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Mingle Add-On

    Adam Monago
    Mingle Extension for Visual Studio
    Mingle Add-On posted February 9, 2011 by Adam Monago, last edited April 24, 2012 by Mark Richter , tagged Continuous Integration, Development, QA, TW Approved
    3184 Views, 10 Comments
    Name:
    Mingle Extension for Visual Studio
    Overview:

    Introduction

    Mingle Extension for Visual Studio delivers project-relevant access to Mingle (and soon Go) from Microsoft Visual Studio so that you can use these tools without leaving the IDE. You will realize better productivity in development and accuracy of data in Mingle and Go with these tools literally at your fingertips during coding and development.

    This is an open source project on github. If you are interested in contributing we'll make a way for that to happen.

     

    DOWNLOAD MINGLE EXTENSTION FOR VISUAL STUDIO HERE


    Features:

    • ThoughtWorks Explorer is similar to TFS Team Explorer showing Favorites and the Team members in a Mingle project context
    • Listing Mingle cards from using Views and Favorites
    • Editing Mingle Cards from Visual Studio
    • Updating Mingle cards from Visual Studio
    • Create new Mingle cards from Visual Studio
    • Murmur messages from Visual Studio IDE

    System Requirements:

    • Windows 7 (XP and Vista have not been tested)
    • Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Professional Edition and above (Express Editions will not support add-ons) 
    • Mingle 3.5 has been tested.

    Installation:

    • You must have basic_authentication enabled on your Mingle server. Please refer to the bottom of this page for information about how to do this.
    • Watch the installation video.
    • Download the VSIX file from this page.
    • Ensure you have either Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Professional or Ultimate installed and shut down.
    • Run the VSIX file.
    • When you click “Install” on the resulting dialog you are agreeing to the license agreement.
    • Click “Close”.
    • Launch Visual Studio.
    • Locate the Mingle Explorer under View -> Other Windows and click it. At this point you should be presented with a dialog for supplying your Mingle and Go server URLs, credentials and project name (for Mingle). If you are not presented with this dialog then click the Settings button on the Mingle Explorer window.
    • Watch the demonstration video (see above) for a tour of the ThoughtWorks Visual Studio Connector.

    Notes:

    • Mincle Connector for Visual Studio keeps a log of activity useful in tracking down issues when they are reported. Including this log in problem reports to Thoughtworks Customer Service is a good idea. The log is found at the following location on Windows 7:  C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\Thoughtworks where [username] is the Windows 7 login name of the user. This file may become large. Compressing (zipping) it is recommended before uploading it or attaching it to an email.
    • The Settings dialog has no "Save" button. Settings are saved (persisted) when you close the window using the "X" in the corner.
    • When launching the extension a connection to Mingle is attempted using saved settings. If problems with a connection or loading the Explorer tree with data are encountered the loading process will stop and some of the tree (either Mingle) may be unpopulated. If this happens check your settings.
    • We have not tested the Extension on Windows XP or Windows Vista. It should work, but be advised.

     History

    • 1.0.1 - "IM"-like window for murmurs, bug fixes
    • 1.0.2 - Bug fixes
    • 1.0.3 - Bug fixes
    • 1.0.4 - Better information on first use with link to free Mingle trial, new card selector for card-calued properties
     
    Embedded Demo video:
    Source Repository:
    Source on Github
    Author / Copyright Owner:
    ThoughtWorks Studios
    Year Written:
    2012
    License:
    ThoughtWorks Studios End User License Agreement

    Comment

     

    • Andrew Finnell
      posted August 11, 2011 by Andrew Finnell

      Is this planned on being release as an OpenSource project so we can fix and enhance it?

    • Ben Butler-Cole
      posted August 15, 2011 by Ben Butler-Cole

      We plan to open-source the connector when we make a v1.0 release, which we hope to do later this year.

      If you have any feedback for us which we could take into account in that release, then we would be glad to hear it.

      -Ben

    • Andrew Finnell
      posted August 18, 2011 by Andrew Finnell

      - Updated User Experience

          - Adding a trailing '/' in a URL for the Mingle connection strings causes the connection fail  (e.g. "http://localhost:8080/" instead of "http://localhost:8080"

          - Clicking on any of the views such as "My Work" results in a "This view is not available in Visual Studio". I am using VS2010 Ultimate

          - Better utilization of screen realestate when viewing cards. Dynamic layout. 

          - Modern Card view when viewing cards. (Should look similar to web page, white background, layout etc.)

      - Allow editing Wiki pages

      - Better error checking. The add-on locks my Visual Studio 2010 50% of the time I attempt to use it.

      - Enhanced SCM Provider integration

          - Mark check-ins with Card that was associated with that check-in (ala "#40")

          - View all cards associated with a file based on current provider and Mingle integration

          - Allow the use of hotlinks in source code for bug fixes. "Card: #40" in the code would take me to the card

      - Mingle should use User Options file for solution specific connections so each Solution can be associated with a different Mingle connection

      - Task tracker. I see no way to see what has been assigned to me as "My Work" does not function.

      - Explorer should function with the idea that multiple Mingle projects can exist. (This goes to the assigning a specific settings to a Solution)

      - Click on a Team Member does nothing for me. Nothing happens.

      - You can Murmur but I see no View for conversations or existing Murmurs.

      The product does not increase productivity while working within Visual Studio. It is fairly unusable at this juncture. I realize there is additional work to be done. Looking at something such as http://tasktop.com/videos/thoughtworks/connector/index.html it is very evident there is a lot of work to be done with the Visual Studio 2010 Plug-in. 

      I'd like to push again for this to be put into github so the community can help with this project. The standard licenses can be put on it: Mingle owns it, no liability, etc etc. How long has this product been sitting here in Beta? Is this planned on being sold as a seperate product? If there is a business case of this "maybe" being sold then I can understand the resistance from Executives, but as it stands unless more money and effort is put into making this a solid product line for Mingle no one will buy it.

      Let us help make Mingle better.

      - Andrew

    • sooraj
      posted January 20, 2012 by sooraj

      Hi,

      How to change the connection string,username and password??

      i tried reinstalling the extension. its not working.

      Exception

      Error

       

      Log

      20/01/2012 17:27:16 ThoughtWorks.VisualStudio.ExplorerViewControl.BindProjectList: The remote server returned an error: (404) Not Found.
      20/01/2012 17:27:16 ThoughtWorks.VisualStudio.ExplorerViewControl.BindProjectList: at ThoughtWorksMingleLib.MingleServer.GetResponse(String method, String project, String urlSegment, IEnumerable`1 data)
      at ThoughtWorksMingleLib.MingleServer.Get(String url)
      at ThoughtWorksMingleLib.MingleServer.GetProjectList()
      at ThoughtWorks.VisualStudio.ViewModel.get_ProjectList()
      at ThoughtWorks.VisualStudio.ExplorerViewControl.BindProjectList()
      20/01/2012 17:27:16 ThoughtWorks.VisualStudio.ExplorerViewWindowPane..ctor: Initialization of 'ThoughtWorks.VisualStudio.ExplorerViewControl' threw an exception.
      20/01/2012 17:27:16 ThoughtWorks.VisualStudio.ExplorerViewWindowPane..ctor: at System.Windows.Markup.XamlReader.RewrapException(Exception e, IXamlLineInfo lineInfo, Uri baseUri)
      at System.Windows.Markup.WpfXamlLoader.Load(XamlReader xamlReader, IXamlObjectWriterFactory writerFactory, Boolean skipJournaledProperties, Object rootObject, XamlObjectWriterSettings settings, Uri baseUri)
      at System.Windows.Markup.WpfXamlLoader.LoadBaml(XamlReader xamlReader, Boolean skipJournaledProperties, Object rootObject, XamlAccessLevel accessLevel, Uri baseUri)
      at System.Windows.Markup.XamlReader.LoadBaml(Stream stream, ParserContext parserContext, Object parent, Boolean closeStream)
      at System.Windows.Application.LoadComponent(Object component, Uri resourceLocator)
      at ThoughtWorks.VisualStudio.ExplorerViewControl.InitializeComponent()
      at ThoughtWorks.VisualStudio.ExplorerViewWindowPane..ctor()
      20/01/2012 17:27:16 ThoughtWorks.VisualStudio.TwVscCommandsPackage.ShowMingleExplorer: Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation.
      20/01/2012 17:27:16 ThoughtWorks.VisualStudio.TwVscCommandsPackage.ShowMingleExplorer: at System.RuntimeTypeHandle.CreateInstance(RuntimeType type, Boolean publicOnly, Boolean noCheck, Boolean& canBeCached, RuntimeMethodHandleInternal& ctor, Boolean& bNeedSecurityCheck)
      at System.RuntimeType.CreateInstanceSlow(Boolean publicOnly, Boolean skipCheckThis, Boolean fillCache)
      at System.RuntimeType.CreateInstanceDefaultCtor(Boolean publicOnly, Boolean skipVisibilityChecks, Boolean skipCheckThis, Boolean fillCache)
      at System.Activator.CreateInstance(Type type, Boolean nonPublic)
      at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Shell.Package.CreateToolWindow(Type toolWindowType, Int32 id, ProvideToolWindowAttribute tool)
      at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Shell.Package.CreateToolWindow(Type toolWindowType, Int32 id)
      at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Shell.Package.FindToolWindow(Type toolWindowType, Int32 id, Boolean create, ProvideToolWindowAttribute tool)
      at ThoughtWorks.VisualStudio.TwVscCommandsPackage.ShowMingleExplorer(Object caller, EventArgs args)

      Thanks,

      Sooraj

    • Mark Richter
      posted January 20, 2012 by Mark Richter

      The extension is now properly trapping the case where Mingle authentication fails during startup and displaying a message.

      We just uplaoaded a new version of the extension with a fix.

      Once Visual Studio finishes launching you can use the Settings button in Mingle Explorer to fix your settings.

    • Matthew
      posted January 24, 2012 by Matthew

      I'm very interested in this Visual Studio Extension, but I'm afraid that I'm having very little luck with using it.  

      The extension installs fine.  When I open the Mingle Explorer view, the Settings dialog opens and I enter the address of my Mingle server, just like many others, I'm entering "http://localhost:8080/", without the quotes of course.  When I click on the "Save" button, an error dialog is displayed with the message: "The remote server returned an error: (404) Not Found."

      I have no problems accessing the mingle server using a web browser with the exact same URL and username/password that I'm providing to the Visual Studio Extension.

      I've also tried removing the trailing "/" from the URL, but in that case I get a different error dialog: "The remote server returned an error: (401) Unauthorized".  So at least in this case something appears to be working, but still, the username/password that I know is good appears to be rejected?

       

      Is there something else I'm missing here?

       

      Thanks,

      -- Matthew

    • Mark Richter
      posted January 24, 2012 by Mark Richter

      Matthew, there appears to be a silly bug. Leave the training "/" off the URL as in "http://localhost:8080". 

    • Matthew
      posted January 24, 2012 by Matthew

      Heh, no worries, just another case of RTFM...

      I had not enabled basic authentication.  I've since fixed that and now I'm having no problems.   =/

       

      Sorry for the annoyance.

       

      -- Matthew

    • Mark Richter
      posted January 24, 2012 by Mark Richter

      Good to hear. Please post your thoughts and comments. We're actively working on this and posting new versions roughly weekly. The next major line of attack is to add some more direct integration into the VS menu system. I am *particularly* interested in feedback on performance. Thanks!

    • Mark Richter
      posted January 24, 2012 by Mark Richter

      Version 1.0.3 has been posted that includes a fix to catch obvious cases of the URL issue noted above and better messaging when a call to Mingle fails for any reason.