Server Error in ‘/tfs’ Application

Setting up Team Foundation Server 2010 RC was easy, especially when selecting the Basic profile as it does not require you to setup SharePoint and the SQL Server Reporting Services. Everything on the Visual Studio and source control side worked well.

But when I fired up my browser the have a look at the Web Access now a partof the standards TFS, IIS prompted me with the following error:

I was not sure if the Basic profile included the Web Access as I could not find any info on it on the web.  The IIS diagnostic tools suggested the server had problems accessing the folder so I tried all sorts of things with the security settings. By googling I found some solutions for older IIS versions, but I didn’t want to do anything that would e.g. prevent me from updating my TFS setup later.

Finally I added a bug report to Microsoft Connect and as the solution they suggested was the same I had found earlier, so I tried it.

For some reason the installation of the web access web application had gone wrong. All I needed to do to fix the problem was to convert the web folder into an application:

Seconds later I could access projects using the browser!

Unfortunately my problems with the Web Access did not end there. At the moment I’m unable to create child work items using the web access interface:

Again, I’ve made a bug report on it. I will edit this post when I find a solution. If you are having any of these problems, give my bug reports your vote!

WPF: Cannot set Name attribute value errror

When writing a custom user control you might at some point be tempted to use it as an item container. If you then try to name the nested control you will get the following error:

Cannot set Name attribute value 'myControl' on element 'SomeControl'. 'SomeControl' is under the scope of element 'ContentPanel', which already had a name registered when it was defined in another scope.

This is unfortunately a common problem caused solely by the XAML parser.

The easiest solution to overcome this is by constructing the control yourself. I did this by defining my XAML in a resource dictionary and then writing the lines required to load it at runtime. The only downside in this approach is that no designer preview is available.

Here are the 3 easy steps to write a simple container with a title on top:

1. Add a new class (ContentPanel.cs) and a Resource Dictionary (ContentPanel.xaml) to your WPF project.

2. Then write your XAML into the dictionary defining the style for your control:

<ResourceDictionary 
    xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
    xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
    xmlns:local="clr-namespace:MyNamespace">
    <Style TargetType="{x:Type local:ContentPanel}">
        <Setter Property="Template">
            <Setter.Value>
                <ControlTemplate TargetType="{x:Type local:ContentPanel}">
                    <Grid Background="Transparent">
                        <Grid.RowDefinitions>
                            <RowDefinition Height="18"/>
                            <RowDefinition Height="*" />
                        </Grid.RowDefinitions>
                        <Border Grid.Row="0" Background="#FF6C79A2" 
CornerRadius="4 4 0 0" Padding="5 3 5 3">
                            <TextBlock VerticalAlignment="Center" Foreground="White" 
Text="{Binding Path=Title, RelativeSource={RelativeSource FindAncestor, 
AncestorType={x:Type local:ContentPanel}}}"/>
                        </Border>
                        <ContentPresenter Grid.Row="1"/>
                    </Grid>
                </ControlTemplate>
            </Setter.Value>
        </Setter>
    </Style>
</ResourceDictionary>

3. Finally edit the class so that it inherits from the UserControl class and add a initialize method that will be called by the constructor to load the XAML from the resource dictionary:

    public class ContentPanel: UserControl
    {
        public static readonly DependencyProperty TitleProperty =
            DependencyProperty.Register("Title", typeof(string), typeof(ContentPanel), 
new UIPropertyMetadata(""));

        public ContentPanel()
        {
            Initialize();
        }

        private void Initialize()
        {
            ResourceDictionary resources = new ResourceDictionary();
            resources.Source = new Uri("/MyAssemblyName;component/ContentPanel.xaml", 
UriKind.RelativeOrAbsolute);
            this.Resources = resources;
        }

        public string Title
        {
            get { return (string)GetValue(TitleProperty); }
            set { SetValue(TitleProperty, value); }
        }
    }

The Uri format might seem odd, but just edit my example to define the names of your dll and xaml file.

Don't forget to vote on Microsoft Connect to get Microsoft to fix the XAML parser!