"Search Workitems" Plugin for Visual studio and Team Explorer

Today I needed to find a workitem in TFS (Team Foundation Server) but didn't know in which Team Project it was. I also didn't know the workitem ID so I was getting ready for a big search through all the projects. Then I decided that there must be a better way to do this, and that it couldn't be that I was the only one with this problem.

After searching a bit on google I found this plugin for Visual studio and Team Explorer and it works great! It adds a toolbar to Visual Studio with a small search field in it where you can put any search word. It then will search through all the workitems in all the projects and gives you a list with items it finds. Exactly what I needed so I added it to my great tools for .NET development toolbox!

You can find this plugin on codeplex:
http://searchworkitems.codeplex.com/releases/view/16269
 
The description on codeplex for this plugin is:
This plugin for Team System puts a little search box right into Visual Studio to make it easy to find work items. It is an addin for Team Foundation Client (Team Explorer) and is accessible from the Team menu when you're connected to a Team Foundation Server and is also available from a VS Toolbar. You just type in some search text and it runs a work item query for you showing you results across the work item store, or enter a work item ID to immediately open a specific work item.

A string manipulater method

To stay in the spirit of code sharing I decided to add another code snippet!

This little snippet of C# shows a method that will make all the first letters of the words in a string uppercase.

Okay, okay not exactly brain surgery but a nice snippet anyway! ;-)

public static string InitCapSmall(string tekst)
{
   if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(tekst) || tekst.Trim() == "") return tekst;
   string returnValue="";
   foreach (char c in tekst)
   {
      returnValue += returnValue.Length == 0 || 

                     returnValue[returnValue.Length - 1] == ' ' 

                     ? c.ToString().ToUpper() : 

                       c.ToString().ToLower();
   }
   return returnValue;
}

That's it!

I also put this blog on my site; www.developerblog.nl

Using syntax highlighting

So after registering my URL developerblog.nl and installing wordpress on my site I started thinking about what I would write about. I decided that I will write general ramblings about being a freelance .NET developer having a strange infatuation with the Macbook pro, the iPad and the iPhone.

Next to that I also will write more technical blogs about .NET development, where I will insert C# source code. To keep the source code readable and to make use of a (sort of) color coding I decided to search for a plugin that would help me with that.

Luckily I found the Wordpress plugin SyntaxHighlighter which did the trick for me! It isn't 100% what I want but it comes close to this. You just have to put two tags around your source code, letting Wordpress know what is code and what is not and that's it! You can even let Wordpress know which language it is so the right words will be hightlighted.

I put a small C# code snippet on my website ( www.developerblog.nl ) to show what I mean.
Nicely done right?!

I blog therefore I exist!

Finally I started blogging! After wanting to do this for months, even registering my URL ( www.developerblog.nl ) I finally found the time to install WordPress on my own website.

By the way, WordPress really rocks! It took my all of 5 minutes to install it. Ok, after that it took me 3 hours to configure it but truth must be told, my newborn daughter was distracting me !

I will post my blogs on these pages but also on my own website.
Let's see how this will go in the next few months!