Team System: TFS Sticky Buddy

Live Framework

Martin Hinshelwood — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 14:12:22 GMT

I have been getting very interested in the new Azure Services Platform and how I can use it to facilitate WPF development.

Imagine being able to launch a ClickOnce application from anywhere and for it to have exactly the same configuration and settings in all locations, or imagine being able to chat with other users of the application while you are using it.

This things have been relegated to large companies who can afford to support the infrastructure that you would need to run this. In fact, the only industry that I can think of that currently does this with applications is the Gaming industry. If you look at the capabilities of Xbox Live and think of all the cool things your users could achieve if the same communication and collaboration tools were available within even the simplest application.

For example, if I was to think of a couple of simple things that I would like the TFS Sticky Buddy to be able to do:

Central storage for configuration (single setup across multiple computers)
Chat with members of your team to be identified by linking your Team System login and email with you Live ID.
Presence information on those team members, or anyone you might need to interact with.

Coool…..

Technorati Tags: Windows Azure,Live Services,.NET Services,SQL Services

Least opportune time.

Martin Hinshelwood — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 14:43:55 GMT

Here I am slogging my guts out, trying to get TFS Sticky Buddy v2.0 out the door and bang goes the TFS server :(

This is tfs05 on the Codeplex environment. All the others seem to be running OK, but juts my luck the one I am using is the one that is affected, and nothing on the Outage page! its been 3 hours and nothing. I have emailed them and reported it on the Discussions page.

Now, although I am, I am not really complaining as they have provided a fantastic service over the last, what… two years!

Hats off to the CodePlex team, but get the bloody server fixed so I can check in my code!

Technorati Tags: TFS,VSTS,Visual Studio Team System,Team Foundation Server,Codeplex,TFS Sticky Buddy

Composite WPF and Merged Dictionaries

Martin Hinshelwood — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 11:18:25 GMT

If, like me, you like to have changeable resource files in your application. Wither it is for changing the Theme, or interchanging templates you will need to take special care when using the

libraries.

The new version of the TFS Sticky Buddy uses both!

I am using the built in Infragistics theme system, and the first time you select a theme I am just adding a resource file that overrides the default:

   1: Dim resourceDictionary As ResourceDictionary = ThemeManager.GetResourceSet(theme, ThemeManager.AllGroupingsLiteral)

   2: If Not resourceDictionary Is Nothing Then

   3:    Application.Current.Resources.MergedDictionaries.Add(resourceDictionary)

   4: End If

This causes an error in the ItemsControlRegionAdapter as WPF seams to redo the region adapters and you get a ItemsControlHasItemsSourceException. You need to change the code to the following (notice the commented out areas):

   1: /// <summary>

   2: /// Adapts an <see cref="ItemsControl"/> to an <see cref="IRegion"/>.

   3: /// </summary>

   4: /// <param name="region">The new region being used.</param>

   5: /// <param name="regionTarget">The object to adapt.</param>

   6: protected override void Adapt(IRegion region, ItemsControl regionTarget)

   7: {  //Modified by Martin Hinshelwood to allow resource file changes...

   8:     //if (regionTarget.ItemsSource != null || (BindingOperations.GetBinding(regionTarget, ItemsControl.ItemsSourceProperty) != null))

   9:     //    throw new InvalidOperationException(Resources.ItemsControlHasItemsSourceException);

10:

  11:     //If control has child items, move them to the region and then bind control to region. Can't set ItemsSource if child items exist.

  12:     if (regionTarget.Items.Count > 0)

  13:     {

  14:         foreach (object childItem in regionTarget.Items)

  15:         {

  16:             region.Add(childItem);

  17:         }

  18:         //Control must be empty before setting ItemsSource

  19:         regionTarget.ItemsSource = null;

  20:         //regionTarget.Items.Clear();

  21:     }

  22:     regionTarget.ItemsSource = region.Views;

  23: }

You will notice that I had to comment out the exception for existing controls as well as the Items.Clear (which is replaced by setting the ItemsSource to nothing). This solves the problem I I have not noticed any adverse reactions.

The second problem occurs when you do you second set of the theme. at this point you need to remove the existing theme:

   1: If Not m_CurrentTheme Is Nothing Then

   2:       Application.Current.Resources.MergedDictionaries.Remove(m_CurrentTheme)

   3: End If

When this happens the region management is redone and you get a further RegionNameExistsException from the RegionManager. Then can be solved by changing the code in the AttachNewRegion method:

   1: /// <summary>

   2: /// Attaches a region to an object and adds it to the region manager.

   3: /// </summary>

   4: /// <param name="regionTarget">The object to adapt. This is typically a container (i.e a control).</param>

   5: /// <param name="regionName">The name of the region to register.</param>

   6: /// <exception cref="ArgumentException">When regions collection already has a region registered using <paramref name="regionName"/>.</exception>

   7: public void AttachNewRegion(object regionTarget, string regionName)

   8: {  //Modified by Martin Hinshelwood to allow resource file changes...

   9:     if (Regions.ContainsKey(regionName))

  10:         return; //throw new ArgumentException(string.Format(CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, Resources.RegionNameExistsException, regionName));

11:

  12:     IRegionAdapter regionAdapter = regionAdapterMappings.GetMapping(regionTarget.GetType());

  13:     IRegion region = regionAdapter.Initialize(regionTarget);

14:

  15:     Regions.Add(regionName, region);

  16: }

So instead of bombing out when you try to add a region of the same name, it will just ignore it. Not ideal, but necessary.

Technorati Tags: Composite WPF,Prism,TFS Sticky Buddy,WPF,Themes,Theme

TFS Sticky Buddy 2.0 development started…

Martin Hinshelwood — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 12:43:53 GMT

Lets just say that it will be a while in development. I am trying to implement the Composite Application blocks for WPF from Microsoft in an attempt to make the application more modular. I will be updating and releasing under the v2.0 CTP version and I have uploaded the installation files. This is a ClickOnce application, so you will always have the latest version of the CTP.

The current version CTP1 has only those changes to allow for the new Navigation and structure options, but More features are on the way.

Technorati Tags: VSTS,TFS,Visual Studio Team System,Team System,TFS STicky Buddy,WPF

TFS Sticky Buddy v2.0

Martin Hinshelwood — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 08:52:01 GMT

I will be working on some new features to the Sticky Buddy application. Improvements in the interface, along with a more modular structure and more diagram offering are in the mix. I have been working on some of the enhancements and their implementation in my other lesser known project TFS Heat ITSM…

As you can see, a new look and feel for a new version, but this should allow me to implement a better modular design and separate out

the individual bits and pieces.

Head over to Codeplex and vote for your favourite feature, ort add a new one :)

Issue Tracker

Technorati Tags: TFS,VSTS,TFS Sticky Buddy,WPF,Team System

TFS Sticky Buddy Update

Martin Hinshelwood — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 12:24:32 GMT

The Sticky Buddy has been updated to fix the following problems:

Votes	ID	Title
2	2598	Application has stopped responding" when Logging into CodePlex and a Domain is not entered in the UserName field
1	2630	Handle large number of work items in the node display

This means that if you run TFS Sticky Buddy from now you should get v1.6.

I don't as our Proxy is a bit crap and does not detect the changes in .application files for a few days :(

Technorati Tags: TFS Sticky Buddy,TFS,VSTS

Hosted Sticky Buddy

Martin Hinshelwood — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 12:57:59 GMT

I now have a nice hosted version of the TFS Sticky Buddy that is fairly fast and deploys using ClickOnce, but you do need to make sure that you already have .NET 3.5 and Team Explorer 2008 installed first…

Technorati Tags: VSTS,TFS Sticky Buddy,RDdotNET

RDdotNET

Martin Hinshelwood — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 17:19:02 GMT

Well I finally got of by behind and set up a site for RDdotNET, its not special or clever, but it does let me host ClickOnce Applications like the TFS Sticky Buddy and give a single portal to my other tools. I only have TFS Sticky Buddy and TFS Event Handler up at the moment, but I will expand on that.

Eventually all my bits and bobs will be up there with my blog over here.

Hopefully you will find the ClickOnce hosting useful, if not the site content…

Technorati Tags: RDdotNET,TFS Event Handler,TFS Sticky Buddy

Linked in VSTS Group

Martin Hinshelwood — Thu, 15 May 2008 13:52:22 GMT

If you are a developer who customises or extends Visual Studio Team System then this LinkedIn group is for you...

VSTS Developer

NOTE: All requests to join these groups will be checked before they will be approved. Evidence of your participation in VSTS development.

Technorati Tags: VSTS, TFS, Team Foundation Server, Visual Studio Team System, LinkedIn

Linked in Codeplex developers group

Martin Hinshelwood — Thu, 15 May 2008 13:41:37 GMT

If you are a developer on Codeplex then there are now two Codeplex LinkedIn groups for you to join.

Codeplex Developer

All members must have an account with CodePlex and be a developer on at least one project. Please provide your account name after requesting to join...

Codeplex Coordinator

All members must be a Coordinator of at least one Codeplex project.

NOTE: All requests to join these groups will be checked before they will be approved. Please provide a link to your Codeplex profile.

Technorati Tags: Codeplex, Developer, LinkedIn, Coordinator, Codeplex Developer, Codeplex Coordinator