A Silverlight Developer’s Look at TFS 2010 Remote Hosting

Introduction

Note: This guide was created after trying out DiscountASP.NET Remote TFS 2010 Hosting. It is intended to be a review of DiscountASP.NET, but will work with other remote hosted TFS 2010 instances.

I’ve always like Team Foundation Server. The main thing that I’ve hated about it was installing/maintaining it. I’d rather spend that time learning more about things such as Silverlight/WPF/WP7. I really didn’t know what to expect as we use another source control at work and I’ve never had remote hosting like this. So how did it go? Let’s find out.

I decided that before I fall in love with it, I’d better check the prices/feature set of discountasp.net. Below is a feature comparison that I thought would be important to someone shopping around for a remote hosted TFS 2010.

The only thing that really mattered to me was cost per user and daily backups. There were a few things that they didn’t support like Reporting, SharePoint and RDP, but that wasn’t a show stopper for me.

Since my blog targets Silverlight/WPF/WP7 developers, I decided to share how you would get started using a remote hosted source control and load a Silverlight Project and then load the project inside of Expression Blend 4. This is a tutorial designed for someone new to TFS2010.

Getting Started with TFS 2010

One of the best things about TFS 2010 is that if you already use Visual Studio 2010 Professional, then you don’t have anything to install. Simply Hit Team –> Connect to Team Foundation Server as shown below:

If this is your first time using TFS 2010, then you will need to add your DiscountASP.NET TFS Server Name by clicking the button called “Server” as shown below:

At this point, you will simply plug in your server name that you get after you log into your TFS 2010 Control Panel.

The Server Name can be found on the page below. You will add this into the “Add Team Foundation Server” box above.

After you add your server, you will be prompted to login. This login is created from the “Group Membership” located inside of the DiscountASP.net control panel. This is shown below:

Assuming you have already saved a project, you can now begin working on it.

You must map a drive first. You can do this from inside Source Control Explorer and look for Local Path:

After mapping, right-click on your project and select Get Latest Version:

Now if I load my project, you will notice “Locks” on each item:

This is telling you that you will need to do a “Check Out for Edits”

You may select any or all of the files to checkout.

Now you will notice that you can edit them by seeing the red check mark.

After I have made some changes, I’m going to “Check-In” my Silverlight Application.

Now that my changes are checked it, you will see the “Locks” again.

One of the great features of TFS 2010 is that it works with Expression Blend 4 as well. Simply do an open project and select the local solution that you are working on.

After you log in, you will see the same “Locks” again.

You can also Check-In the project from inside of Blend 4.

After you check-in, you will notice the Red Checkbox.

Conclusion

Overall, it was very easy to setup and use and I especially like the idea that I’m not responsible for maintaining it and providing backups and so forth. I’ve decided that going forward, my private projects will be remote hosted using this service.

Thanks again to DiscountASP.NET for providing excellent hosting of TFS 2010 and making my life easier.

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