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We are delighted to announce that TDS 5.5, the latest version of the product, has officially entered beta testing. Containing all the wonderful features that users have come to expect, such as Sync Sitecore Roles, TDS 5.5 also introduces excellent new modules for more flexibility and greater utility, such as:

Features:

• Delta Builds and Packages by changed date. Only include items in deployment/package if they are changed after the specified date. This is activated in the "General" TDS property tab.
• Auto Deploy content files as they're edited. Reduce the app pool recycles while developing. When a content file in the Source Web Project changes, it will be automatically pushed to the correct location in the Sitecore Deploy folder without requiring a build. This is activated by an option in the TDSOptions page (Tools ->Options)
• Sync multiple projects. To improve workflow in solutions with a large number of TDS projects, in 5.5 the user is now able to use Sync Using History across multiple projects in a single Sync operation. This is activated by right-clicking on the solution and Choosing "Sync all TDS projects using History"
• AutoSync. Automatically picks up changes from Sitecore and syncs the project. This is enabled in the TDSOptions dialog. Once TDS communicates with a project, all changes should be picked up.
• Only update connector if it is different. Check access Guide and versions to see if the connector needs updating. This should prevent the connector from being installed during the build if there are multiple TDS projects in the build itself.

• Prevent build from running if there is a difference between IDE and Build tasks. This will validate that the TDS components were installed correctly and ensure TDS version mismatches will be caught during the build. 

• Post deployment steps. This allows custom steps to be executed after deployment and package install. Added post deployment steps to the following, which can be configured on the "Deploy Property" page:

  • Publish Deployed Items
  • Trigger Save events
  • Update Link database
  • Custom
• TDS Cloud Builds. TDS now allows the user to add the TDS build components using a NuGet package. This allows for easily building TDS projects on cloud build servers. It's as simple as installing a new TDS NuGet package supplied in the .zip into a private NuGet pakcage source.
• Improved error handling on Sync. The Sync window had issues when there were LOTS of duplicate items. This feature prevents the user from being over-prompted when there are multiple duplicates.
• Added validator for Standard Values. Deploy Once isn’t supported for Standard values in Sitecore update packages. Accordingly, a validator was added to catch these.
• Sitecore Package Validation. Determine if a .zip package is installed in Sitecore; fail/install the package if it isn’t. This option has its own property page.
• Alert user to blocked template. When downloading T4 templates from GitHub, the .zip file may be blocked. This causes odd errors and problems creating the generated code. TDS now alerts users to blocked code generation templates.
• Check if Git is correctly configured for TDS. There are a few things Git users need to do to get the most out of TDS. To facilitate this, TDS will now check to make sure Git is configured correctly. TDS now checks:
  • If the .gitattributes file is correctly configured
  • If the merge tool is correctly configured
• Hide ignored fields from the Sync Window. If this option is selected, TDS will now only show non-ignored fields that are different in the sync windows.
• Ignore changes in certain languages in the Sync Window. The user can exclude certain languages from being compared for changes in the Sync process; this option is located in the TDS Options page.
• Allow Code Generation after a project change to be disabled. For very large projects, it may take too long to re-generate code every time the project changes.
• Allow link files as Code Gen templates. In a large project, it is difficult to manage multiple versions of the Code Gen files. This allows all projects to link back to a single version of the Code Gen file; use the Add Existing dialog to add a link just like any other file.
• Search Nuget Package folder for Sitecore assemblies during the package build process. The Package Builder requires Sitecore assemblies to work correctly. NuGet manages the location of these files in the /package folder. The location of these assemblies can vary over the lifetime of a project, so the package builder will now look for a /package folder in the solution directory and then look for the required assemblies under that folder. Remove the Sitecore Assembly path from the Update Package Property page to get this to work.
• New and Improved Deployment Property Manager. The deployment property manager has a new UI, making it easier to understand what deployment properties are set on the various items. If it causes problems, this can be disabled in the TDS Options.

Bug Fixes:

• Clean up error handling in GetSitecoreItems. There were problems when adding duplicate items. Errors on the Sitecore server were not properly reported.
• Fix issues with styling in Package Builder Read Me. Styles did not work correctly.
• Made code generated fields Language/Version aware. Fields were not picking up the various languages/versions. Added new property to prevent breaking existing code.
• Control-C and Control-V were not correctly supported in text boxes. Fixed support for Control-C & Control-V
• Minor performance improvements with CodeGen. Getting properties during Code Generation was clearing an internal cache.
• Prevent Sync from failing on very large content. If an item is too large to sync, it now shows up as “Broken”

TDS 5.5 will be available in March 2016; if your license is about to expire now is definitely the time to renew. Contact us at [email protected]!

 
*Updated 12/4/2017*

TDS Classic 5.7 is now live with even more performance improvements. Lightning mode improves speed when installing items, Solution Wide Sync allows users to push all TDS products to Sitecore at once, Lightning Sync allows users to sync operations when in Lightning Mode, and Lightning Deploy can be used to enable Lightning Mode for all deployments that are using the TDS Sitecore Connector.