Let’s dive directly into it. Lets say you have a form like this one:

We will append a instruction text to each input. We could insert a little javascript to each tag, or we can do this programmaticaly with less work We will do it programmaticaly. Therefore we create a little C# Method:

protected void AppendInstructionText(TextBox control, string value)
{
     control.Text = value;
     control.Attributes.Add("onfocus", "if (this.value == '" + value + "') { this.value = ''; }");
     control.Attributes.Add("onblur", "if (this.value =='') { this.value = '" + value + "'; }");
}

This method will attend the default text, and the focus and blur functionallity to a specified control.

protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
     this.AppendInstructionText(this.NameTextBox, "John Doe");
     this.AppendInstructionText(this.EmailTextBox, "my.mail@test.com");
     this.AppendInstructionText(this.MessageTextBox, "My instruction Text");
}

We will call this method for each control during the Page_Load event by handing over a control and a instruction text. Now the instruction texts are working fine.

But we can extend this little example by adding a special css class, each time the instruction text is displayed. Therefore we create a little css class:

.preview {
     font-style: italic;
     color: Gray;
}

We need to implement jQuery too, to make it a little bit more efficient. After that we need to modify our AppendInstructionText-Method with the little jQuery functionallity to add or remove a css class and to add the “preview”-class by default.

protected void AppendInstructionText(TextBox control, string value)
{
     control.Text = value;
     control.Attributes.Add("onfocus", "if (this.value == '" + value + "') { this.value = ''; $(this).removeClass('preview'); }");
     control.Attributes.Add("onblur", "if (this.value =='') { this.value = '" + value + "'; $(this).addClass('preview'); }");
     control.CssClass += " preview";
}

You can download this small example here: Code Instruction Texts

[UPDATE] 20 hours ago the new design has been raised by the Codeplex team. At the Codeplex blog. First of all they changed the design to this new fancy layout. But they changed the way how to create a new project too. By now the creation of a new project is much simpler as before. By now it’s just one single and small formular.

For them who is familiar with SharePoint, each Team Project Collections is similar to a SharePoint Site Collection. For them who is not familiar with SharePoint: Team Project Collections are independent units, acts as a container for basic unit isolation and archiving.

Before you consider creating multiple Team Project Collections you should know the limitations about them and the situations where you should use a concept of multiple Team Project Collections.

As you can see from the table above, we have some limitations. The most important limitation is that we can’t rename a Team Project Collection after creation. The other important limitations are the communication limitations between Team Project Collections. As a mentioned before, Team Project Collections are isolated containers. We are not able to communicate between them.

So the question is, when should we use a multiple Team Project Collection strategy? You are working for a big company for industrial goods as a developer. You have some projects across the company. Some of them are related to each other, but in fact, all Team Projects sharing some specific configurations. That is the moment where you should consider to use a single Team Project Collection strategy.

But now you are working for a big consulting company. Your customers are some big companies for malicious goods and services. They hire you to develop some applications for them. Each application, each customer are completely different and needs separate security configurations and more. That’s the point where you should say: One Team Project Collection per customer or one Team Project Collection per big project.

We have two options to create the Team Project Collection. First and most user friendly opportunity is the “Team Foundation Server Administration Console”. By default you would say, that this application is a command-line tool, but it isn’t, it is an administration tool with a graphical user interface. You can start this tool from the windows menu.

By moving to the Team Project Collections we are able to create a new Team Project Collection by clicking the “Create Collection Button”. A wizard will open, where we can specify all the important configurations. The first step will be the specification of the name and the description of our new Team Project Collection.

Here we will specify our unique name. Please remember that we never can change this name! So choose wisely.  You can define a description too. After that you have two options: leave everything else by default by clicking Verify, or make some other changes by clicking next or moving to the next step where you would like to take some changes. In this example we will go ahead with each step, so click “Next”.

The Data Tier is the step where you can specify your database settings. Here you can specify your SQL Server Instance and the option for the database. By default I would always suggest you to create a new database. If you remember the limitations of the Team Project Collections, this is the point where you should consider using a different SQL Server Instance if you hit the limitations.

In the next step you can configure your SharePoint site. By default the SharePoint Farm will be selected, which has been chosen during the installation process. With the advanced configuration you are able to specify different path and locations or decide not to create a SharePoint site.

Last but not least you can specify the reporting configuration for your Team Project Collection. Most reporting values are defined by default, but with the “Advanced configuration” you are able to select different options for sure too.

For the next steps you can specify your Lab Management and review your configuration. I am not able to show you the configuration of the Lab Management in here, because I haven’t configured it with my installation, but I will show you later on in another article.

Now you can click the “Verify” button to verify your configuration. If all your configurations have passed you are able to create the Team Project Collection by clicking the “Create” button.

Team Foundation Server will now perform all the necessary steps to create your Team Project Collection. This can take some time, depends on your hardware . Your Team Project Collection is now ready for use.

Microsoft have improved alot since the last Version. Some features are:

• Implementation of a new Look and Feel for both Team Web Access and Team Explorer (Oh I love the new layout)
• Improvements of the agile project management, like the new Scrum 2.0 process template
• Improvements of the agile requirements management
• Improvements of the version control
• New Build Definitions, Build Process, and Gated Check-ins
• Work Iem Tracking and Alert
• Improvements of administering Team foundation server
• and a lot of more.

Requirements

But let’s start with the requirements. For a good installation you should consider using the new Windows Server 8 Consumer Preview. But a Windows Server 2008 R2 (64bit) with the latest Service Pack is working good too. If you try to install Windows Server 8 to a virtual machine like VirtualBox or VMWare Player be aware of installing Windows Server 8 and start with a installation of the Windows Server 2008 R2. For this tutorial we will install the Team Foundation Server 11 Beta to a Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard. Before you start make sure, that you have installed the latest Service Pack and updates. You can find all requirement here.

Database

You should have a installed Version of the Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Standard or Enterprise, or a installed Version of the Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Standard or Enterprise. The preview of the Team Foundation Server 11 is not working with the developer editions, so please avoid using them, cause a Update of it will be hard . At least you SQL Server should have the Reporting, Analysis, and the DataBase engine features enabled. 

SharePoint

You also should have installed a Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Server. If you are using a Active Directory you are not able to install the SharePoint Foundation Server. Therefore it’s better if you have already installed the SharePoint Server before beginning installation of the Team Foundation Server. You can decide if you want to install SharePoint to the same machine or to an another remote server.

Install Team Foundation Server 11

After we have finished our prerequists we can start installing Team Foundation Server 11 Beta. If you havn’t already downloaded your image of the team foundation server, you can visit the official Visual Studio 11 site and download it. I prefer to download the complete image and not the web installer. The reason why is that I will use this image for further installation like installing a build server to a another machine.

So let’s start the installation tool. You have to go thrue some steps to install the Team Foundation Server, like accepting the EULA, or chosing the directory. This is not the installation of the Team Foundation Server 11, but the installation of the prerequist and the main functionallity of the Team Foundation Server. We will start installing and configure a new instance of the Team Foundation Server 11 after these steps have been finished.

After the installation is complete the Configuration Wizard will be opened. Here you can select the configuration of your Team Foundation Server. You can choose between:

• Basic – A compact modus
• Standard – A compact modus with SharePoint Foundation integration
• Advanced – A great configuration with SharePoint 2010 Server integration and Reporting
• Application Tier only – just the application tier
• Upgrade – Update from a TFS 2010

We will perform the Advanced configuration and start the wizard. But before we go ahead, we need to create a Domainuser  as a service account. Therefore we open the Active Directory configuration of our Windows Server 2008 R2 and create a new User. I will name the account “tfsservice”. For the password, enable that the password can’t expire, and that the user don’t have to change the password on the next login. Select a password that you can remember . So let’s go back to the wizard again and start the configuration.

In the first step we have to define the database. Therefore enter the database instance. By default a local datasource will be selected. You can attend a database label or select a predefined database. For this little example we will use a selected instance and leave everything by default.

In the next step we have to define the Service Account and the authentication method. We will now select our defined user (tfsservice) and select NTLM as the authentication method. If your server is Kerberos ready, you could use Kerberos as well.

We are now able to change the default application-tier settings. In this example I dont want to change anything. In a productive way you would maybe select some different values like the port.

The next steps we will leave by default. This is the whole reporting and analysis tier. So if your installation havn’t fill in the right values, you have to change them.

For the SharePoint configuration you have to define the path to a Webapplication. If you want to use a brand new SharePoint installation with this new instance of Team Foundation Server 11 Beta, make sure that you have already created a Web Application. If necessary change the default values for the SharePoint fields.

 After you have specify your project collection you can run the readyness check. Hopefully most of them were green . For sure, as you can see my system has some warnings. That is not because we have some mistakes but my system is not strong enough. It’s only a virtual machine and not for production. Start the configuration by clicking the “Configure” button.Now the configuration will perform. After that you have a completed installation of the Team Foundation Server 11 Beta. You can open the Web Client by clicking the link. If you use VirtualBox, this is the right moment to make a snapshop before you start playing with the Team Foundation Server 11 Beta.

So Enjoy your TFS!

Microsoft Open Technologies worked closely with Sergei Grebnov to build an open source Metro style theme for jQuery Mobile. The theme, composed of CSS- and JavaScript files, can be explored at GitHub. For sure you can find there some demo’s too.

]]> http://jarau.de/2012/04/29/metro-style-theme-for-jquery-mobile/feed/ 0 http://jarau.de/2012/04/25/whitepaper-for-team-foundation-services/ http://jarau.de/2012/04/25/whitepaper-for-team-foundation-services/#comments Wed, 25 Apr 2012 19:34:56 +0000 Jan Rauchfuss http://jarau.de/?p=70 Oh I have missed the release of the Whitepaper for the Team Foundation Service by the ALM Rangers. I don’t hope so but there are maybe some others who has missed it to. The ALM Rangers are a group of experts who promote collaboration between the Visual Studio product group, Microsoft Services, and the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) community by addressing missing functionality, removing adoption blockers, and publishing best practices and guidance based on real-world experience.

The Whitepaper is a introduce into the Team Foundation Service environment, talking about the pro and contra about moving his Team Foundation Server to Windows Azure. I hope you enjoy this Guidiance as much as I did!

It’s no secret that most of the important bugs where not identified by any test case, they were found by unanticipated exploration of the software. The idea behind exploration testing is that you are testing a software without any test cases, but in the moment when you find a bug you want to create a description of the bug and all actions that were done to reproduce the bug, and to write down a test case to ensure that this bug can be clarified later on.

With Visual Studio 2012 Microsoft extends the functionality of the Test Manager with the functionality of exploratory testing which is maybe the most important new feature of Visual Studio 2012.

In this little explanation we want to do exploratory testing at Bing.com. We will maybe don’t find any bugs, but for this little explanation it is a good way to visualize how you can do exploratory testing.

Therefore you can open your Internet Explorer and open Bing.com. In the next step start the Microsoft Testing Manager and login into your collection. On the navigation under the Test tab, you can find the little navigation point “Do Exploratory Testing”. This option opens the exploratory testing interface.

At the first interface you have to select the “Explore” option to start the exploratory testing. We will not configure any other options and leave everything by default.

As you can see at the next figure, the well-known window for running test cases is starting, but in this case without any defined steps. At this window you have the option to start, stop and break a test. For sure you have the functionality to record your tests as well.

You can now start testing. So switch to the browser window and begin testing. In my case I just put in a search string and click search. After the search has finished and the results were rendered, I click on the first option.

Now I could be maybe the point where you find a bug. You have now the chance to create the bug by clicking the “Create Bug” option.

A new window opens, where you can define all the things around the bug you have found. In this point Microsoft Test Manager collecting all the actions I have done and add them to the bug description. In this window you are able to define all the useful information’s for reproducing the bug. For sure you can define a Bug title, like you know in other workflows too. You are also able to modify the actions defined in the description. You can start modifying these steps by clicking “Change Steps”.

The Microsoft Test Manager helps us to select the necessary steps in a very easy control. By default you are only select a range of related steps, but you are not able to deselect any steps between some steps. In this case I have selected the last three steps, cause I think that the “Select ‘Nur Deutsch’ radio button is interesting for the testing.

Now you are at the situation where you decide that your steps are a great opportunity for a test case. You are able to define a test case too by clicking “Create test case”. The well known window for creating a test case will be shown and you are able to define your test case options.

In this case you are also able to reduce the steps and to make it all clean, like refactoring your test steps and so on.

 A part of any designer’s role is to ensure and create a ribbon that fits the need for a specific site. The default ribbon does not fit the need for each application at all. Therefore developer’s and designers have to customize ribbons like adding buttons, tabs or groups.

By default ribbons are created within a XML file. This kind of development is very complex and difficult to enhance. This leads the developer to spend a lot of time creating a ribbon. One other very important issue is the validation functionality. Building our projects doesn’t mean that our ribbon is runnable.

The SharePoint 2010 Fluent Ribbon API is a library to help developers to create and manage ribbons fluently without a single line of XML. This API is hosted on Codeplex (http://spribbon.codeplex.com/) and released under the Microsoft Public License.

In this and the upcomming post I will show you how to use the Fluent Ribbon API together with SharePoint 2010. So in this post you will learn how to prepare your Solution for the Fluent Ribbons, and in the next posts I will show you how to create, manage and validate ribbons fluently with C#.

SharePoint 2010 does not implement a feature to develop Ribbons fluently with C# by default. Therefore we need to install the Library for the SharePoint 2010 Fluent Ribbons first. You can download the assembly from http://spribbon.codeplex.com/releases/. The actual version is 1.4 released on the 10^th January 2012.

Now we are able to create a first solution and project. Therefore we have to open Visual Studio 2010 first. So by default we are creating an Blank Solution. In this example it’s named “JaRau”.

By right click on our Solution we add a new “Solution Folder” called “Libraries”. We have to open now the Project folder with “Windows Explorer” and creating a Folder called “Libraries” too. Into this folder we copy the “FluentRibbon.dll” assembly.

After that we need to include this file to our Solution Folder. Therefore we use the right click on our “Libraries” solution folder in Visual Studio and we add the just copied assembly as an existing file.

In the next step we are creating a SharePoint project. For this example I create an Empty SharePoint 2010 Project named “JaRau.Ribbons”. It will implement just a few application pages and web parts to visualize the usage of the SharePoint 2010 Fluent Ribbon API.

We will now configure our project to use the API. Therefore we need to reference the assembly with the project.

The most important part is to provide the assembly to be copied into the Global Assembly Cache (GAP). Therefore we need to open the Package of our project and add the assembly to the package. We are able to do this by switching into the “Advance” mode and adding an existing assembly. For sure we choose our FluentRibbon.dll saved to our Solution Folder. After that step are project is able to use and run the SharePoint 2010 Fluent Ribbon API.

Now we are finish with the initiate configuration. In the next post we will start developing our first ribbon.