Task gap - From Add Existing Team Project to Creating Workspace

The Team Explorer guides me along really nicely in terms of connecting to a TF server for the first time and then select a project. However, once I have that project added all the folders are grayed out in the Source Control explorer. I knew I needed to "get latest version" of the files in the team project into my workspace. I knew I needed to create a workspace but I was having a hard time finding it in the VS UI. I kept wanting to go to the Team Explorer <ProjectName> node and right-click on it and select Team Project Settings | Source Control... but for the user I was testing with, this menu pick was grayed out. I right clicked on Team Project node in the Source Control Explorer and expected to find a "Add mapping" or something like that but there was nothing like that. I looked on both the "Source Control Explorer" and "Team Explorer" for a "Create Workspace" or "Add Mapping" toolbar button but none exists. Finally I found File | Source Control | Workspaces... which allowed me finally to map the team project to a local folder. Wow. That took me a while and I was really surprised there wasn't anything on the Team Project or Source Control Explorer UI to help with this. This is a big task gap IMO.

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Task gap - From Add Existing Team Project to Creating Workspace

Karsten Januszewski
Well, what's generally the next step is that you add a solution under that team project, either a new solution or an existing solution, and the process of doing that will create a workspace with the necessary mapping. Likewise, double clicking on a solution file in Source Control Explorer (solution already in source control and you want to get it) will create a mapping and/or workspace as needed.

In the beta, the mappings that get created are below the team project, so it's typical that they remain gray.

For some more discussion on how this works, see this topic.
Folder names greyed out in SCC explorer
http://forums.microsoft.com/msdn/ShowPost.aspx PostID=4697

Going back to your opening comment about the task gap, did the walkthroughs help with this
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/library/ms181232(en-us,vs.80).aspx

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Buck
nick79
I see. You want to be able to add VS solutions as part of creating the team project. I suspect that wasn't done because the expectation is that an admin (or other user with elevated privileges) creates the team project and then folks in other roles, such as devs or project managers, populate it with solutions and projects.

For managing workspaces, I believe I saw that show up in the combo box in SCE in the latest code (I'm not connected to the coporate net, or I'd check). If I'm right, that'll be addressed in the next release.

Buck
Patrick_msdn
Your suggestions seem like a really good idea to me (except for remove - I'm OK with manually removing the files). BTW, it seems odd to me that the "Version Control" node in the Team Explorer windows has no context menu.

I would also consider an equivalent "workfold" context menu for non-root directories in the SCE. I would expect to be able to select this and either "cloak" or map that directory.

In general, I think you guys are headed in a right direction especially with the command line interface. I would just caution the team to not get too narrow of a view assuming that every initial mapping/getLatest will result from a Solution Add or Open. I can tell you that for our documentation writers that will not be the case.
Paul D. Murphy
We agree there is a big task gap there. Between now and the summer CTP we are looking at adding a right click context menu for the Team Explorer that will fill this gap. Things we've talked about adding include menu items to -

map the selected project to a location on your hard drive
get the latest version of everything in the selected project

we've talked about one to remove a project from your hard drive but I'm less convinced this is critical. I'm interested in other opinions for critical version control entry points to bridge the gap for people getting started.
Davidmi
You know software engineers - we never read the docs. :-) I was basing my use of TF on previous VCS experience. In some packages you have to create mappings in a special file. In ClearCase you have to create a new View and create a config spec. I was expecting to have to do something to map the team project from the repository to my local drive. I stumbled when VS didn't lead me that way. It seems to me that we you add an existing team project and there are no Workspaces mapped to that team project you could pop-up the dialog box Manage Workspaces dialog box. After the user creates the Workspace then ask if they want to do a "get latest". That seems to be the most common scenario. BTW, this might all be better done by a "Add Existing Team Project" Wizard. Step 1, find a TF server, step 2, select a project (or projects), step 3, create a workspace for the new project(s) [skip step3 if a workspace mapping exists) and step 4, get latest files into the workspace.

BTW, shouldn't there be a "Manage Workspaces" toolbar button on the Source Control Explorer and/or the Team Explorer
Task gap - From Add Existing Team Project to Creating Workspace

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