Team Foundation Task Board Enhancer: version 0.3 released

Posted by Tiago Pascoal on September 30, 2012 Leave a comment (30) Go to comments

[Update: If you are here looking for a way to see blocked tasks, then take a look at version 0.6 which already has this feature]
[Update: Version 0.4 released]

[Update: Found an issue with expand/collapse all not working on Internet Explorer. Released 0.3.1 to fix this issue. Download at the bottom]

This is the third release of my TFS Task Board Enhancer, a TFS Web Access 2012, that adds some features to the task board.

I’ve blogged about version 0.2 on the post Team Foundation Task Board Enhancer: More Features and about version 0.1 on the post Team Foundation Task Board: Auto Refresh

In this version I’ve added one small feature, the ability to expand/collapse all requirements with a single click. By collapsing all the requirements will be collapsed, hiding all the cards associated with the requirements. The expand all has the reversed effect allowing you to see all cards at once.

image

please take notice that the expand all/collapse all doesn’t respect the Person filter, so things can get a little strange when used in when the Person filter is enabled.

on the previous version I’ve added the ability to add work item ids to the cards and the requirements, but the on the requirements the ids were only visible if the requirement was expanded.

image

on this version it’s also visible if the requirement is collapsed

The design of the filters was also changed so it is more consistent with Web Access.

On the previous version the filters (refresh all and maximize workspace) was visible near the tabs and enabled/disable with a checkbox. Not they have been moved into the filter zones, to be more consistent with the general UI

image

 

Feature List

To recap all features the extension has

  • Auto Refresh – Automatically refresh the board at a predetermined rate. Great to show the board on a big un attended wall board for all the team to see.
  • Maximize the workspace – removes the cruft (visual cruft) from the screen, allowing you to only see the board itself, by hiding the menus. nice to be used in conjunction with the auto refresh
  • Add work item id to the items– The work item ids are not visible on the cards or on the requirements. If you want to know the work item ids you need to open the card/requirement. This automatically adds the work item ids to the cards and requirements.
  • Expand/Collapse All – easily expand or collapse all requirements

Know Issues

If you click on a requirement (while expanded) Web Access will open the work item editor. when the editor is closed the work item id is lost (visually). This is the standard web access behavior and I’ve still haven’t found a decent workaround to recover from the fact that the work item title has been re-drawed (event if it’s not changed or saved).

How to get it?

Update: Version 0.3 had a small issue. The expand all/collapse all was not working in Internet Explorer.

This has ben fixed in version 0.3.1

Download version 0.3.1 of the extension

if you have doubts how to install it, it’s fully explained in a previous post Team Foundation Task Board: Auto Refresh

Uncategorized,
Leave a comment ?

30 Comments.

  1. Jeffry van de Vuurst October 2, 2012 at 8:08 pm

    Hi Tiago,

    Thanks for this update! It’s a very useful extension.

    I tried to download the zip, but I get the message it’s corrupted.

    Reply
    • Tiago Pascoal October 2, 2012 at 11:14 pm

      I’m sorry. This seems to be a bug in the download counter that was triggered when month changed. :-(

      I’ve applied a workaround until the bug is fixed (going to contact the author to see if it’s a bug or a misuse on my part)

      You can download the file now.

      Let me know if you still have issues.

      Thanks for reporting this

      Reply
  2. Jeffry van de Vuurst October 3, 2012 at 8:43 am

    Thanks, the download works again. BTW, is it also possible to extend other parts of Web Access, like the sprint backlog? I would like to color code the list.

    Reply
  3. Leo Vildosola October 6, 2012 at 11:03 pm

    Just installed the extension and the Expand All | Collapse All feature does not work. Everything else seems to work fine. Is there something special required to enable this feature?

    Reply
    • Tiago Pascoal October 7, 2012 at 9:19 pm

      Sorry about that. It was a bug that only manifested itself in Internet Explorer.

      apparently I was using an idiomatic link that was only used when dinosaurs roamed the earth and IE doesn’t support it anymore.

      Released version 0.3.1 to fix

      Thanks for the report

      Reply
  4. Jonathan Rajotte October 9, 2012 at 8:42 pm

    Nice extension.

    Feature request: Collapse All is great. But, what I always end up doing when viewing the board is collapse all the PBIs that are done, leaving the other PBIs opened. So if we could have Collapse Done, that would be perfect!

    Reply
    • Tiago Pascoal October 10, 2012 at 9:43 am

      Actually that is on the backlog.

      I’ve not finished my investigation, but this will have to probably resort to some hack (another one :-) ) so the definition of done, is probably not going to be the “regular” definition of done.

      So i’m still reluctant to add this, because it will appear half baked with a strange semantic.

      Would the “no active nor new” tasks associated with a requirement would be an acceptable definition for done?

      This would probably have issues with customized boards also

      Reply
  5. Saeed October 21, 2012 at 8:10 pm

    thanks man, colored card on the board would be great and for learning reason it could be great if you didn’t obfuscate your JavaScript codes.

    Reply
    • Tiago Pascoal October 21, 2012 at 11:10 pm

      i’m afraid coloring is not technically feasible.

      The code is minimized for 2 reasons.

      • Performance reasons
      • Due to the fact that i’m doing with the extensions is _totally_ unsupported. This might not even be available on the next update….
        I don’t want to encourage the use of unsupported methods.
      Reply
      • Joshka November 7, 2012 at 10:23 pm

        Hi Tiago,

        Given the unsupported nature of this extension, I wonder if you would consider putting the source code up on somewhere like github?

        Reply
        • Tiago Pascoal November 8, 2012 at 2:47 am

          sorry, but it is exactly give the fact that i use unsupported methods to implement this extension that i don’t provide source to it so i don’t help disseminate information that allows people to use unsupported extensibility methods.

          Hope you understand

          Reply
  6. Thorsten November 1, 2012 at 9:23 am

    Seems to be a gresat extension, unfortunately the downloaded file is corrupt.
    Once more the download counter bug?

    Reply
  7. Jim November 6, 2012 at 1:51 pm

    I am unable to download your extension which appears to be a great fit for what I am looking for in our process. Can you help?

    Reply
    • Tiago Pascoal November 8, 2012 at 2:51 am

      I’m sorry, there is a bug in the download plugin i use that requires a manual intervention on my part until the bug is fixed. And had forgot it to fix at the end of the month.

      Should work by now

      Reply
  8. Orad November 7, 2012 at 1:39 pm

    hi,

    i’d really like to try this extension, but every time I downloaded it the zip would not open and say it’s corrupted.
    can you please fix this?

    Thanks for the great extension!

    Reply
  9. Bappi November 7, 2012 at 7:45 pm

    Hi, Unable to download. Link is broken I guess. Could you please provide a download link?

    Regards,

    Bappi

    Reply
  10. Joshka November 7, 2012 at 10:22 pm

    Hi Tiago,

    The zip file is invalid. I tried downloading using chrome and IE.

    Following error message when attempting to open.
    Compressed (zipped) Folders Error
    Windows cannot open the folder.

    The Compressed (zipped) Folder ‘…\TSPascoal.Extensions.TaskBoardEnhancerV0_3_1[1].zip’ is invalid.

    Reply
  11. Aaron Corcoran November 19, 2012 at 2:02 pm

    One thing I’d love to see in this task board enhancer is a way to visualize tasks with the blocked status. For instance, wouldn’t it be great to show these in red or something that allows someone to quickly glance at the board and note the blocked items.

    Reply
    • Tiago Pascoal November 20, 2012 at 12:30 am

      Unfortunately that is not an easy task (in an efficient manner)

      Although marking a blocked task is easy,detecting it is not. At least without a heavy penalty loss.

      Reply
    • Tiago Pascoal January 24, 2013 at 11:42 pm

      I have one report of this ocurrence.

      But so far i have been unable to reproduce it.

      It appears to only happen on IE10. Is this the case or are you using another browser?

      Does a refresh solves the issue? or it happens everytime?

      Thanks

      Reply

Leave a Comment


NOTE - You can use these HTML tags and attributes:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

Trackbacks and Pingbacks: