How to use TFS on a Mac

Stephen Zaharuk / Monday, January 28, 2013

Here at Infragistics, we're primarily a Microsoft shop. And Like any good Microsoft shop, we use TFS for everything, from planning our next features to handling our source control to managing our bugs. So when we decided to start developing an iOS product, we had a big decision to make. Do we use a bunch of different tools to handle these task  or do we find a way to get TFS to work on a Mac. 

Considering the name of this article is "How to use TFS on a Mac" and not "How to use various other products to replace TFS on a Mac", i'm guessing you can figure which option we chose! So the following will explain how to get everything setup, just like we do internally. 

  1. First, download Eclipse
  2. Once its downloaded, unzip it and place the Eclipse folder in your Applications Directory
  3. Open up Eclipse: (Note: it may ask you to install the Java runtime, if so, install it)
  4. It will now ask you to setup a workspace
    • We set it to "/workspace", however thats up to you and your organization
    • Note: make sure the path actually exists, as it won't create it for you
    • Make sure you check the checkbox that says "Use this as the default and do not ask again"
    • Press the ok button
  5. Now we're going to download the TFS everywhere plugin: 
  6. Go back to Eclipse and in the menu bar go to Help/Install New Software
    • In the dialog that opens press the Add button
    • Another dialog will open, click the archive button and specify the location of the zip file you just downloaded
    • Hit the "ok" button
    • Now check the checkbox for VS Team Explorer Everywhere
    • Hit next 2 times
    • Hit accept and finish
    • Wait for it to finish installing
    • Hit apply changes now
  7. Now TFS is installed as a 90 day Trial. If you already bough the product, continue reading this step, otherwise skip to step 8.
    • In the menu bar, navigate to Eclipse/Preferences
    • In the tree on the left, navigate to: Team/Team Foundation Server/ Product Key
    • Enter your product key and hit "Apply" and "ok"
  8. Go to the Menu bar and select Window/Open Perspective/Other
    • Select Team Foundation Server Exploring and hit Ok
  9. Go back to the menu bar and select Window/Open View/Other
    • Expand Team Foundation Server
    • Selection Team Explorer
    • Hit ok
  10. You can repeat step 9 to add the Pending Changes window
  11. You should now see the traditional looking TFS window that we're all used to seeing in Visual Studio
    • Click the Add Existing project Button
    • In the server field, type the url to your tfs service: http://tfs.yourCompany.local:8080/tfs
    • In the domain field, type your domain. 
    • Also fill in your personal username and password 
    • Hit the next button
  12. You should now see the Team Project Dialog
    • Select your project and then hit the Next and then the Finish button
  13. If everything went correctly you should now see your Team Explorer pane populated

And thats it! Now you can get started writing your kick-ass iOS applications. Just don't forget to try out a free trial of our NUCLiOS product :)

As always i hope this was helpful. 

By Stephen Zaharuk (SteveZ)