Blog
What is New in TDS Classic 5.8?
April 24, 2019 | Kliment Klimentov
TDS Classic 5.8 comes with several new features. In this post, we'll show you some simple features that can help significantly improve your experience with TDS.
The new toolbar
One of the new features is a new toolbar for easier access to some of the regularly used features. If you are already using TDS Classic 5.8, you probably noticed its placed within Visual Studio's tools.
If the toolbar is not present, it can be enabled from View -> Toolbars -> TDS Toolbar. The buttons will become active when there's a TDS project in the Solution.
Here are the features you can quickly access using the toolbar:
Sync all projects with Sitecore Button
This button will open the Sync window. You'll see all the projects in the solution and the included items. Once started, it will compare the items in the project, their descendants, and the ones in Sitecore.
Sync all TDS projects using History
This button will open the Sync using History Window and will allow you to track your changes using the History table in Sitecore.
Quick Push all TDS projects
With the Quick Push button, you can perform a quick deployment of the items in your projects.
Run Validators for all projects
This button lets you run the Validators without running a build. The results are logged in the Output window allowing you to see if there are any errors quickly. This is useful when you want to be sure that everything is alright without building the whole project. This can also save a lot of time typically spent waiting for the build to complete.
Run Code Generation for all projects
This button will run the Code Generation for all projects which is helpful when the automatic Code Generation is turned off. When run, it will output code that can be compiled and used within your application.
Compact project file
Another feature we've added is an option to make the items in the project files easier for merging. Because of the format of the project file, this was often a complicated process.
A Sitecore item in the TDS Project has two XML elements that should stay together as one unit. The first is an include option showing where the item is located in the Sitecore tree. The second is metadata storing all the settings configured for this item in TDS.
Since most merge tools are line-based, it's easy to break the project during a merge.
The Compact Projects option will remove all whitespaces between the metadata and the include option - making items appear on a single line. They become much easier to understand when using a merge tool.
Connector timeout
This feature lets you set a different timeout for the TDS requests during the deployment. This is important in case Sitecore takes a longer to start and working with larger Sitecore instances. With TDS Classic 5.8, you can easily set a different timeout than the default 2 minutes for TDS requests from the build tab of your TDS Project.
Learn more about the newest TDS Classic 5.8 features or download a trial and test it out for yourself.
The new toolbar
One of the new features is a new toolbar for easier access to some of the regularly used features. If you are already using TDS Classic 5.8, you probably noticed its placed within Visual Studio's tools.
If the toolbar is not present, it can be enabled from View -> Toolbars -> TDS Toolbar. The buttons will become active when there's a TDS project in the Solution.
Here are the features you can quickly access using the toolbar:
Sync all projects with Sitecore Button
This button will open the Sync window. You'll see all the projects in the solution and the included items. Once started, it will compare the items in the project, their descendants, and the ones in Sitecore.
Sync all TDS projects using History
This button will open the Sync using History Window and will allow you to track your changes using the History table in Sitecore.
Quick Push all TDS projects
With the Quick Push button, you can perform a quick deployment of the items in your projects.
Run Validators for all projects
This button lets you run the Validators without running a build. The results are logged in the Output window allowing you to see if there are any errors quickly. This is useful when you want to be sure that everything is alright without building the whole project. This can also save a lot of time typically spent waiting for the build to complete.
Run Code Generation for all projects
This button will run the Code Generation for all projects which is helpful when the automatic Code Generation is turned off. When run, it will output code that can be compiled and used within your application.
Compact project file
Another feature we've added is an option to make the items in the project files easier for merging. Because of the format of the project file, this was often a complicated process.
A Sitecore item in the TDS Project has two XML elements that should stay together as one unit. The first is an include option showing where the item is located in the Sitecore tree. The second is metadata storing all the settings configured for this item in TDS.
Since most merge tools are line-based, it's easy to break the project during a merge.
The Compact Projects option will remove all whitespaces between the metadata and the include option - making items appear on a single line. They become much easier to understand when using a merge tool.
Connector timeout
This feature lets you set a different timeout for the TDS requests during the deployment. This is important in case Sitecore takes a longer to start and working with larger Sitecore instances. With TDS Classic 5.8, you can easily set a different timeout than the default 2 minutes for TDS requests from the build tab of your TDS Project.
Learn more about the newest TDS Classic 5.8 features or download a trial and test it out for yourself.
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