Jim Liddell

Team Build Screen - Looking For Help

I’ve not really managed to find the time recently to do any further work on Team Build Screen, so I’ve decided to see if I can start the process of handing it over to the community to take forward.

Description from the project site:

Displays the active status of build definitions from Team Foundation Server 2010 or 2008.

Can be used on developer workstations and/or displayed on a large screen so that a development team can monitor the status of the build.

It was originally built specifically for TFS. Last year I added Jenkins/Hudson support (in the latest source but not in a release). My plan was to refactor the code in such a way that additional build servers (TeamCity, CruiseControl.NET etc…) could easily be supported. The other area that I started to flesh out is an alternate web UI, built using the excellent RaphaelJS, again this can be seen in the latest source but has not yet been officially released.

If you are interested in helping out (or know someone who might be) let me know in the comments.

Serving Static Content Using OpenRasta 2.0

I recently came up against an issue using OpenRasta 2.0 to serve static files (HTML, JavaScript, CSS) when hosting out with ASP.NET. So I posted the problem on StackOverflow, and Sebastien Lambla responded admitting that it wasn’t really a scenario that OpenRasta 2.0 supports, but that it would be supported in 3.0. His suggestion was to use FileInfo instances as ‘resources’ and create a handler to load the appropriate files from the file system for incoming requests.

What I ended up doing was similar, but instead returns the contents of files embedded in the assembly. Here is the handler implementation:

And here is the relevant configuration snippet:

I don’t think I would take this approach for a large amount of static files, but for the project I am working on, it does the trick.

posh-jenkins: Powershell Cmdlets for Jenkins

Very much inspired by Keith’s Dahlby’s posh-git project, I have put together a few small Cmdlets in Powershell which provide access to Jenkins.

Commands currently available:

• Jenkins-Info (alias ji) - Displays various details about the Jenkins server.
• Jenkins-Jobs (alias jj) -  Lists the jobs configured on the Jenkins server, colouring each depending on status.
• Jenkins-Build (alias jb) - Instructs Jenkins to build the specified job with the default parameters.

Basic at the moment, I plan to enhance this over time based on my own use. One of the first things on my list is to implement tab completion for the Jenkins-Build command to auto-complete the build name.

You can download the source from GitHub.

Urbanathlon Glasgow 2011

I’m running in the Glasgow Urbanathlon this year, in aid of Chest Heart & Stroke Scotland.

What’s an Urbanathlon? Here’s the description, straight from the official site:

Urbanathlons are multi-disciplinary, city foot races with the emphasis squarely on having fun. You can run as an individual or grab two mates and run as a team of three. Each race has more than 12 urban obstacles designed to get you sweating and smiling. Enter any of our races and you’ll be running, scrambling, climbing, dangling, wading and laughing before you know it. Each race has a different layout and course but similar fun obstacles, all set against the backdrop of iconic city centre locations.

Please sponsor me at http://www.justgiving.com/liddellj.

C# DateTime to Unix Timestamp Extension Method

Team Build Screen 1.3.1

Team Build Screen 1.3.1 is now available on CodePlex: http://teambuildscreen.codeplex.com/

This is a maintenance release targeting two common issues:

• Test results from TFS 2010 were not appearing for some users.
• Invalid font size exception.

Release 2.0 is being developed (when I find the time). Current focus is on the web client using Raphaël to reproduce the WPF UI as closely as possible.