Advanced workspace cloaking in TFS 2008

I stand corrected (thanks Richard!); there are two new workspace mapping features available in TFS 2008: wildcard mapping and root level cloaking.

The advanced cloaking schema supports scenario where the high level folder is cloaked, and some of the sub-folders are explicitly mapped. It is useful in the scenario where you need contents of one folder out of say, hundred (alternative would be to map high level folder and cloak ninety-nine sub-folders).

The application of this mapping schema is somewhat tricky (and initially it got me thinking that the feature ended up outside of the RTM version) – the cloaked folder must have higher level folder mapped.

That is the following will not work (displaying error “The item XXX may not be cloaked because it does not have mapped parent”):

tf workfold /cloak $/Project/Src /workspace:Test

tf workfold /map $/Project/Src/Bin c:\Project\Src\Bin /workspace:Test

To make it work you need to have the following setup:

tf workfold /map $/Project c:\Project /workspace:Test

tf workfold /cloak $/Project/Src /workspace:Test

tf workfold /map $/Project/Src/Bin c:\Project\Src\Bin /workspace:Test

In this last example, recursive get latest in Test will get all files and sub-folders under $/Project, except for $/Project/Src sub-folder. This sub-folder will be cloaked and only files under $/Project/Src/Bin will be retrieved.