CTP for Visual Studio Update 2 now available

As I have mentioned, the Visual Studio Updates are a new mechanism we are using to provide ongoing value throughout the year to our Visual Studio and Team Foundation Server customers. These updates will provide features to support the latest software trends in the market, and also offer an easy way to deploy bug fixes.  In Visual Studio 2012 Update 2 we are focusing on Modern Application Lifecycle and Modern App Development. 

Modern application lifecycle has been improved in Visual Studio Update 2 with significant improvements to both quality enablement and agile development.  Agile development has been made easier and more flexible with Work Item enhancements (tags, filtering, sharing), Kanban board customization and improved user interfaces.  Quality Enablement now supports a lightweight browser-based test management and execution to enable development teams to easily view/edit tests and your customers to run tests in a way that needs no installation on the system being tested and works non-Windows platforms; to decrease the time needed to continuously enable quality in software projects.

Modern application development focuses on improving the line of business development and developer experience.  Highlights for the line of business developers include: LightSwitch.  The developer experience improvements in the IDE include a new theme, Code Map debugger integration and performance in key areas areas including XAML design and Code Map rendering. 

The CTP Can be downloaded here:

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=273878

Please let us know if you have any issues!

 

ALM Features in this CTP:

1. Web based version controlExplore and Compare
2. Send work items in email
3. Email work items from backlogs
4. Web version control Improvements
5. New Team Explorer Connection dialog display multiple servers, TPCs and projects
6. Group Tests by Class
7. Advanced SharePoint 2010 Load Testing
8. Team Foundation Server Work Item Tagging
9. Extended cross browser support in Coded UI Testing
10. Microsoft SharePoint 2013 support in Coded UI Testing 
11. Test Explorer test details improvements for Coded UI Tests
12. Improvements in Windows Store Applications Unit Testing
13. Test Explorer test playlists
14. Symbol Loading improvements for IntelliTrace and Profiler
15. Web based Test Case Management
16. Code Map Debugger Integration and Responsiveness Improvements
17. While not technically part of Update 2: Git as version control on Team Foundation Service

 

A look at the ALM features in this CTP

In the forth coming days we will be releasing an entire series of blog posts on these features…but the descriptions below should definitely serve to wet your appetite until then!

Test Explorer Playlists

Being able to play an specific set of tests has been a highly requested feature….and one that we are introducing in Visual Studio Update 2!

To access this new functionality bring up the Test Explorer, right click a test and choose add to playlist. Then to play the playlist, the “Play all Tests” is a drop down that will display your playlists.

Test Explorer grouping/filtering tests by Class

 

The new Text Explorer has been lauded for its faster performance, non blocking asynchronous behavior and the ability to serve multiple Test Frameworks. –But the loss of functionality around grouping and test lists has been an area of contention…With Update 2 we now provide both grouping by class and test lists!

Test Explorer improved details for Coded UI tests

The Test Explorer has been improved to better display the Coded UI Test details; for instance hyperlinks are now active for attachments and log files.

For more information on how to do enable the image log this please see: Enabling HtmlLogger & Tracing in Coded UI Test

 

Team Foundation Server Work item Tagging

Work Item Tags offer a an easy way to filter work items and show associated Tasks.  The way in which this could be used is almost limitless such as tagging bugs to make them easier to triage or tagging BPI’s to assist with your stack ranking and will almost certainly be one those features people will be using them in ways we never considered!

Note: To see Tags in the Product backlog, you can use the “Column Options” on the toolbar to add it to the view, just as you would add any other column.

 

New Team Explorer Connection dialog displays multiple servers, team project collections and team projects

The Team Foundation Server development teams have really focused on removing any friction in your development process while adding a ton of value and the new connect view in Team Explorer epitomizes this philosophy by displaying the all your Team Foundation Servers, Team Project Collections and Team Projects you have connected to.

 

Web based Test Case Management

The ability to manage test cases from a browser was one of the top customer requests that we added to Visual Studio Update 2.  These new features enable several new testing scenarios like testing non Windows based applications, testing environments with NO test tools needing to be installed,easily enabling your development team to view and edit test cases and letting stake holders walk through the case steps from their own computer.  If the test case management tools are of interest, please check back as I will be doing a detailed post next week!

 

Advanced SharePoint 2010 Load Testing

Visual Studio Update 1 released

Web and Load Testing  SharePoint 2010 Web. With Update 2, Visual Studio has been enhanced to enable more advanced scenarios  such as: workflows, InfoPath forms, excel services, manage metadata, lookup columns and Office Web Companions. InfoPath forms web tests can now support the request plugin. The recorder for Web and Performance test can also record the web companions of Microsoft Office Word, Excel, PPT, One Note as well as Social and SharePoint Applications.

Visual Studio Update 2 has also added the extensibility of web and load testing. You can now parameterize the input data in an XML file. Examples where you might use this: tokens for authentication or columns lists.  Please note this extensibility is only available for SharePoint Applications. Watch out for a detailed post on this new extensibility later early next month.

Improvements in Windows Store applications Unit Test

Visual Studio Update2 CTP adds two new features in the Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestPlatform.UnitTestFramework.AppContainer namespace to make unit testing Window Store apps even easier:

• Assert.ThrowsException method enables you to test whether an exception is thrown in an async lamba expression.
• UITestMethodAttributeattribute[UITestMethod]enables you to run unit tests on the main UI thread.

Watch for a complete post on this topic early next month!

 

Code Map Debugger Integration and Responsiveness Improvements

Code Map has been enhanced to provide debugger integration enabling a visual overview of what you are debugging and stepping through to help understand and debug complex code without getting lost.

 

Git as version control on Team Foundation Service

Not really an Update 2 feature, since this is only a preview feature for the Team Foundation Service.  But, since Brian Harry announced it today I feel I have to at least mention that fact Team Foundation Service now has Git version control.

Known Issues

While there is a KB for Visual Studio Update 2 at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2797912

- I wanted to highlight one issue I ran into:

Problem: Team Explorer will not work properly if you have VS 2012 RTM and installs TFS Update 2 CTP 2 side by side.

Resolution:1. Install VS Update CTP 2 in the machine.

B. User has VS 2012 RTM and installs TFS Update 2 CTP 2 side by side and then un-installs TFS Update 2 CTP 2.

How to fix the problem?

1. Un-install the TFS Update 2 CTP 2 Object Model (see instructions below).

2. From Add/Remove/Programs repair VS 2012 RTM.

C. User has VS 2012 RTM and installs VS Update 2 CTP 2 and then un-installs VS Update 2 CTP2.

How to fix the problem?

1. Un-install the TFS Update 2 CTP 2 Object Model (see instructions below).

2. From Add/Remove/Programs repair VS 2012 RTM.

How to un-install TFS Update 2 CTP 2 Object Model (OM)?

Run the following commands (in the specified order) from a cmd window running as administrator (replace “C:\” with your system drive).

                                In a 32-bit operation system:

                                                msiexec /x "C:\ProgramData\Package Cache\{722645F7-6EC1-3CED-A011-207435B9DA56}v11.0.60115\packages\TFSObjectModel\x86\enu\TFSObjectModelLP-x86_enu.msi"

msiexec /x "C:\ProgramData\Package Cache\{583E6CA2-1620-328B-ACB0-82E32CD138DD}v11.0.60115\packages\TFSObjectModel\x86\Core\TFSObjectModel-x86.msi"

                                In a 64-bit operation system:

                                                msiexec /x "C:\ProgramData\Package Cache\{DF3A8165-FCE9-360E-A050-63C2D7C4CE28}v11.0.60115\packages\TFSObjectModel\x64\enu\TFSObjectModelLP-x64_enu.msi"

msiexec /x "C:\ProgramData\Package Cache\{EAD5D2E9-E465-3242-AFD9-2F1BA4EC90DE}v11.0.60115\packages\TFSObjectModel\x64\Core\TFSObjectModel-x64.msi"