TDS Support

You need to specify the path to the required dll's from the property page of your TDS Classic project.

Right click on your TDS Classic project and click on 'Properties.' From there, go to the "Update Package" tab. There is a text box with the label "Sitecore Assembly Path." That textbox should have a relative path to the directory containing the dll's.

Yes. This is supported.

You need to set the “Recursive Deploy Action” in the property window for the configuration you are setting up. See image.

We usually choose “Move to Recycle”.

 The “Child Item Synchronization”(CIS) will control what the package does when it sees an item that isn’t in TDS Classic. If CIS is set to “None”, the item is ignored. Otherwise it is deleted/recycled.

We have a sample project available that demonstrates how file replacements can be used.

You essentially set the source to a location on your file system. You then can set the target as needed. Typically you would set this to a location on the destination server via UNC path, or you can set it simply as '.\' and this will copy it to the "Build Output Path" and then ultimately end up at the "Sitecore Deploy Folder" (or update package).

No. This allows developers to create update packages for specific environments, where different items are included in each package.

You can leverage the "File Replacement" features of TDS Classic. This feature will allow for you to configure individual files as well as entire directories to be included in the package.

Please see the sample project

Update packages are not the same as the normal Sitecore Packages most of us are accustomed to installing. This means that you cannot use the standard package installer to install these.

Instead, you must use the Update Installation Wizard, which can be found here:

http://[your URL]/sitecore/admin/UpdateInstallationWizard.aspx

If you are looking to automate the installation of a package then download the package installer source code from GIT (GitHub Project) . The package installer will let you script your package deployments. We gave you the source because we realize that each of our customers will have slightly different requirements and the ability to customize the source allows for maximum flexibility.

A single TDS Classic project will generate a .update package that would get installed into a Content Management Server (CMS). However, a typical production environment will consist of at least one CMS and 'x' number of Content Delivery (CD) Servers. These CD servers would typically have different configuration files and therefore require some other way to be updated.

In this scenario, we setup TDS Classic with file replacement so that it is building a package for the CM server. We then modify the build definition so that it generates a zip file of all files required for a CD web root. This way, when we do a build we get a .update file for the CMS and a .zip file for the CDS.

I am trying to install an Update Package, but the installer fails with the following exception:

Exception occured: System.Web.HttpParseException (0x80004005): The base class includes the field 'logArea', but its type (System.Web.UI.HtmlControls.HtmlGenericControl) is not compatible with the type of control (System.Web.UI.HtmlControls.HtmlIframe). ---> System.Web.HttpParseException (0x80004005): The base class includes the field 'logArea', but its type (System.Web.UI.HtmlControls.HtmlGenericControl) is not compatible with the type of control (System.Web.UI.HtmlControls.HtmlIframe). at System.Web.Compilation.BaseTemplateCodeDomTreeGenerator.BuildFieldDeclaration(ControlBuilder builder) at System.Web.Compilation.BaseTemplateCodeDomTreeGenerator.BuildSourceDataTreeFromBuilder(ControlBuilder builder, Boolean fInTemplate, Boolean topLevelControlInTemplate, PropertyEntry pse) at System.Web.Compilation.BaseTemplateCodeDomTreeGenerator.BuildSourceDataTreeFromBuilder(ControlBuilder builder, Boolean fInTemplate, Boolean topLevelControlInTemplate, PropertyEntry pse) at System.Web.Compilation.TemplateControlCodeDomTreeGenerator.BuildMiscClassMembers() at System.Web.Compilation.BaseCodeDomTreeGenerator.BuildSourceDataTree() at System.Web.Compilation.BaseCodeDomTreeGenerator.GetCodeDomTree(CodeDomProvider codeDomProvider, StringResourceBuilder stringResourceBuilder, VirtualPath virtualPath) at System.Web.Compilation.BaseTemplateBuildProvider.GenerateCode(AssemblyBuilder assemblyBuilder) at System.Web.Compilation.AssemblyBuilder.AddBuildProvider(BuildProvider buildProvider) at System.Web.Compilation.AssemblyBuilder.AddBuildProvider(BuildProvider buildProvider) at System.Web.Compilation.BuildProvidersCompiler.ProcessBuildProviders() at System.Web.Compilation.BuildProvidersCompiler.PerformBuild() at System.Web.Compilation.BuildManager.CompileWebFile(VirtualPath virtualPath) at System.Web.Compilation.BuildManager.GetVPathBuildResultInternal(VirtualPath virtualPath, Boolean noBuild, Boolean allowCrossApp, Boolean allowBuildInPrecompile, Boolean throwIfNotFound, Boolean ensureIsUpToDate) at System.Web.Compilation.BuildManager.GetVPathBuildResultWithNoAssert(HttpContext context, VirtualPath virtualPath, Boolean noBuild, Boolean allowCrossApp, Boolean allowBuildInPrecompile, Boolean throwIfNotFound, Boolean ensureIsUpToDate) at System.Web.Compilation.BuildManager.GetVPathBuildResult(HttpContext context, VirtualPath virtualPath, Boolean noBuild, Boolean allowCrossApp, Boolean allowBuildInPrecompile, Boolean ensureIsUpToDate) at System.Web.UI.TemplateControl.LoadControl(VirtualPath virtualPath) at Sitecore.Update.UpdateInstallationWizard.InstallationWizard_ActiveStepChanged()

This is due to a Sitecore bug (#387071).

If the web.config's system.web/compilation element has targetFramework=4.5 then the UpdatePackageInstallationWizard will fail.

As a temporary work around (until Sitecore resolves the issue), set the value to 4.0 install the package and then switch it back to 4.5

If you are seeing this exception:
Exception Cannot generate package: '_', hexadecimal value 0x03, is an invalid character.(System.Exception):

at Sitecore.Update.Engine.PackageGenerator.GeneratePackage(DiffInfo diff, String licenseFile, String outputPath) at HedgehogDevelopment.SitecoreProject.PackageBuilder.PackageBuilder.BuildPackage(BuildContext ctx)
at HedgehogDevelopment.SitecoreProject.PackageBuilder.Program.Main(String[] args)

It typically is caused by bad character values in one of the .item files. Since this error is thrown by Sitecore, we have no way to trap/handle it better. Please review your items for special characters. This usually happens when someone pastes a text field from a program like word. If you have a good file search tool, you may want to try searching all the .item files for the special character 0x03. Once you find it, you will need to figure out how to remove it from the content and re-sync the content.

This is usually caused by a permission issue on some of the files you are trying to replace in the target directory. The installer creates a log in the /temp/__UpgradeHistory folder that will give you details about the files that are included in the update package. You need to open that file, identify the files with permission problems, correct the permissions, and re-run the build.

Yes you can.

You can have the build split the update package TDS Classic creates into two packages: one for the Sitecore Items that would go into the CMS and then a code only one for the CDS. In the TDS Classic Project properties tab you will see a checkbox at the bottom to generate separate code and item packages.

Another way to approach it is to make a CDS specific configuration that excludes all the Sitecore items and will then just build and deploy just the code. This will allow you to use the file replacements if you need completely different configs on the CDS.

TDS Classic has been fully tested with the following:

Visual Studio: 2008, 2010 and 2012, 2017 (requires TDS 5.6 or higher).

Source Code Control Systems: Team Foundation Server, Subversion, and Git, but will also work with any Microsoft compliant source control system.

Sitecore: Version 6.0.1 and higher. The Update package feature in TDS 2.0 requires Sitecore 6.1 or higher.

Using Sitecore 6.5 and see this exception while trying to generate an update package?

Exception Could not load file or assembly 'Sitecore.Update, Version=6.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null' or one of its dependencies. The given key was not present in the dictionary. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80131577)(System.IO.FileLoadException):
          at HedgehogDevelopment.SitecoreProject.PackageBuilder.PackageBuilder.BuildPackage(BuildContext ctx)
          at HedgehogDevelopment.SitecoreProject.PackageBuilder.Program.Main(String[] args)

This is a bug with Sitecore's Sitecore.Update.dll. They have a hotfix available here: 

http://dl.sitecore.net/hotfix/Sitecore CMS 6.5.0 rev. 110602 Hotfix 348444-1.zip

This is a feature of Sitecore's Update Installation Wizard as documented in their guide available on the SDN.

After installing the update package, you should rebuild the search indexes and the links database.
If the update package contains configuration files, these files will be saved with a different name. This 
makes it easier to manually merge changes to configuration files by allowing you to use a file 
comparison tool such as WinMerge. For instance, if you are upgrading to version 6.1.0 rev.090630, 
this update package contains the clean web.config file for 6.1.0 rev. 090630, which will be saved in 
the root folder with the following name:
Web.config.Sitecore_6.1.0_rev.090630

We have a sample PowerShell script that can be used to rename the config files available at https://gist.github.com/seankearney/6282452