Continuous integration status on PocketPC: PocketDashboard for CruiseControl.NET

I was looking at my PocketPC as it sat in its cradle on my desk the other day and asked what it was doing for me. There is an awful lot of processing power and prime display real-estate sitting there doing nothing.

We use CruiseControl.NET (download it here) to perform continuous integration builds on our projects. It is important that news of a broken build be communicated to the team members as quickly as possible. There has been much written about using things like Ambient Orbs and Lava Lamps to indicate build status in real-time.

At the heart of CruiseControl.NET is a service that sits on the build server and kicks off builds when triggers such as a source repository check-in or a scheduled nightly build occur. CruiseControl.NET also includes a management website called the Web Dashboard (here is an example) that gives you a high level view of the status of all of your builds. CruiseControl.NET also includes a web service that allows you to integrate the build information into other applications.

I wrote PocketDashboard for my PocketPC to make calls every minute or so to the CruiseControl.NET web service on our build servers and display an aggregated list of the status of all of our builds. As long as all of the builds are successful, PocketDashboard show green dots and a green bar. But if any builds fail, a wav file will play and the bar turns red to attract attention to the fact that something bad has happened.

Download

Download a zip file containing the executable and the full source with a Visual Studio .NET 2003 project here (if that doesn't work try this or this)