Team Foundation Sidekicks

MSBuild Sidekick v2 beta is available!

I am very happy to announce the release of version 2 of MSBuild Sidekick. Current release is limited-time beta version to be followed by the commercial release before the year is out.

See product page for additional information; also make sure to have a look at walkthroughs detailing the application usage. 

As always, your feedback is most welcome - just leave a comment at the blog or drop us a line at msbuild_at_attrice_dot_info.

And now for the interesting part of the announcement - what the new version is packing.

MSBuild Sidekick v2 can be used to load and build the following project types: 

• Custom build scripts 
• VS2005 C# or VB.NET projects
• VS2005 solutions
• Delphi projects 

Note: While the current version does not support building VS2008 projects, such projects still can be opened with MSBuild Sidekick (the elements that are part of MSBuild v.3.5 schema will be ignored).

Here is the list of main features of MSBuild Sidekick v2:

• View project structure in categorized project tree view (similar to v1)
• View project structure in sequential project tree view (elements appear in the same order as in build project)
• Show or hide imported elements in project tree view as desired
• Add new or delete selected elements
• Edit selected element's properties and comments using properties grid
• Edit elements properties in a list (for container elements such as PropertyGroup etc.)
• Edit selected element's properties and comments using raw XML view
• Add tasks to targets using categorized "Add task" dialog 
• Use properties, items and item metadata intellisense support when editing elements
• Change elements order in sequential project tree view or in elements list (for container elements)
• Perform "intellegent" rename of the elements throughout the project (all relevant elements are renamed)
• Delete elements throughout the project (no "dead" references left behind)
• Navigate between elements and element views (properties, list or raw XML) using backward/forward navigation
• Navigate between elements using "Find Element" dialog
• Navigate between elements using "Jump To" function in element properties
• Use integrated MSDN help (either from locally installed MSDN collection or from online MSDN)
• View targets and tasks execution graph
• Specify global or project-specifc properties to be used in build session
• Modify environment properties per project for the build session
• Select targets for the build session
• Build project
• Review build results using console log (similar to command-line MSBuild console log)
• Review build results using errors/warnings log
• Review build results using structured detailed log; navigate to specific elements from the log

 Our future (tentative) plans are to provide support of MSBuild v.3.5 and VS2008 projects, at least some level of step-through debugging, integration to Visual Studio and many more additional interesting features. Stay tuned!