Getting TFS and WFS to work with each other

Hi all,

I was hoping someone may be able to give me some guidance to get TFS and WFS working together - I'm really struggling at the moment.

We have an existing TFS instance running (that we use via visual studio) that we use for version control across the company, and each worker has WFS (wireframesketcher) installed on their machine - some use a local database, others do the right thing and work from TFS

• The problem with the current solution is that it is quite painful for each of the workers. We have to manually go into TFS, check out each screen we want to work on, open it in TFS (and then check it all back in manually through the Visual Studio interface when we're done

• I'm also trying to achieve something else - we have a central UI expert who uploads 'approved components' (that everyone must use in their models) to TFS.

• These components are modified and added by one person in the company, and no one else should be able to edit them (just use them in their screens). Also, these components are updated on a fairly regular basis (and new components will be added into the same folder. It would be IDEAL if people could add these to their 'palette' and have them update as they are updated in the TFS folder.

I've gone ahead and installed the eclipse TFS plugin, but I can't even figure out how to add the server details to this, let alone achieve any of the above.

Is anyone able to give me some guidance on how to get what I want working? Even just being able to directly check in/check out of TFS in WFS would be great! If it's possible to do any more than this (particularly making the 'approved components' available from a central location so people can use them in their screens easily), it would be even better!

Thanks SO much in advance for any assistance anyone is able to give me.

Hi Scott,

Installing the TFS plugin is the way to go. I went ahead and added a support article that describes how to do that and listed some pointers at the end that should help you to get started: http://wireframesketcher.com/support/install/installing-tfs-plugin.html

Let me know how it works for you and if you need more assistance.

Hi Peter,

Thanks so much for going ahead and doing that - I really appreciate it!

I'm taking a read through now and will try to remember to let you know how I go.

Kind regards,

Scott

Hi Peter,

Your guide was very helpful - I've managed to successfully connect to the TFS server etc. but I'm having a little bit of trouble in terms of knowing where to go from here, and was hoping you could answer a brief question (of if anyone else can)?

In order to share the components that I want people to be able to use in their wireframes (and to be able to access these at the same time etc.), should I:

1. Create a project in WFS with all of the components, and then somehow share that somehow or:

2. Upload all of the screen files to a TFS folder, and then share from here? (This is currently how things are setup - all of the components that people can use are uploaded as individual screens to a TFS folder.) Users can copy and paste the components into their wireframes after downloading and importing the screens into their instance of WFS

I'm expecting an answer to this will steer me in the right direction, as after a little reading, I feel I may be approaching this from the wrong 'angle'.

Kind regards,

Scott

Hi Scott,

I am not that familiar with TFS so I am not sure what the option 2 is. Option 1 looks more like what I would do. I would actually store all projects on TFS, the one with components and all other specific projects.

Now for organizing your components project you have an option to make all components appear in the Palette View. For that you need to place your components into the "assets" folder. So your project structure will look something like this:

components_project
  assets
    Component1.screen
    Component2.screen

Then creating other projects you can make them inherit components from the components project. This is done by setting Project References in the properties of the new project. See this section in our user guide for more details: http://wireframesketcher.com/help/help.html#working_with_projects/managing_project_assets

You can go further and organize your components into categories like it's done by some of our stencils (see stencils for iOS and Android). This is done by creating sub-folders under "assets" folder and placing components in them. So your components project would look something like this in the end.

components_project
  assets
    Category1
      Component11.screen
      Component12.screen
    Category2
      Component21.screen
      Component22.screen

No to work on some specific project the user would need to checkout (I am not sure this is the right term for TFS) both his specific project and the components project. Note that with this approach you don't have to copy anything, the components will be referenced directly from the components project as long as the user has it checked ou in their workspace. This lets you easily evolve components too.

Let me know if this works for your or you have other questions.