I'm using TFS Server 2010.
In my source I have a folder called BuildProcessTemplates. This has a child folder called Custom Assemblies.
Now, when the build runs, it happily loads the DLLs in the Custom Assemblies folder and does its thing.
I need to modify the .xaml file that defines the workflow of the build. If I double click on the .xaml file VS tries to open it but throws an error saying it can't find certain types that I know are defined in the DLL that is in the Custom Assemblies folder.
The workflow is told where to find these types when the build runs by Build Controller as it is defined as a property in the TFS Admin Console.
So, how on earth do I get VS to open my .xaml file properly? How do I let it know where to look for the DLL? I've tried moving all of the files in Custom Assemblies in to the same folder as the .xaml file, but that didn't help.
Clearly I'm missing something; I just don't have a clue what it might be.
You normally create a C# Project (Unit Test is easiest because it is pretty bare).
When you have you project you then need to:
Add the XAML as a File,
Add the Custom Activities DLL's as references.
Add the relevant TeamFoundation* references from the GAC (make sure the TFS version matches - 2010 = v10, 2012 = v11).
Also, I always open our TFS "Build Project" with VS version that matches our TFS Version, I find it keeps the number of problems down.
There's a great series of posts from Ewald Hofman here, that go through the process - I find it a bit dated, and that the Wrox Professional TFS 2012 book does a better job of explaining it, if you can get a copy.
Related
I have a core project and several sub projects. I link to files in the core project for the sub ones. I righted clicked my csproj and said existing file > add > link. Here is how my project looks:
Here is a picture of my Windows Explorer:
When I check in, I receive this error:
Could not find file C:\Users\joe_a84\Documents\JMASoftware\QuickBooks\Main\Source\Platform Support\NOP\Source\Versions\nop265\Nop265\Module\QuickBooksSettings.cs
The file does not exist there because it is linked. How can I tell TFS that it's a linked file?
There is the following question which states that symbolic links are not supported in TFS 2008 or TFS 2010. Symbolic links in TFS 2010 Source Control?
However, I did find the following ancient blog post which seems to show how to do it for TFS 2005: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ericlee/archive/2006/07/20/sharing-files-in-team-foundation-server.aspx
That said I would highly recommend that you simply don't do this.
If you really need to share a file between projects then you should be using the branching functionality built into TFS. Typically you don't want just a single code file due to namespace and assembly generation concerns. It is much cleaner, and certainly easier to maintain, by having a separate project for those artifacts that are passed around. This way you either branch the entire assembly project; or just refer to it in it's normal place.
This is a local file level linking by another project. There is only one file at a specific subfolder. Other projects can link to the file via this approach. The problem with this approach is that from TFS viewpoint, you cannot tell if a file is shared by other projects. A good practice will be to keep such files in separate folder with name like Common or Shared etc.
People who have been using File linking across branches in Source Control would have to change their approach quite differently.
Linking between files in TFS is pretty simple. You just open the "Add existing item" dialog and search for the file you want to link in your local workspace. If you would click "Add" now Visual Studio would create a copy of the file in your projects directory. What you do instead is to choose the other option (you have a little drop down menu on the button) and add the item as a link. Thats it.
I faced the same problem. I just did undo on the file which was showing this error in the TFS Pending Changes window and checked-in. This undo did not remove the link that was added in the project. Make sure you do not undo the project file.
I'm using TFS 2012 to automate a build of a solution which contains multiple windows services and two web applicaitons.
I've used the guide I found here to customize the build process template so that the windows services are put in a folder structure that I like. Specifically:
\dropserver\droproot\MyApp\BuildNumber\
\Service1
\Service2
\Service3
\Service4
This works great, but unfortunately it doesn't work for web applicaitons. If I used the same strategy for those, I just get the contents of /bin for each web app, rather than the full site contents.
MSBuild typically uses the web application targets to handle this, but for some reason, this doesn't work when you customize the build as I have. I no longer get the _PublishedWebSites folder in the build output. (I'm guessing that's because I cleared our the OutDir property of the MSBuild task.)
Has anybody done something like this and gotten it to work with web applications as well?
I think I can help with this, it looks like in the build targets that the published websites folder isn't created if the OutDir is the same as the OutputPath.
So this isn't perfect, but if you add the following into the csproj file in the first property group, you'll get everything deployed into "\bin\deploy\" including the _PublishedWebsites folder
<DeployOnBuild>True</DeployOnBuild>
<OutDir>bin\deploy\</OutDir>
With a bit of customization, this solution ended up working for me:
http://www.edsquared.com/2011/01/31/Customizable+Output+Directories+For+TFS+2010+Build.aspx
Basically, did what that link recommended, but also leveraged a new solution configuration (which I called TeamBuild) rather than conditional property definitions.
I believe the key to making this all work was the passing of the outputDirectory as the TeamBuildOutDir argument to MSBuild. Embedding this variable reference in the OutDir or OutputPath variable was allowed Team Build to build to the correct staging location and then automatically copy files from that location to the drop folder.
I'm going to take this a little futher and get rid of the whole _PublishedWebSites thing, but that will be done entirely in the build workflow.
EDIT: TFS 2013 supports this natively with a simply build configuration option:
Take a look at this thread as this post as well.
Team Build: Publish locally using MSDeploy
Since you need all the files for your web projects, you need to trigger the publishing process, and by tweaking the destination of that process, you can have all of your files copied where you need them.
I think option (2) from his answer will work for you.
I hope that helps.
As I can see in your reference link, it will just compile and package the binaries. It does not deploy the website by the steps mentioned in that.
If you want to get the .html, .css, .js etc. under the _PublishedWebSites folder, you need to do a Web Deployment. This manually we can do by clicking the publish option from right click menu of your VS project and by selecting Publish Method as File System.
But, since you need to automate this in your build and drop it in custom drop folder, you may need to manipulate your MSBuild script by calling a AspNetCompiler task. You can get more information on this at the MSDN link. By specifying the TargetPath while you call this target you can get your Web files deployed at the appropriate custom drop folder.
Happy Scripting.
Have you check this blog, this solved my problem where I wanted customized TeamBuild Ouput Directory.
Customizable O/P with TFS 2013
Customizaable O/P with TFS 2012 and .NET Framework 4.5
I am trying to set up continuous integration using Visual studio 2010 and TFS 2010 and when i try to Create a new build definition, and go to Process Tab, i dont see any templates under the Build Process file(Windows workflow XAML) drop-down.
I have setup a build controller that points to our Team project collection and a build agent, in our TFS server.I am trying to setup a new build definition from my local machine Visual studio and i cant see any default templates under the Build Process file(Windows workflow XAML) drop-down.
Is there any settings i am missing ?Please let me know. Do i also need to install Visual studio in the TFS Server ?
All i need is whenever someone checks in a file, it should kick off a build and see the status if the build is broken or not !
Make sure you have a folder inside your Team Project Source Control called:
BuildProcessTemplates
Inside of there should be the following files:
DefaultTemplate.xaml
UpgradeTemplate.xaml
There are additional ones in this example, but you should have those two from the install.
If you have this folder and still cannot see anything in that dropdown let me know and we can take it from there. What most likely happened is you or someone on your team saw the folder and deleted it or moved it thinking it its placement wasn't important in the project. Or perhaps deleted the xaml files inside there.
The process section uses that folder and all files within it to display on that prompt.
We use Codesmith to generate some code, and when we open up the projects, the files are there, in the solution, but there is no way to check them in. The DLL compiles just fine. The only difference to the .csproj is the addition of any new files we generated.
But unlike VSS, TFS, does not detect these files. I validated this behavior by editing the .csproj manually. For some reason, the only way to add a file to TFS is through Visual Studio.
However, when I remove them from the project, and then include them, I get the usual yellow plus sign.
You can manually add files to Visual Studio, however changing your project file isn't the best way to do this. If your project is already under source control and the files you want to add are visible in the Solution Explorer window, you can simply right-click a file and select Include in project. The next time you check your code in, the items will be added.
Since you're using TFS 2010, check out the Team Foundation Server Power Tools extensions. This includes the Windows Shell Extensions which give you integration into Windows Explorer which let's you right click on files or folders and add the to TFS outside of Visual Studio. Very nifty!
Looks like it is not possible and the workaround is to batch-add all the files through PowerTools. Though this article/forum-thread is dated it appears to be helpful:
Adding CodeSmith generated source file in Team Foundation System
I've got a solution with Silverlight projects, a couple Web applications and some Windows service and their small Winforms test applications.
When I build it using TFS it puts all binary files in the Binaries folder. It also creates a _PublishedWebsites folder where it puts the web applications ready for deployment.
What I would like is for a few of the projects to have their ouput in a separate directory in the Binaries folder. I want the files that I would normally find in the bin\Release folder to be there.
I looked long and hard and could only find scarce documentation on how to achieve that and only for TFS 2008. There's a good article there link text and another entry for VS 2010 there link text. However, none of these work :-(
It seems that the build ignores the <OutputPath> property. I tried fiddling with the <AfterBuild> property but unfortunately if I use the $(OutDir) property I get ALL the files in the Binaries directory and not only the ones that just got compiled.
At the moment I'm setting up a separate build that only has the projects I'm interested in that get compiled but I would really like to have all the files needed for the release built all at once.
EDIT: I didn't make it clear enough but I'm using the latest version of TFS (TFS 2010 RTM). I set up <OutputPathDir> on the project level as explained in the links that I provided.
Cheers.
In your build definition (.proj) file, check that
<Project>
<PropertyGroup>
<CustomizableOutDir>true</CustomizableOutDir>
</PropertyGroup>
</Project>
Also, you may run into some problems if you're trying to compile what was once a "website" project type (created from File->New->Website->ASP.NET Webiste). They seem to override the output directory every time. We had to convert some of those to class libraries instead.