Team Explorer Everywhere 11 - First Look

In this article, we will take a first look at the recently released Team Explorer Everywhere 11 Beta. Microsoft released the Beta of Team Foundation Server 11 and Visual Studio 11. Along with it, Microsoft also made available Beta of Team Explorer Everywhere 11 (TEE 11). Let us now see how to install and use TEE 11.

There are three downloads available from the family of TEE. First is the cross platform command line tool that provides the TF command line tool for Linux / Unix platform. Other is the Team Explorer Everywhere 11 plugin for Eclipse and lastly the SDK to build TFS Extensions like custom check-in policies using Java. In this article, we will focus mainly on Team Explorer Everywhere 11 plugin for Eclipse.

Note: Read my previous article Team Explorer Everywhere - A Plug-in to access TFS from Eclipse to learn more about this plug-in.

A zip file contains the download which is an archive that can be directly used to install TEE 11. The Installation process is fairly simple and straight forward. Like any plugin installation of Eclipse, from Help menu, select Install New Software and then provide the path of the downloaded TEE 11 archive to install TEE 11 plugin. After the installation is over, it creates a new perspective called Team Foundation Server Exploring and that has its own views for Team Explorer and Pending Changes Window. So far, the process is same as earlier version of TEE.

Team Explorer is where the differences between 2010 and 11 version of TEE become apparent. Team Explorer in TEE 11 is now a multi paged application. The home page provides links to other pages. Initially it provides a link to connect to TFS or importantly signup to TFS Cloud Service that is hosted by Microsoft.

We can click on the link to Connect To Team Foundation Server and since it is the first time that we are using TEE Plugin, it asks us to accept the License Agreement.

After we accept the license agreement, it brings up the regular dialogue box to select TFS, Team Project Collection and then the Team Project.

After we accept the TFS Default Workspace, the home page is reopened with options to open links of

• Web Access
• Pending Changes
• Source Control Explorer
• Work Items
• Work Item Queries
• Builds
• Settings

Let us start exploring various pages from here. First let us open the Pending Changes link. The Pending Changes Window has not changed compared to earlier version. A notable addition is the button to Manage Workspaces right in the Pending Changes Window.

If an administrator wants to view or edit any settings of the team project, the Settings link provides various options.

If you click on Work Item Iterations link, it opens the page to edit the structure of project divided in iterations. Similar link also provides access to Work Item Areas structure.

Link of Check-in Policies opens the editor where we can enable or disable check-in policies for the project.

The list of available check-in policies is shown. Some of the policies that were earlier included in the power tools are now available in the box.

Every user can set the alerts that he / she wants to receive. The link of Project Alerts allows user to set some standard alerts. There is also a link for more advanced alerts editor

The advanced alerts page allows user to set alert for many of the events related to Build, Check-in and Change in Work Item

User can also set a filter to limit the number of alerts for certain conditions only.

Alerts can be either for the individual or for the entire team.

Let us now view the Source Control Explorer. The look and feel of it has not changed compared to the last version

The way to create workspace and change the workspace mapping has also not changed.

There is a separate page for Work Item Tracking Service that offers the querying mechanism to show the list of work items and

You can also create new work items from it.

The Build Explorer has enhanced capabilities for searching on builds that are completed and a separate node for the builds that are started by you. You can also create a favorites folder for the important builds.

Build definition creation used an old wizard.

Summary: In this article we have taken a first look at Team Explorer Everywhere 11 from the point of view of how to install it and how to use it. We focused on similarities and differences between earlier and new version of TEE.

This article has been editorially reviewed by Suprotim Agarwal.

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