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Working on TFS SDK improvements

We are working on improving the TFS SDK to make it easier for people who want to write extensions.  There are many areas for improvement so it's hard to pick a place to start.  We chose, for the first project, a sample VS add-in that demonstrates a pretty wide array of ways in which you can integrate with TFS, inside VS.  It includes the sample VS add-in infrastructure, examples of invoking the TFS API, querying selection and receiving events.

This sample is focused on version control and we are working on another one more targeted at work item tracking.  It is not intended to be a useful tool in and of itself, but rather a demonstration of how to access each of these extensibility points.  I've included a screen shot below that shows that it's just a dialog with a bunch of buttons that allows you to exercise the various extensibility points.  Accompanying the sample is a pretty thorough document outlining how to use it and what it is doing. 

image

We are still finalizing the sample but I'm interested in getting early feedback on it.  I've attached a zip file with the sample in it to this blog post.  If you have the inclination, try it out and let us know if it is something that is useful to you or if there is something you'd really like us to add or change.  I'm expecting we will publish an official "final" version in the next few weeks.

Thanks,

Brian

Published Wednesday, July 09, 2008 11:17 AM by bharry
Filed under:

Attachment(s): TFSAddIn.zip

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# a-foton » Working on TFS SDK improvements

Wednesday, July 09, 2008 11:50 AM by a-foton » Working on TFS SDK improvements

# re: Working on TFS SDK improvements

Nice samples.  The simplicity of them is very nicely done while still demonstrating core functionality.

Keep up the great work.

Wednesday, July 09, 2008 4:38 PM by Larry Guger

# Work Item Tracking Samples

Looks very helpful.  When you get to the work item tracking, the big story we have here is to keep track of estimates and burn down and push that data to another application that tracks our time.  Development wants to use TFS, but business managers want to run time reports from our current system.

Thursday, July 10, 2008 9:43 AM by Bob Karaban

# VSTS Links - 07/16/2008

Brian Harry on Working on TFS SDK improvements The Developer Support Team Foundation Server on Fun with...

Wednesday, July 16, 2008 9:22 AM by Team System News

# TFS SDK - Getting to grips with the programmatic world of TFS

Thursday, August 21, 2008 3:05 PM by Willy-Peter Schaub's Cave of Chamomile Simplicity

# re: Working on TFS SDK improvements

nice simple and explaining examples.

however, Changeset.Changes always returns 0 (2008, SP1), so I cannot iterate through the items.

possible bug?

Wednesday, October 08, 2008 6:06 AM by Flo

# re: Working on TFS SDK improvements

Flo, it depends on how you get the Changeset object.  If you don't specify that you want the changes in the changeset, it will have a zero-length array.  This was done for scale.  We found that there were many cases where folks wanted the changeset metadata (comment, etc.) but not the actual changes, so it reduced load on the server not to return them unless requested.

Buck

Wednesday, October 08, 2008 11:37 AM by buckh

# re: Working on TFS SDK improvements

Buck, thanks for the fast description.

Class VersionControlExt only provides this one method FindChangeset() without parameters for retrieving changesets. Whats the other way you mentioned to get the actual changes? Any hints appreciated,

best regards

Monday, October 13, 2008 11:31 AM by Flo

# re: Working on TFS SDK improvements

I found a boolean flag in QueryHistory(...) which returns full changeset information

:)

Tuesday, October 14, 2008 6:21 AM by Flo

# re: Working on TFS SDK improvements

The link to TFSAddin.zip doesn't seem to work.

Tuesday, December 09, 2008 2:33 PM by BK

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