Team Foundation Server - Source Control Integration

[John Boncek]

As far as I can tell, no one ever responded to this part of Michael's post:

Scooter: What is the "Display silent check out command in menus" option on the Source Control Integration dialog? When and how should it be used?

This has mystified me also. The only references I find to "silent" in the Help have to do with scripting. I've tried checking this box and don't see any difference. Thanks for your assistance.

John Boncek

[Zoë]

Scooter: What is the "Display silent check out command in menus" option on the Source Control Integration dialog? When and how should it be used?

It controls whether the "Checkout" command in the "File" and "Actions" menus prompts before checking out files. Some source control providers will allow you to add a checkout message or have an advanced dialog. If that option is checked BC will just checkout the files without prompting.

If a source control system doesn't have either of those dialogs then the option is ignored.

[darkfader]

Update the BC3 SCC associations automatically.

I wrote a small cmd script to update BC3 source control mappings from TFS.
You need the Team Foundation Server MSSCCI Provider of course.
Close Beyond Compare before running because it updates the xml configuration file.
I hope this is useful to someone.

[dannward]

TFS server not on default URL

Our IT team recently migrated our TFS environment to a new server, and in their infinite wisdom, changed the structure of the URL from

http://tfs.blah.com:8080 (which worked with BC3 and power tool extensions) to http://tfs.blah.com:8080/tfs. The BC3 SCC configuration menu does not let me enter a complete URL to the server, only the servername and port.
Any ideas how to get this working?

[icnocop]

See this: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/For...7-de2a72613886

It worked for me, but I used the registry path "HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/VisualStudio/8.0/TeamFoundation/Servers" instead

[Phil.Barila]

Some observations about TFS 2013 SCC and BC3

I've been using BC since version 2.something, and have used version 3 with the TFS SCC provider since TFS 2010. I've finally decided that I need to ask about a couple of annoyances in the integration.

1. The Source Control Integration dialog is not resizable, and the associations columns are not resizable, either, at least on Windows 7 x64. In my case, I have short folder names, but the common part of the Project value is long enough that I have lots of whitespace between the text of the folder value and the Project value, and I can see no useful information in the Project column. Looks kind of like:
   "C:\Projects\TakeOverTheWorld . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $/Dominate the Universe/Gala..."
2. The Configure... button doesn't work at all.
3. When the TFS Workspace that created the existing association is modified to change the Source Control Folder (TFS term) to a different server path, BC doesn't pick that up. But it gets worse. If BC acts on the Folder (BC term) that is mapped to the changed Source Control Folder, BC overwrites the change to whatever is in BC's BCPreferences.xml file, causing very confusing behavior!
4. When copying files into a controlled folder, BC does not appear to provide any means to Add the files to TFS.

Thanks for a great product, even with these quirks!

[Aaron]

Hello,

Thanks for the feedback. Let's see if I can tackle each of these:

1. We made this dialog resizable in BC4 (currently in beta).
2. The configure button makes a call out to a specific 'config' dialog according to the SCC standard. Since TFS is patching in SCC support at this point, this isn't likely a dialog that is still supported. Is there a specific TFS dialog you would expect to appear at this point?
3. Sorry, I'm not sure I entirely understand point 3. The configuration of BC3 is overwriting a configuration on the server, or is still Check In's to the old location even if it does not exist (has moved)?
4. We do have an Add to Source Control command in the Actions menu. Is this command invisible after you've copied a file into the controlled side, then select just that side's file? The visibility of commands is dependent on the current selection, so if you accidentally have multiple items selected, the command may not appear.

[Phil.Barila]

1. We made this dialog resizable in BC4 (currently in beta).

Glad to hear it. I'll see about trying it out if I have time to do so.

2. The configure button makes a call out to a specific 'config' dialog according to the SCC standard. Since TFS is patching in SCC support at this point, this isn't likely a dialog that is still supported. Is there a specific TFS dialog you would expect to appear at this point?

I wasn't expecting anything, in particular. Maybe the Workspace management dialog? No problem, just seemed like it should do *something*.

3. Sorry, I'm not sure I entirely understand point 3. The configuration of BC3 is overwriting a configuration on the server, or is still Check In's to the old location even if it does not exist (has moved)?

BC3 overwrite the configuration on server with the old data stored in BCPreferences.xml. This is really evil bug. Perhaps you could pull the workspace info from the server, and not use BCPreferences.xml at all?

4. We do have an Add to Source Control command in the Actions menu. Is this command invisible after you've copied a file into the controlled side, then select just that side's file? The visibility of commands is dependent on the current selection, so if you accidentally have multiple items selected, the command may not appear.

I'll give you a use case to demonstrate what I mean. In order to cut down visual noise, I only show differences. If the file isn't present at all in the controlled folder, when I use BC to copy it into the controlled folder, it would be nice if BC would ask if I want to add it then as part of the copy, before it is hidden because I only show differences, and once it's copied in, it's no longer a difference. In order to get the menu, I'd have to show all, and find the file, and add it from the context menu.

[Aaron]

Thanks for the clarification. You are changing the TFS settings outside of BC3, and the directory is then not source controlled or source controlled differently? Could you provide a detailed before/after example of what setting you changed?

Then, in this example, BC3's current configuration is outdated and causes issues, correct? If you update the Tools menu -> Source Control Integration dialog, does it get it working again?

As for the auto 'Add' option, thanks for the feedback. I'll add these notes to our Customer Wishlist.

[Phil.Barila]

Thanks for the clarification. You are changing the TFS settings outside of BC3, and the directory is then not source controlled or source controlled differently? Could you provide a detailed before/after example of what setting you changed?

Then, in this example, BC3's current configuration is outdated and causes issues, correct? If you update the Tools menu -> Source Control Integration dialog, does it get it working again?

As for the auto 'Add' option, thanks for the feedback. I'll add these notes to our Customer Wishlist.

@Aaron: Sorry for the belated reply. I've changed my options to notify me of replies.

Yes, you've got the use case reasonably well. All this may only apply to TFS 2010, it's the only version I've used BC against. It may also no longer apply, as I've updated to 3.3.12, and it's no longer happening, at least as I've attempted to cause it manually. So you might have actually fixed the use case detailed below, and if so, thanks! I didn't attempt to write up the repro steps with the previous version, and I can't roll back and try it again with the older version (3.3.10?) in the foreseeable future.

Please keep in mind that TFS directory -> File System (FS) directory mappings are maintained by TFS in workspaces. You are only allowed to have one mapping to a FS directory. You can have many FS directory mappings to a single TFS directory, but you are only allowed on mapping to a single FS directory, no matter how many workspaces you have.

In Visual Studio, create a mapping from a TFS directory ($/Root/Dir1) to a local folder (C:\src). Open BC, open Tools -> Source Control Integration, type C:\src or click on the ellipsis (...) button, and navigate to C:\src, and the Project will populate with $/Root/Dir1. Exit BC.

In Visual Studio, modify the mapping to C:\src from $/Root/Dir1 to $/Root/Dir1/Dir2. Open BC, open Tools -> Source Control Integration, close dialog and close BC. Look at mapping Visual Studio. It's been changed to $/Root/Dir1. Get Latest at this point will overwrite the contents of the local mapping with the contents of Dir1, rather than Dir2.

[Phil.Barila]

So I've been able to sort out how BC is changing the Workspace definition on the TFS server. I'm using a TFS 2010 server, with the 2013 MSSCCI provider.
In VS, define a TFS workspace that has a structure something like the following:
$/Root/Directory/Branch1 -> C:\Projects\Branch1
$/Root/Directory/Branch2 -> C:\Projects\Branch2

In BC, select that workspace. Then select:
$/Root/Directory -> C:\Projects

Then go look at the workspace in VS again. It will look like the second one, rather than the first one.

Is it possible to query the provider for the TFS workspace definition and automatically handle the mapping?

[Aaron]

Hello,

Thanks for the information. Are you using the 2013 MSSCCI provider b/c you also need it to interface with a 2013 TFS server? Usually we see these in pairs (2010 to 2010).

[Phil.Barila]

I can no longer remember why I am using 2013, but I think it had something to do with it resolving some annoyance or other that was present in the 2010 provider. I just realized this is a BC3 forum, and I'm using BC4, and there is a BC4 version control forum, so I guess I'll follow up there, if there is any more follow up to do.