We setup a maven based repository using VSTS Package Management as documented here, but this was not clear on how to upload an existing POM/JAR artifact.

After some research, and help from colleagues - https://maven.apache.org/guides/mini/guide-3rd-party-jars-remote.html provided the hints

For POC purposes I tried to deploy JTidy to VSTS Package Management – and this command did it.

mvn deploy:deploy-file -DpomFile=C:\jtidy\jtidy-4aug2000r7-dev.pom -Dfile=C:\jtidy\jtidy-4aug2000r7-dev.jar -DrepositoryId=vstsinstance-visualstudio.com-mavenfeed -Durl=https://vsinstance.pkgs.visualstudio.com/_packaging/MavenFeed/maven/v1

You obviously need to change the values (eg vstsinstance etc), and need to ensure you follow the initial instructions to setup and Maven feed, as well as the proper settings.xml file

Hope this helps,

Ahmed]]> https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/southafrica/use-nuget-package-2-2-for-vs-app-center-testing Mon, 14 May 2018 11:14:54 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/southafrica/?p=3395 I was doing a simple POC using Xamarin Forms, Xamarin UITest and VS App Center. I created a standard Forms and UI Tests projects, and setup a build in VSTS.

When trying to run the tests via App Center in VSTS (using the builtin task), I got an error

esoent no such file or directory

After much troubleshooting, and trying to run the appcenter CLI directly, I figured out the issue. You need v2.2 of the test-cloud.exe in order for this to work. The nuget package that is installed when creating a new UITest is 1.3X. As soon as upgraded the Nuget package to 2.2, everything was good.

Ahmed

I was following the really good lab at https://almvm.azurewebsites.net/labs/vstsextend/jenkins/ on how to use Jenkins. That scenario sets up a Jenkins infrastructure on Azure via https://portal.azure.com/#create/azure-oss.jenkinsjenkins. The lab then proceeds to build a maven based app on a Linux box.

As a prerequisite to below, you should probably follow the lab above first, especially the provisioning of Jenkins using the solution template.

The obvious follow-up for me was how to build a Windows based app (in this case an ASP.NET application using the full .NET Framework) in the same environment. I am a newbie to Jenkins but picked up the following:

1) Jenkins has a concept of master and slaves. You could look to set a Windows based slave manually

2) The Jenkins infrastructure that is provisioned automatically installs some plugins that allows you to scale or create new environments using Azure VM Agents plugin. More information ia available at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/jenkins/jenkins-azure-vm-agents and https://plugins.jenkins.io/azure-vm-agents

I decided to go with the second option. As I was looking to build a .NET Framework ASP.NET app, I felt the easiest way to get all the dependencies on the machine was to have a VM that had a Visual Studio configured.

In summary : I wanted to setup a Jenkins agent running Windows and Visual Studio leveraging the Azure VM Agent task.

The intention is not to provide a step by step walkthrough. The general details of using the Azure VM agent plugins are provided in the URLs listed above.

Steps

1) I set the label to something that my build could use to select this agent – in the screenshot below it is “vs2”

2) You can specify the other usual Azure settings in terms of machine size, region etc as shown above

3) The important bit is the image reference where I specified

a. Use Advanced Image Configuration

b. I then specified the various details on the image. In this case

• ImagePublisher=MicrosoftVisualStudio
• ImageOffer=VisualStudio
• ImageSKU=VS-2017-Ent-WS2016
• ImageVersion=latest

c. I set the image type to Windows, Launch method SSH and ticked the box to pre-install SSH

Where did I get these settings from? - I went into the Azure portal and went through the process of creating a Visual Studio VM. Before you create a VM, you have the option to download the template. Open this template and look for the section around on StorageProfile. This is where you can get the values from (the values in the screenshot differ from above). Note – there is no need to create the VM from the portal. You can cancel it. The point is get the template so we can get easily derive the values. If you want a different VM then use the appropriate values. There might be an easier way to do this

4) IMPORTANT – I had to set up the initialization script under the section . If you hover over the information icon, it gives you the clue and advises you to use the script at https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Azure/jenkins/master/agents_scripts/Jenkins-Windows-Init-Script-Jnlp.ps1 for a Windows machine. This is what I used. The script is listed below as well (just in case!)

5) The Jenkins that was deployed sets up set of credentials, but I had no idea what the password was. So I setup a new set of credentials

6) When I setup a new build in Jenkins I set restrict where this project can be run – and set it to same label that was set in Step (1)

Script (should be same as https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Azure/jenkins/master/agents_scripts/Jenkins-Windows-Init-Script-Jnlp.ps1 and better to directly use that. Included below just in case the script is moved)

# Download and Install Java

Set-ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted

#Default workspace location

Set-Location C:\

$source = "http://download.oracle.com/otn-pub/java/jdk/8u131-b11/d54c1d3a095b4ff2b6607d096fa80163/jdk-8u131-windows-x64.exe"

$destination = "C:\jdk-8u131-windows-x64.exe"

$client = new-object System.Net.WebClient

$cookie = "oraclelicense=accept-securebackup-cookie"

$client.Headers.Add([System.Net.HttpRequestHeader]::Cookie, $cookie)

$client.downloadFile($source, $destination)

$proc = Start-Process -FilePath $destination -ArgumentList "/s" -Wait -PassThru

$proc.WaitForExit()

[System.Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable("JAVA_HOME", "c:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.8.0_131", "Machine")

[System.Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable("PATH", $Env:Path + ";c:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.8.0_131\bin", "Machine")

$Env:Path += ";c:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.8.0_131\bin"

#Disable git credential manager, get more details in https://support.cloudbees.com/hc/en-us/articles/221046888-Build-Hang-or-Fail-with-Git-for-Windows

git config --system --unset credential.helper

# Install Maven

$source = "https://archive.apache.org/dist/maven/maven-3/3.5.2/binaries/apache-maven-3.5.2-bin.zip"

$destination = "C:\maven.zip"

$webClient = New-Object System.Net.WebClient

$webClient.DownloadFile($source, $destination)

$shell_app=new-object -com shell.application

$zip_file = $shell_app.namespace($destination)

mkdir 'C:\Program Files\apache-maven-3.5.2'

$destination = $shell_app.namespace('C:\Program Files')

$destination.Copyhere($zip_file.items(), 0x14)

[System.Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable("PATH", $Env:Path + ";C:\Program Files\apache-maven-3.5.2\bin", "Machine")

$Env:Path += ";C:\Program Files\apache-maven-3.5.2\bin"

# Install Git

$source = "https://github.com/git-for-windows/git/releases/latest"

$latestRelease = Invoke-WebRequest -UseBasicParsing $source -Headers @{"Accept"="application/json"}

$json = $latestRelease.Content | ConvertFrom-Json

$latestVersion = $json.tag_name

$versionHead = $latestVersion.Substring(1, $latestVersion.IndexOf("windows")-2)

$source = "https://github.com/git-for-windows/git/releases/download/v${versionHead}.windows.1/Git-${versionHead}-64-bit.exe"

$destination = "C:\Git-${versionHead}-64-bit.exe"

$webClient = New-Object System.Net.WebClient

$webClient.DownloadFile($source, $destination)

$proc = Start-Process -FilePath $destination -ArgumentList "/VERYSILENT" -Wait -PassThru

$proc.WaitForExit()

$Env:Path += ";C:\Program Files\Git\cmd"]]> https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/southafrica/how-hits-solutions-is-using-xamarin-forms-to-offer-a-productivity-app-that-manages-employee-development-plans Sat, 30 Sep 2017 23:30:12 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/southafrica/?p=3155 HITS Products | HITS Customers | Contact HITS

Microsoft and HITS teamed up to build Azure-backed Xamarin productivity app that would facilitate managing employee development plans

"When we took the decision to start mobile development to expand our main HR product, we faced three challenges; upskilling of the team as they all are web developers, time frame to produce a certain HR model over the mobile platforms and finally how we keep our development environment as it is.

Xamarin answered the three challenges by providing cross platform development (time factor) , XAML support (similarity to ASP.Net model in utilizing markup and code behind)  and all the projects are within a solution running on VS 2015 and fully integrating with TFS."

-Mina Monir, Director of Research and Development, HITS

Application Functionalities

1) Employee Functionalities:

• Join a development plan
• Track the progress according to the chosen development plan
• File self-service forms to complete the actions required to develop a specific skill
• Track changes made by managers in skills order or KPI score after the completion of a specific stage

2) Manager Functionalities:

• Manage all employees' development plans
• Enroll employees in a development plan at each stage
• Order the skills to be developed for the employees
• Complete actions and forms required to step employees from stage to stage
• Evaluate employees' KPIs after the completion of their stages

Key technologies:

• Xamarin.Forms
• Azure App Service
• Azure API Apps
• Swagger
• Azure SQL
• Azure Blobs
• XAML/C#

Core Team:

• Minaa Monir - Director of Research & Development, HITS
• Sherif El Mahdi, Senior Technical Evangelist, Microsoft
• Sara Ahmed - Technical Evangelist, Microsoft
• Nour Ramadan - Technical Evangelist, Microsoft

Challenge

Solution, steps, and delivery

[Server Side - Azure API App]

Building Azure API App as a REST model:

"Azure API Apps provided us with very quick and simple deployment and we found it extremely easy to stand up an HTTP endpoint for our client application."  -Mina Monir, Director of Research and Development, HITS

• Authentication through HTTPS headers
• Filter pass-through based on the authentication
• Models built over HITS Azure database
• Web routing based on action tags
• Enabled swagger interface

[Client Side - Xamarin.Forms]

Consuming Azure API App from Xamarin.Forms Client Application

Building the application UI using Xamarin.Forms

Using Xamarin Cross-Platform Plugins

Xamarin.Forms Performance Challenge

• Using Fixed size rows and columns instead of using Auto Size whenever it's possible in addition to using FillAndExpand or LayoutOptions.Fill.

• Removing all the unnecessary Label text measurements as measuring text affects performance.
• Enabling XAML Compiler as it removes some of the load time for XAML elements.

• Reducing unnecessary bindings as bindings aren't cost efficient.

• Packing Children before Parents.

Conclusion

General Lessons:

• 100% of the Web Service Access Code, Processing the Logic and Using the Database is a shared code across the 3 platforms.
• Using Portable Class Libraries (PCL) for sharing code over the Shared Project style made the unit testing easier. However PCL may not be the optimal solution as platform-specific libraries cannot be referenced.
• Since the app doesn't need to be highly customized to the platform, Xamarin.Forms was useful for adding the UI definition under the shared code umbrella as well.
• Using Xamarin.Forms UI controls wasn't a blocker for making the app reflects HITS DNA visual identity; HITS development team created custom UI controls running across the 3 platforms and matching the visual identity of HITS DNA by inheriting from Xamarin.Forms UI controls.
• Connecting the logic fell under the shared code umbrella by using MVVM with Xamarin.Forms as a layered separated presentation pattern. However, using MVVM may not be worth it for smaller apps since it necessitates multiple layers.
• Using Swagger API metadata is effective when it comes to automatically generating client code for Azure API Apps.
• Deployment of Azure API Apps can be done easily through a wizard using tools built into Visual Studio 2015 or higher.

Additional resources

• Xamarin Unified Installer
• Xamarin Cross-Platform Plugins on GitHub
• Azure API Apps Documentation
• Xamarin.Forms Controls Reference
• Visual Studio Emulator for Android
• MVVM in Xamarin Forms
• Microsoft Azure Storage Explorer
• Azure SDK for .NET
• Optimizing Xamarin.Forms Performance