This is a question on how to properly use the "Team Foundation Apply Label" action.
On the "Label Options" tab there are Working Folder Options and File/Folder to label options. Both these options map to folders on a local hard drive. If they are not set I get an error indicating that the files for those options cannot be found. The question I have is why does a Label action have any need of files on a local hard drive? It is my understanding that the label is only for source control. If I use Team Foundation Server Explorer or Visual Studio 2005 to do the same task it never asks me for local folders.
This question leads me to believe
a.)I do not understand what the Label action is doing.
b.) I do not understand how Labels work in TFS
c.) All of the above
Here is what I have read so far on the subject from msdn2
Thanks for your post. You’re correct that the local copies of files do not have any bearing on the label action.
The thing here is that the Team Foundation actions use the local workspace (ie working directory) in order to map the server and project for the files. This is something we did across the board for Team Foundation Source Control, because in most cases you have a local copy of the files you’re working with, and it’s normally easier to provide a working path than server and project names.
However, in the case of Labelling the local files are not important. You are right.
If you don’t have a workspace mapped for the files you want to label, one option is to use the Map Workspace action to map the workspace and then the Delete Workspace action to remove the workspace after mapping it.
I agree that this is overkill, though. I’ve put an entry on our To-Do list to expand some of the actions (like Label) so you can optionally specify a server and project name, instead of going via the local workspace.