Git Tools for Windows

Visual Studio 2013

description

Visual Studio 2013 has native support for git repositores for file versioning. However not all advanced features are supported like line by line staging, rebase, …
However VS2013 is working fine together with other git tools like msysgit, gitextensions.

 

usage scenarios

• basic source control handling inside visual studio

TIPS

• for advanced scenarios use tools like msysgit or gitextensions

Git-TF

description (codeplex)

Git-TF is a set of cross-platform, command line tools that facilitate sharing of changes between TFS and Git.
These tools make it easy to clone sources from TFS, fetch updates from TFS, and update TFS with changes committed locally in Git.

usage scenarios

• clones tfs 2008/2010/2012 source control repositories into local git repositories.
• local offline usage
• local commit
• local branches

tips

• use a separate branch for your development
• rebase instead of merge to avoid tfs checkin conflicts

Visual Studio Tools for Git

Description (VS-Gallery)

The Visual Studio Tools for Git is an extension for Team Explorer that provides source control integration for Git. This extension enables integration with any local Git repository, and it provides tools to work with third party hosted Git repositories. The extension also enables the use of Team Foundation Service hosted Git projects.

usage scenarios

• Git Source Control integration with VS 2012
• basic source control handling inside visual studio

tips

• for advanced scenarios use tools like msysgit or gitextensions

Git Extensions

description (code.google.com)

Git Extensions is the only graphical user interface for Git that allows you control Git without using the commandline. It comes with a manual and video tutorials to get you started quickly.

usage scenarios

• using Git without using the command-line
• basic and advanced source control operations

tips

• configure Visual Studio 2012/2013 as merge tool
• msysgit will be installed with Git Extensions if not already installed

msysgit

description

Git bash commandline client for windows (simple installer), not all advanced features are supported like python scripting integration.

usage scenarios

• basic and advanced source control operations
• if like the command line – use it

tips

• works fine hosted inside conemu

posh-git

description (github)

A set of PowerShell scripts which provide Git/PowerShell integration.

usage scenarios

• basic and advanced source control operations
• if like the command line – use it
• if you like the power of PowerShell – use it

tips

• works fine hosted inside conemu
• command ‘ii .’ will open explorer in current folder path
• combine ‘VS Developer Command Promt’ with powershell and posh-git –> eg: run msbuild and vs-tools inside powershell

SourceTree

description (atlassian)

A free Mercurial and Git client for Windows or Mac
SourceTree is a powerful Git and Mercurial desktop client for developers on Mac or Windows

usage scenarios

• using Git without using the command-line
• basic and advanced source control operations

tips

• nice for organizing multiple git repos using tree folder structure
• supports git-flow branching model

SmartGit

description (syntevo)

SmartGit/Hg is a client for Git and Mercurial. It runs on Mac OS X, Windows and Linux.

usage scenarios

• cross plattform UI client for git
• using Git without using the command-line
• basic and advanced source control operations

tips

• supports git-flow branching model
• fastest UI client
• review mode

Github for Windows

description (github)

• Develop on Windows, share on GitHub.
• Clone Repositories
• Browse History
• Commit Changes
• Branch Code
• Share on GitHub.com
• The easiest way to use Git on Windows.

usage scenarios

• using Git without using the command-line
• basic and advanced source control operations
• Simple UI in ‘Modern UI’ Style
• Git Shell command line (powershell)

tips

• includes posh-git inside of Git Shell

Unzipping/extracting MSI files

Not that often but sometimes I need to extract some dlls from msi packages. msiexec provides all the functions which are needed as described here.

Usually I’m working using the command line

msiexec /a foo.msi /qb TARGETDIR="C:\TEMP\Foo"

but sometimes it’s helpful to have a context menu entry like this.

To add the Extract MSI entry to the context menu you’ve to add it to the registry, details here or use gist below. The second gist shows how a .bat file which can extract all msi’s in a folder can look like.

VS2012.2 – tips and tricks–team explorer shortcuts and patterns

With the upcoming Visual Studio 2012 Update 2 and Visual Studio Tools for Git support for Git source control is coming to visual studio.

For this the Visual Studio team has adopted some parts of VS2012 new Team Explorer UI to make it easier to connect to different repositories in a quicker way.

Like in my previous shortcuts and patterns post I’ve tried to adapt the existing pattern to support the new Visual Studio Tools for Git extension.

Team commands	shortcuts
View.TfsTeamExplorer	SHIFT + ALT + V, T
View.TfsSourceControlExplorer	SHIFT + ALT + V, S

Pattern for “classic” Team Explorer commands: SHIFT + ALT + T

Team Explorer commands	shortcuts
Team.TeamExplorerSearch	STRG + ä
TeamFoundationContextMenus.Commands.GoToHome	SHIFT + ALT + T, H
TeamFoundationContextMenus.Commands.GoToBuilds	SHIFT + ALT + T, B
TeamFoundationContextMenus.Commands.GoToWorkItems	SHIFT + ALT + T, W
TeamFoundationContextMenus.Commands.GoToPendingChanges	SHIFT + ALT + T, P
TeamFoundationContextMenus.Commands.GoToMyWork	SHIFT + ALT + T, M
TeamFoundationContextMenus.Commands.GoToWebAccess	SHIFT + ALT + T, A

Pattern for Editor/SourceControl: SHIFT + ALT + S

TFS Editor/SourceControl commands	shortcuts
File.TfsHistory	SHIFT + ALT + S, H
File.TfsAnnotate	SHIFT + ALT + S, A
File.TfsCompare	SHIFT + ALT + S, C
File.TfsUndoCheckout	SHIFT + ALT + S, U

Pattern for Git Team Explorer commands: SHIFT + ALT + T

Team Explorer commands	shortcuts	scope
Team.Git.GoToGitBranches	SHIFT + ALT + G, B	global
Team.Git.GoToGitChanges	SHIFT + ALT + G, G	global
Team.Git.GoToGitCommits	SHIFT + ALT + G, C	global
Team.Git.OpenCommandPrompt	SHIFT + ALT + O, P	Team Explorer
Team.Git.OpenFileExplorer	SHIFT + ALT + O, E	Team Explorer
Team.Git.Push	SHIFT + ALT + G, P	Team Explorer
Team.Git.ViewHistory	SHIFT + ALT + G, H	global

IntelliCommand Visual Studio Extension

Using Resharper and sometimes not finding the correct shortcut for your command?

IntelliCommand, is a new extension for VS2010 and VS2012 which will show you an overlay about available commands inside Visual Studio. It’s not only showing you all available keyboard shortcuts, it’s also filtering which are available in the current context (in the screenshot you’ll see all available text editor commands)

IntelliCommand can also help you to identify which keyboard shortcuts in which context are available.

Source: http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/83f59659-abc1-4bfa-9779-42f687af0481

TFS2012–multiple users assignment – tfs user group

I think the most well known classical workaround like in TFS2008 and TFS 2010 is to assign a work item to a group of people.

How to do it?

• You have to create for each combination of persons you want to be able to assign a user group in TFS
• You have to adapt each work item which should support this by adding these groups to the assigned to field as allowed values.

Assume that you are working in a team with 5 persons and want to be able to assign your work items to the following combinations.

• Group: Team
• Group: PersonAPersonB (Person A, Person B)
• Group: PersonAPersonC (Person A, Person C)
• and so on ….

You have to create for each combination a new group in TFS and assign the persons to it.

You have to adapt your work items and change the definition of your Assigned To field to something like this:

<FIELD name="Assigned To" refname="System.AssignedTo" type="String" syncnamechanges="true" reportable="dimension">
  <ALLOWEDVALUES expanditems="true">
    <LISTITEM value="[project]\PersonAPersonB" />
    <LISTITEM value="[project]\Team" />
    <LISTITEM value="[project]\PersonAPersonC" />
  </ALLOWEDVALUES>
</FIELD>

And in webaccess it will look like this (test is the only user in this screenshot and is assigned to the team group):

 

Limitations?

One of the most interesting question is how it will integrate with the new agile features in TFS2012.

General issues and workarounds:

• Custom work item queries have to be adapted to also work with groups
  
• Hardcoded work item queries are not working with groups like “My Work in Team Explorer“

Taskboard

For the taskboard it doesn’t make a difference if a work item is assigned to a user or a tfs user group.

Capacity planning Calculation is broken!

As we can see in the screenshot below the capacity planning calculation does not work together with the group assignments.

 

Conclusion

For special use cases this can be a valid approach with the downside that you cannot use the new capacity planning features. Each work item query which relies on the @me keyword has to be adapted for each team member to include the custom groups. This means that we won’t be able to have a generic query like “Assigned to me” anymore.

TFS2012–assign work items to multiple users–overview

Since the beginning, Team Foundation Server does not support multiple user assignments for work items at all.

Before continuing reading you should ask yourself the following questions about why you or your team want to be able to assign a bunch of work, tracked as a work item to multiple users:

• What do you want to achieve?
• What does the team want to achieve?
• Who will be the owner/responsible of the workitem if it is not done?
• Is to much work for one person? –> Split the work to multiple tasks!
• Do you want to pair with another person on the task?
• ….

Depending on the answers there are are multiple options/workarounds for different scenarios available like the following

• Assign a work item to a tfs user group
• Add additional fields on your work items (eg: AssignedTo2)
• Change the behavior of the assigned to field from ‘allowed values’ to ‘suggested values’

In the following posts I will show different solutions how this can be achieved, limitations and to witch scenario the different solutions will fit.

If you think TFS should support this feature natively please vote on uservoice here

VS2012 – tips and tricks – team explorer shortcuts and patterns

In my last post I wrote about team explorer shortcuts and patterns for Visual Studio 2010.

Visual Studio 2012 has already been launched with the new Team Explorer. Like the new Solution Explorer, the new Team Explorer follows the concept of a single tool-window with multiple scopes depending on the content.

Unlike the solution explorer which supports multiple instances for different scopes the new Team Explorer doesn’t support this which requires multiple clicks to navigate between the different scopes and sometimes you’re felling like lost in the toolbox.

For quick navigation shortcuts are your friend …

If you are a ReSharper user the following shortcuts are compatible with IDEA scheme.

Pattern for Team Explorer: SHIFT + ALT + T

VS2012 Team Explorer commands	shortcuts
Team.TeamExplorerSearch	STRG + ä
TeamFoundationContextMenus.Commands.GoToHome	SHIFT + ALT + T, H
TeamFoundationContextMenus.Commands.GoToBuilds	SHIFT + ALT + T, B
TeamFoundationContextMenus.Commands.GoToWorkItems	SHIFT + ALT + T, W
TeamFoundationContextMenus.Commands.GoToPendingChanges	SHIFT + ALT + T, P
TeamFoundationContextMenus.Commands.GoToMyWork	SHIFT + ALT + T, M
TeamFoundationContextMenus.Commands.GoToWebAccess	SHIFT + ALT + T, A

Pattern for Editor/SourceControl: SHIFT + ALT + S

VS2012 TFS Editor/SourceControl commands	shortcuts
File.TfsHistory	SHIFT + ALT + S, H
File.TfsAnnotate	SHIFT + ALT + S, A
File.TfsCompare	SHIFT + ALT + S, C
File.TfsUndoCheckout	SHIFT + ALT + S, U