual Studio Release Candidate (RC) release which shows that some color has been added back into the UI.

Here are a few of the screenshots:

There is now less text with ALL CAPS VERBIAGE (although the main menu items are still in ALL CAPS):

The Visual Studio status bar now utilizes color to indicate various states (e.g. Ready, Development, Building, and Debug modes):

You can get all the details on the Visual Studio Blog, here.  I am personally looking forward to the RC release as I have liked what I’ve seen so far.

Team Foundation Service Status

If you are a regular user of the “preview” version of Microsoft’s new Team Foundation Service – a.k.a. “TFSPreview”, then you’re probably aware that the service is currently down for maintenance.  This maintenance outage may have come as a surprise to many of you (it did to me) because there is currently no built-in mechanism to notify users of planned outages.  I would suspect that something will be added in the future to ease this pain.  However, in the meantime, here are a few tips that I have seen over the past hour that you can use now to help keep up to date with TFSPreview maintenance.

• Follow @TFService on twitter
• Follow the Visual Studio Team Foundation Service Preview blog.  To be more proactive, you can:
• Subscribe to e-mail notifications:
  
• Subscribe to the RSS or ATOM feed using your favorite RSS reader.

Team Foundation Service Whitepaper in Beta

The Visual Studio ALM Rangers have shipped another deliverable as part of the ALM Rangers Visual Studio 11 Readiness “Gig” Project – the Team Foundation Service Preview whitepaper.

If you have been following the various developments of Visual Studio 11 and Team Foundation Server 11 then you are already aware that Microsoft now offers a cloud-based solution for TFS – currently referred to as the Team Foundation Service Preview.  Many of the features that are currently available in the “on-premises” version of TFS are also available in the cloud-based version (conversely, there are also some features in the cloud-based version that do not exist in the on-premises version).  Rather than getting into the details of what’s included in the Team Foundation Service, I recommend checking out the newly release Team Foundation Service whitepaper (click here then click on the “ALM Rangers – Visual Studio Team Foundation Service.pdf” link).

The current table of contents include the following topics:

• The Dogfooding Environment at a Glance
• The good, the bad, and the ugly as experienced by ALM Rangers
  • Context
  • What is the ease of acquisition and deployment of Team Foundation Service?
  • How is a distributed work model with multiple companies or remote workers enabled?
  • How is "work from anywhere" enabled?
  • How are ongoing improvements delivered to Team Foundation Service?
  • How does Team Foundation Service handle Identity Management?
  • How should administration of Team Foundation Service be handled in the Enterprise?
  • Why should Team Foundation Service be positioned as a "Centralized Service Delivery" in the Enterprise?
  • When should you choose between Team Foundation Service and On-Premise Deployment of Team
  • Foundation Server?
• References

If you have questions about the Team Foundation Service then this document proves to be a great source of information.

For more information, refer to this post on the Visual Studio ALM + Team Foundation Server Blog.

TFS 11 Power Tools Beta Released

A beta release of the TFS 11 Power Tools has been released.  This release can run side-by-side with the TFS 2010 Power Tools (with some caveats – see below).

The features included with this release are:

TFS 11 Power Tools

• Team Foundation Power Tool Command Line (tfpt.exe)
• Team Explorer Enhancements
• Windows Shell Extensions (*note: depending on which versions of the TFS Power Tools you install (e.g. TFS 2010 or TFS 11 Beta) the last one installed wins – i.e. you can’t have Windows Shell Extensions for both versions)
• Process Template Editor
• Test Attachment Cleaner
• Best Practices Analyzer
• TFS PowerShell Commands

Build Extensions – provides the ability to execute Ant or Maven 2 builds from Team Foundation Server 11 Beta and publish the results of the build along with any associated JUnit test results back to Team Foundation Server.

MSSCCI (32-bit) & MSSCCI (64-bit) - enables integrated use of Team Foundation Version Control with products that do not support Team Explorer integration.

There are a few known issues which Brian Harry has documented in this blog post.

Team Explorer Everywhere (and more) Now Free!

Visual Studio 2010 Team Explorer Everywhere is Microsoft’s Team Explorer client for Eclipse-based environments.  Here is the official description:

Visual Studio Team Explorer Everywhere 2010 helps .NET and Java development teams collaborate across platforms. It provides the tools and plug-ins you need to access Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010 from within Eclipse-based environments, so everyone can work together to achieve business goals.

Up until yesterday, Team Explorer Everywhere was sold as a separate product.  It is now available as a free download.  Keep in mind that although Team Explorer Everywhere is now free, you will still need a Team Foundation Server CAL.  See Visual Studio 2010 and MSDN Licensing for details.

There has also been some changes to how TFS Reporting and accessing TFS from within Microsoft System Center Operations Manager is licensed (i.e. now free).

Check out Brian Harry’s blog for the official announcement and more details.

Visual Studio 11 ALM Beta ALM Rangers Guides

As we are mostly all aware, Microsoft released Visual Studio 11 Beta and Team Foundation Server 11 Beta yesterday morning (see links here).  What you might not realize is that the ALM Rangers released their initial wave of Visual Studio 11 ALM Readiness Guides.

The initial wave includes the release of 10 guides to Microsoft’s CodePlex site:

• Practical Kanban Guide
• Practical Ruck Guide
• Team Foundation Build Customization Guide
• Team Foundation Server Planning Guide
• Team Foundation Server Upgrade Guide
• Test Release Management Guide
• Visual Studio ALM Rangers Personas and Scenarios
• Visual Studio Architecture Tooling Guide
• Visual Studio Lab Management Guide
• VM Factory Guide

There are also nine other guides on deck for being delivered in the near future:

• Branching and Merging Guide
• Microsoft Test Manager Guide
• Requirements Engineering Guide
• Team Foundation Build Customization Guide
• Team Foundation Server Process Template Customization Guide
• Team Foundation Service Practical Guide
• Visual Studio Coded UI Microsoft Word Plug-in
• Visual Studio Coded UI Test Automation Guide
• Visual Studio Quick Reference Guide

For the full details, refer to the post Welcome to Visual Studio 11 ALM Rangers Readiness Beta “Wave” on the Visual Studio ALM + Team Foundation Server blog.

Windows 8 Beta and Visual Studio 11 Beta Quick Links

If you haven't yet downloaded the Windows 8 Beta or Visual Studio 11 Beta, a list of links are provided below for convenience.  If there is anything missing (from the February 29th beta wave release), please leave a comment below and we'll get it added to the list.

Windows 8

• Windows 8 Consumer Preview
• Windows 8 Server Beta - must register to download

Visual Studio 11 Beta

Download - this link works for the following product downloads:

.NET

• .NET Framework 4.5 Beta

Visual Studio

• Visual Studio 11 Ultimate Beta
• Visual Studio 11 Premium Beta
• Visual Studio 11 Professional Beta
• Visual Studio 11 Test Professional Beta
• Visual Studio 11 Express Beta for Web
• Visual Studio 11 Express Beta for Windows 8
• IntelliTrace Collector for Visual Studio 11 Beta
• Agents for Visual Studio 11 Beta
• Feedback Client for Visual Studio 11 Beta
• Remote Tools for Visual Studio 11 Beta
• Visual Studio 11 Beta Shell
• Visual Studio 11 Beta SDK

Team Foundation Server

• Team Foundation Server Beta
• Team Foundation Server Express Beta
• Team Explorer Beta
• Team Explorer Everywhere Beta

Getting Help - To help with any questions you might have, please refer to the following:

• Visual Studio 11 Beta Forums - get answers to your questions from the community
• Visual Studio 11 Beta Documentation - includes walkthroughs, samples, training kits, etc.

Providing Feedback - To provide feedback (bugs, suggestions, etc.) for any of the Visual Studio 11 Beta products, utilize the corresponding Connect site:

• Visual Studio
• LightSwitch
• Blend

Useful Tools from MVP2MVP Day

Although the 2012 MVP Global Summit officially kicks off tomorrow, there were still plenty of Microsoft MVPs around today for various pre-sessions.  In my case, I joined the other Visual Studio ALM MVPs present for this year’s MVP2MVP day – a day where Visual Studio ALM MVPs are given 20 minutes to get up and present on various tips, tricks, neat projects, etc. to the rest of the group with the goal of sharing knowledge and learning new things.  There was a lot of useful information at this year’s MVP2MVP day so I thought I’d share a few of the tools that were brought up today (in no particular order).

• DemoMate – this is a neat utility that allows you to build automated presentations (so to speak).  For example, you can build click-through demos, guided tutorials, etc.  The final results can be published in varying formats (including the web).  You can find out more here or watch a demo here.
  
  
• Snoop – Snoop is a WPF spy utility that allows you to “spy/browse the visual tree and change properties... amongst other things.”  Snoop was utilized during one of today’s demos to provide enhanced features for Coded UI Tests (i.e. provide the ability to inspect properties of objects not normally exposed).
  
  
• TFS Event Workflows – TFS Event Workflows allow you to define workflows based on Microsoft’s Workflow foundation which then will be executed on specific events triggered by your Team Foundation Server.  This is very helpful to implement scenarios like:
  • Aggregate status and/or efforts over your work item hierarchy
  • Trigger deployment when you change the Build Quality of a build
  • Implement advanced notification scenarios which cannot be achieved by TFS Alerts
  • Change status of a work item based on different rules (e.g. set to “In Progress” if the Assigned To field is filled)
  • Fill work item fields based on calculations or other complex operations you cannot build with work item rules
  • Trigger synchronization with external systems if a work item has been changed
  • Etc.
    
    
• TFS Tools Suite – Fellow MVP, Neno Loje, demonstrated a suite of command-line utilities developed to aid in all sorts of situations for TFS.  Some of the utilities include:
  • PingTFS – used to ping a TFS server to determine if it is up and running
  • TfsExport – downloads files from TFS version control and sets the file’s last access timestamp to the file's last check-in date/time
  • TfsRefreshWarehouse – used to refresh the TFS Warehouse, Cube and Reports on demand
  • TfsSyncIdentities – forces TFS to sync with Active Directory
  • TfsWarehouseController – used to change the update frequency of the TFS warehouse/cube
  • Lots of others… to see the full list of utilities, check out this post
    
    
• git-tfs - git-tfs is a two-way bridge between TFS and git, similar to git-svn.  If you prefer using a “git-like” command-line interface or are looking for a DVCS solution that will work with Team Foundation Server, then you will want to check this tool out.  Take a look at this blog post to get some great information on how to get started.
  
  
• TeamCompanion – this is a commercial (i.e. non-free) utility that provides the ability to interact with Team Foundation Server from within Microsoft Outlook.  TeamCompanion “…empowers various project stakeholders, particularly business ones, to work on TFS based projects, using the one tool they use for the most of their daily tasks.”

There was a lot more information covered today than is listed here but these are some of the highlights.  If you have a favorite TFS-related utility feel free to list it in the comments section.

Comparing Visual Studio 2010 and Visual Studio 11 Beta Editions

Yesterday, Microsoft announced that the Visual Studio 11 Beta would be available on February 29th.  I expect there to be a lot of information coming out over the next few weeks (and months) covering the various features in the updated tools.

If you are curious about what’s included in each of the Visual Studio 11 beta editions, then take a look at the Visual Studio 11 Features Chart provided by Microsoft:

If you would like to compare the above features with Visual Studio 2010, then check out the Visual Studio 2010 Comparison chart:

The following list summarizes most of the differences between the 2010 and Beta editions (it’s not a complete comparison).  Keep in mind that Visual Studio 11 is still in beta so the features could potentially move around a bit by the time the final version ships:

• Debugging and Diagnostics
  • New in VS 11: IntelliTrace in Production
  • New in VS 11: Graphics Debugging
  • New in VS 11: Advanced Web Debugging
  • Modified: Static Code Analysis now available for Professional SKU
  • New in VS 11: Windows 8 Metro Style Simulator
  • Modified: Profiling now available for Professional SKU
  • New in VS 11: Windows Phone 7 Emulator (available as add-on in VS 2010)
• Testing Tools
  • Modified: Manual Testing is now available for Premium SKU
  • New in VS 11: Exploratory Testing
  • Modified: Test Case Management is now available for Premium SKU
  • Modified: Fast Forward for Manual Testing is now available for Premium SKU
  • Modified: Lab Management is now available for Premium SKU
  • New in VS 11: Extensible Testing Framework
• Integrated Development Environment
  • New in VS 11: Code Clone
  • New in VS 11: LightSwitch
  • New in VS 11: Model Resource Viewer
  • New in VS 11: Blend for Visual Studio
  • New in VS 11: Project & Solution Compatibility with Visual Studio 2010 SP1
• Database Development
  • Not currently document for Visual Studio 11 Beta
• Development Platform Support
  • New in VS 11: Windows Metro style Application (including ARM) Development
• Architecture and Modeling
  • New in VS 11: Progressive Reveal & Standard Graphs
  • Modified: Read-Only Diagrams (UML, Layer, and DGML Graphs) is now available for Professional SKU
• Lab Management
  • Modified: Virtual Environment Setup & Tear Down is now available for Premium SKU
  • Modified: Provision Environment for Template is now available for Premium SKU
  • Modified: Checkpoint Environment is now available for Premium SKU
• Team Foundation Server
  • New in VS 11: Backlog Management
  • New in VS 11: Sprint Planning
  • New in VS 11: Agile Task boards
  • New in VS 11: Exception Analytics
  • New in VS 11: Project & Server integration
  • New in VS 11: System Center Integration
• Collaboration
  • New in VS 11: PowerPoint Storyboarding
  • New in VS 11: Feedback Manager
  • New in VS 11: Code Review
  • New in VS 11: Task Suspend/Resume

Visual Studio/TFS 11 Beta Coming Next Week

It has been roughly five months since Microsoft released a Developer Preview version of Visual Studio 11 along with the Developer Preview of Windows 8.  Today, Microsoft has announced that they will be releasing the beta version of Visual Studio 11, as well as the .NET Framework 4.5, next week on February 29th (the same day the Windows 8 Consumer Preview – a.k.a. beta is to be released).

Some of the quick highlights include:

• TFS Express.  With the release of TFS 11, there will be a new “TFS Express” SKU that will be free for 1 to 5 users.  TFS Express has some limitations (e.g. no SharePoint or SQL Server Reporting Services integration) but getting the features of TFS for FREE is a huge win for small teams.
  
  
• Visual Studio Express & TFS – going along with the above announcement, the Visual Studio 11 Express SKU will be updated to include support for TFS (i.e. the Team Explorer client can be utilized from within Visual Studio 11 Express).  Another huge win for small teams.
  
  
• A more “Metro-fied” Visual Studio IDE – although I am not sure Microsoft would officially call the new Visual Studio 11 IDE a “Metro” application, you can definitely see the similarities between the two.  For example, the colors within the IDE (with the exception of the code/text editor) have been modified to a more monochromatic set of (light or dark) themes (the colors can still be modified based on your personal taste).  The various icons have also been replaced with “glyphs” – basically “flattened” versions of icons that have a very Metro feel to them.  Microsoft has also spent a lot of effort reducing less-used toolbar items as well as simplifying the lines used within the various dialogs.  Overall, the new IDE looks quite a bit different and I’m not sure yet if I will like it or not.  However, I am anxious to find out.  Here is an example screenshot using the light theme:
  
  
  
  
• Go Live License – the beta release includes a Go Live license allowing you to use the beta tools within a production environment, if desired.

The above highlights don’t even begin to scratch the surface of what’s included in Visual Studio 11/TFS 11.  Expect a lot more information regarding the beta release to become available over the coming weeks.  For now, you can view the following posts for more details:

• http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jasonz/archive/2012/02/23/sneak-preview-of-visual-studio-11-and-net-framework-4-5-beta.aspx
• http://blogs.msdn.com/b/somasegar/archive/2012/02/23/the-road-to-visual-studio-11-beta-and-net-4-5-beta.aspx
• http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudio/archive/2012/02/23/introducing-the-new-developer-experience.aspx
• http://blogs.msdn.com/b/bharry/archive/2012/02/23/coming-soon-tfs-express.aspx